Tom Pollock > Quotes

“Our memories are like a city: we tear some structures down, and we use rubble of the old to raise up new ones. Some memories are bright glass, blindingly beautiful when they catch the sun, but then there are the darker days, when they reflect only the crumbling walls of their derelict neighbours. Some memories are buried under years of patient construction; their echoing halls may never again be seen or walked down, but still they are the foundations for everything that stands above them.

"Glas told me once that that's what people are, mostly: memories, the memories in their own heads, and the memories of them in other people's. And if memories are like a city, and we are our memories, then we are like cities too. I've always taken comfort in that.”
― Tom Pollock, The City's Son

“I like you as much as I like much prettier sane girl.”
― Tom Pollock, The City's Son

“Sometimes, courage is just knowing what you're more afraid of.”
― Tom Pollock, White Rabbit, Red Wolf

“Our memories are like a city: we tear some structures down, and we use the rubble of the old to raise up the new ones.”
― Tom Pollock, The City's Son

“We know you sometimes have a tricky time adjusting to stress.”
― Tom Pollock, This Story Is a Lie

“The difference between 495 and 620 nanometres on the length of a light wave is the difference between blue and red. The difference between 54 and 56 kilos of uranium is the difference between a very toxic paperweight and a nuclear explosion.”
― Tom Pollock, This Story Is a Lie

“Seventeen elementary particles. They make up everything in the universe from black holes to brain cells. When you get right down to it, everything’s made of the same building blocks. What makes the difference is how many, the pattern of how they’re arranged; what makes the difference, always, is numbers.”
― Tom Pollock

“Perfection’s a process, Peter, not a state. No one’s perfect. What you are is extraordinary.”
― Tom Pollock, This Story Is a Lie

“There’s no such thing as plain text; there are only codes you understand and codes you don’t.”
― Tom Pollock, This Story Is a Lie

“I was afraid of being afraid of being afraid of being afraid of being afraid of being afraid of being afraid of being afraid… Scary fucking turtles, all the way down.”
― Tom Pollock, This Story Is a Lie

“A Caesar shift is about the simplest code in the world – perfect for the Roman emperor who’s long on secrets but short on time.
To make one, you just write out the alphabet, A to Z, then pick a secret phrase… and write it out underneath the first few letters of your alphabet, dropping any repeated letters…”
― Tom Pollock, This Story Is a Lie

“It appeared he’d gone to the same school of crisis-management as her mother, and had learned the same universal strategy: combine heat, sugar and dairy products in the magnitude required until evil is defeated. Paul”
― Tom Pollock, The Glass Republic

“Perfection’s a process, Peter, not a state. No one’s perfect. What you are is ”
― Tom Pollock, This Story Is a Lie

“Because this is Beth's fight, and that's what fathers do for their little girls,' he said.”
― Tom Pollock, The City's Son