Alternate History Quotes

“Ms Rowanberg’s with you? Good, so you got her out? How is she? ” He didn’t realise that his flurry of eager questions were a definite tell, but the Lieutenant pretended not to notice.
“Annoyed, sir.” The Lieutenant chuckled. “She was looking forward to taking out her anger on her captors, but I’m afraid we denied her that privilege. The five we got are not answering any calls now.”
“Good,” James spat, and under his breath he added, “F*cking bastards.” He thought no one heard him, and he didn’t see the Lieutenant struggling not to grin.
So he’s one of us after all, mused the Lieutenant.”
― Patrick G Cox, First into the Fray

“Wicked eyes are not a good prospect for seminary boys. They want a gentle, soft sort of wife, not a wife who looks as though she may sprout wings and carry off the young children of the village. ~Maria "Smythe”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“A wise man does not always admit to everything he knows. And sometimes an overly-credulous friend can be a source of mild amusement.”
~Sherlock Holmes”
― Stephanie Osborn, The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival

“We’re next, Vladimir. Do you want to go first, or shall I? Something’s really got them stirred up today.” The co-pilot and the engineer laughed and gave each other a nervous glance as if to say, Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Something about Pilot Polanski was different, but neither of them could quite identify it.”
― Patrick G Cox, First into the Fray

“A reputation, once developed, is as valuable as a fine sword. But don't forget that it has to be a valid reputation. Or the sword's go no edge.”
― Eric Flint, 1812: The Rivers of War

“It took witnessing it happening, in person, for me to realize all the abstractions were real. And, even then, I tried my hardest to look away. It’s hard to accept what you don’t want to see.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“I bet the people living in the timeline where Hillary is president are laughing at us.

They’re probably sipping lattes and giggling: “Imagine if Trump had won! Can you even imagine what that clusterfuck would look like?”

But even in their wildest dreams they wouldn’t come up with the unimaginable clusterfuck that our timeline is.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Inside The Mind of an Introvert: Comics, Deep Thoughts and Quotable Quotes

“Prentice leaned forward. ‘This is where you’re free,’ he said, tapping his head. ‘Do what they want, but don’t let them in.”
― Shaun Musson, The Retrieval Chamber

“Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics.”
― Eric Flint and Robert E. Waters. 1637: The Transylvanian Decision”

“You fight a war with the army you got, not the one you wished you had”
― Eric Flint and Robert E. Waters. 1637: The Transylvanian Decision”

“They were, in the end, only vessels for the languages they spoke.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Malgré deux cents ans de paix avec l’Angleterre, boire du thé était toujours considéré par les Américains comme un acte de haute trahison, à tel point que le palais refusait d’en servir. On n’y trouvait que du café, pourtant lui aussi importé.”
― Katharine McGee, American Royals

“Aidan and Kai were almost the same height, but frequently Kai seemed smaller, even less mature. Aidan couldn't completely explain it. Certainly, Kai had suffered far less in his life. Aidan wondered how Kai would have coped with the horrors he himself had endured, and allowed himself a cold smile at the thought of the bookish Kai chained in a screwship's dark hold, squirming in his own shit.”
― Steven Barnes, Lion's Blood

“Elementary, my dear colonel,' she said. 'When every sensible explanation has been disproved, then whatever remains, however silly, must be the truth.”
― Philip Reeve, Starcross

“Trust no one.’ His youthful eyes met Hutcheons’s and he leaned closer. ‘And trust no thing either: things are people too.”
― Shaun Musson, The Retrieval Chamber

“Propaganda is the most powerful invention of all time because it enables human selection. It moulds thinking. It creates saints and devils. It ensures that for every Mother Theresa there are a hundred little Hitlers; and a couple of bigger ones.”
― Shaun Musson, The Retrieval Chamber

“John's mother lay dying. Her once‐delicate nose jutted from her shrunken cheeks, spider‐
webbed with wrinkles and spotted with age. She turned her face into the shadows, seeming to be
unwilling to show him the wreck that had once been a lovely face.”
― BJ Sikes, The Archimedean Heart

“Arthur, what does this mean?"

"Mister Bogart, it means that in 10 minutes you will be sworn in as the 24th President of the United States."

"I can't believe a goddamned wisdom tooth infection got Charlie," Vice President Humphrey Bogart tossed the sheet of paper his secretary brought him, "If you weren't twenty, I'd offer you this damned job."

"Sir, you keep tossing the Lord around, people are gonna call you a Red.”
― E.B. Scribbler, The National Stage: If Artists were Presidents

“Success breeds success"
1637: The Transylvanian Decision”
― Eric Flint and Robert E. Waters

“Success breeds success”
― Eric Flint and Robert E. Waters. 1637: The Transylvanian Decision”

“Jeff had to bite his tongue, figuratively speaking, to keep from snarling that he and other military commanders had continually carped and complained to the civilian authorities that they spent too much of their time worrying about weapons and not enough worrying about the humdrum needs of military supply. Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics.”
― Eric Flint and Robert E. Waters. 1637: The Transylvanian Decision”

“The professors like to pretend that the tower is a refuge of pure knowledge, that it sits above the mundane concerns of business and commerce, but it does not. It’s intricately tied to the business of colonialism. It is the business of colonialism.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Susanna spoke of divergent paths that lead to a distant horizon, of fate and destiny and myriad potentialities for glory or doom. She spoke of facing one’s future without choice. Truly, it is not hard to fathom that at that precise instant in history something as minute as the cool February wind blowing upon my cheek from the west or the sinking of my boot in that shifting Virginia mud had the potential to change my life forever. When a bullet slices through the air towards a man he sees those phantom paths flickering in gun smoke before him. There is hope, there is chance and there is death.”
― Brian A. Dixon, Columbia & Britannia

“I knew it was no coincidence that I survived the whole ordeal, but it was no guardian angel watching over me. He was a blue-eyed grim reaper.”
― Akili Rose, Of Ladies and Cowboys

“You touch her again,” came Killian’s low and quiet warning, “and I’ll kill you.”
― Akili Rose, Of Ladies and Cowboys

“This was Buffalo Bill, this was Wyatt Earp, this was…
“Madden Yates,” Conrad hissed with poorly hidden annoyance.”
― Akili Rose, Of Ladies and Cowboys

“I ain’t got patience for strangers like the others,” Wulf warned in a soft growl, “Someone messes with my pack…I bite.”
― Akili Rose, Of Love and Justice

“Just get it over with.” Joanna laughed from where she stood over all of us, “You’ve been transported to the past. Welcome to the Wild West.”
― Akili Rose, Of Love and Justice

“Not a single thought went through my mind other than the need to shoot. And so I shot.
Bang! ”
― Akili Rose, Of Love and Justice