China Miéville quotes

China Miéville is a British author, renowned for his works in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and weird fiction. His imaginative novels often blend political themes with rich, unconventional world-building. He is considered a leading figure in the New Weird literary movement. Here are 146 of his quotes:

My dad hates umbrellas, said Deeba, swinging her own. When it rains he always says the same thing. 'I do not believe the presence of moisture in the air is sufficient reason to overturn society's usual sensible taboo against wielding spiked clubs at eye level. (China Miéville)
It felt like being a child again, though it was not. Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth. View quote
China Miéville
Socialism and SF are the two most fundamental influences in my life. View quote
China Miéville
To take the choice of another ... to forget their concrete reality, to abstract them, to forget that you are a node in a matrix, that actions have consequences. We must not take the choice of another being. What is community but a means to ... for all we individuals to have ... our choices. View quote
China Miéville
Any moment calledis always full of possibles. View quote
China Miéville
For every action, there's an infinity of outcomes. Countless trillions are possible, many milliards are likely, millions might be considered probable, several occur as possibilities to us as observers-and one comes true. View quote
China Miéville
It is more foolish and childish to assume there is a conspiracy, or that there is not? View quote
China Miéville
Art's something you choose to make ... it's a bringing together of ... of everything around you into something that makes you more human, more khepri, whatever. More of a person. View quote
China Miéville
... where's the skill in being a hero if you were always destined to do it? View quote
China Miéville
We should have just killed him, that's a lesson, don't get creative with revenge. View quote
China Miéville
In time, in time they tell me, I'll not feel so bad. I don't want time to heal me. There's a reason I'm like this. I want time to set me ugly and knotted with loss of you, marking me. I won't smooth you away. I can't say goodbye. (China Miéville)
Part of the appeal of the fantastic is taking ridiculous ideas very seriously and pretending they're not absurd. View quote
China Miéville
She probably used proxies and a cleaner-upper online too, because there was bugger-all of interest in her cache.” "You have no idea what you're saying, do you, boss?” "None at all. I had the techies write it all out phonetically for me. View quote
China Miéville
As far as I'm concerned, some of the best literature of the last hundred years has come out of the genre tradition and of course the best of it challenges expectations just as the best of literary fiction challenges those expectations. But it's not that genre fiction is any more a constraint than mimetic fiction. So I see myself very much as a genre writer. I love the fantastic genres. I see what I'm doing as a development of them but very much a part of them. I never feel that I'm leaving them behind. I try and be as experimental and avant-garde and stretching as I can be but I don't see that as turning my back on the genre at all. Genre has always been able to encompass that. View quote
China Miéville
Destiny's bunk,” said the book. "That's why this lot aren't the Propheseers anymore.” "From here on in,” said Mortar, "we're the Order of Suggesters. View quote
China Miéville
We say what happens now. We're taking control. We're turning around; we're heading home. Your orders to proceed...are in-fucking-validated. View quote
China Miéville
It's beyond words,” indeed. "There's no such thing. View quote
China Miéville
The best way to write a novel is to do it behind your own back. View quote
China Miéville
Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole. View quote
China Miéville
A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory. View quote
China Miéville
If you're brave enough to try, you might be able to catch a train from UnLondon to Parisn't, or No York, or Helsunki, or Lost Angeles, or Sans Francisco, or Hong Gone, or Romeless. (China Miéville)
Word spread because word will spread. Stories and secrets fight, stories win, shed new secrets, which new stories fight, and on. View quote
China Miéville
Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they're amiable and sometimes not. View quote
China Miéville
My sustenance is information. My interventions are hidden. I increase as I learn. I compute, so I am. View quote
China Miéville
The problem with most genre fantasy is that it's not nearly fantastic enough. It's escapist, but it can't escape. View quote
China Miéville