Top 40 G.R. Matthews Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Freedom first, he thought, home second, revenge third.”

— G.R. Matthews

3. “There is something weird about facing a dripping wet, semi-naked man across a padded practice mat when you’re wearing nothing but your own skin tight underwear and that’s covered in a slippery, oily gel. If this got any more homoerotic, I’d have to think about introducing him to my parents.”

— G.R. Matthews

4. “From then on it was an easier process, though any crab shedding it’s shell would look at me and think I had it easy. To be fair, I probably did, but if I caught that crab I’d boil it in water and eat it. Just to teach it to keep it’s thoughts to itself.”

— G.R. Matthews

5. “The sea is never quiet. There is always noise. Close to the city, the deep hum of the generators and the clanking of people and machines churning out whatever it was they made.”

— G.R. Matthews

6. “Sword fighting is not a dance, not in battle. You save all that showing off for the duels if you want to. In battle, when you kill, kill quickly, and be ready for the next enemy to come at you. One strike should be all it takes. It’s all you’ll get.”

— G.R. Matthews

7. “Pain, brought anger, anger brought rage, aimless rage, self-directed rage. An avalanche of ‘if onlys’ and a torrent of ‘what ifs’ assaulted his mind. Images and thoughts to torture and torment him, should he ever attempt to sleep again, seared and burnt into his brain by the heat of the ruined house. Scars to last a lifetime, however long that was.”

— G.R. Matthews

8. “There is nothing I can say to make this better for you,” he said with empathy in his words. He pulled her slowly in close as he slid the thin assassin blade through the skin on her back and into her heart in one graceful move. She gasped, and then folded over her lost children, “but I can bring an end to your pain. Forgive me.”

— G.R. Matthews

9. “The sky was masked by a column of smoke. New clouds pushed out from the main stack, one over another, higher and higher into the blue. At its upper reach, the cloud began to spread across the sky until it covered the whole of the horizon. Zhou looked up to see it pass overhead. The land grew dark as the cloud covered the sun.”

— G.R. Matthews

10. “You and the spirit are no different, there is no separation. You are the spirit and the spirit is you. It has always been this way. Where there are no spirits, there are no people. This is what we must awaken in people.”

— G.R. Matthews

11. “No.” Her voice was a winter storm. “Understand life. You have lived, loved, lost and now live again. You are young and have suffered but you do not understand. You have the chance to live for hundreds of years, if you desire it. You have the spirit to do so. You will love and suffer again. You will know joy and heartache, trust and betrayal, the good and bad of all life.”

— G.R. Matthews

12. “If you’ve ever taken a sub, you’ll know they have available every luxury item the weary traveller could ever wish to purchase. Drinks, food, perfumes, clothes, blankets, anything. These compartments weren’t empty, but I doubt the weary traveller was really in the market for a selection of low and high powered pistols, assault rifles, armour piercing rounds and the variety of explosive devices on offer. Unless they were on the way to a Christmas family get-together.”

— G.R. Matthews

13. “We live in the deep sea, surrounded by pressure that could kill us in an instant, with no access to the surface world, that is our natural home.”

— G.R. Matthews

14. “I snapped. The anger, I can still feel it now, rose through me like a wave and I drowned in it. I was reborn in it. You know what it is like, Zhou. The world lost its colour, everything turned to black and white. There were shades of grey, but no colour. Even time seemed to slow down, the pain was there and I drew on it. I made it part of me and I threw it at them.”

— G.R. Matthews

15. “He and I were due a conversation which, I hoped, would be short and mostly communicated through body language. The universal method of conversation, my fist in his face, and he was going to do most of the listening.”

— G.R. Matthews

16. “Zhou fell in behind an administrator carrying a wooden box full of scrolls. His own arms were laden down with scrolls and a scholar’s robe covered the dark clothes, the unfortunate previous owner would wake in a few hours with a large bruise and a headache to match. He kept his head down as they approached the guarded door to the keep.”

— G.R. Matthews

17. “I knew my voice was getting louder. It’s one of those things anger does to you, dulls your hearing and opens your throat. You have to shout just to hear your own words.”

— G.R. Matthews

18. “How many millennia had she witnessed? Watching people, loved ons, be bron, live, grow and die was at once a thought of wonder and infinite sadness.”

— G.R. Matthews

19. “I’ve never worried that a city would fall on me. It’s not an event that I’ve lain awake woorying about, it’s one of those fears you take as read. Sadly, a city was falling on me.”

— G.R. Matthews

20. “The moment froze. Soldiers passing by stopped and looked, confused. Zhou could taste the moment on his tongue. The wrong move by anyone, from soldier to magician, and the fear would give way to anger, anger to violence and then to death.”

— G.R. Matthews

21. “Only the last gasp of evening served to illuminate the stone floor.”

— G.R. Matthews

22. “I don’t like boats,” Gang grumbled. “Unsteady and prone to sinking.”

— G.R. Matthews

23. “If you can’t hide, act confident. It would have to be one hell of an act.”

— G.R. Matthews

24. “The reality, Haung knew, would be something quite different. From a distance, civilisation looks clean and desirable. Up close, the shine is dulled by self-interest and tarnished by greed.”

— G.R. Matthews

25. “Visions of a pitched battle in the docks flashed through my mind. Innocent bystanders torn apart by gunfire and explosions. Children wailing and parents, wild eyed and stunned, stumbling round in search of their lost ones, turning over twisted bodies to gaze into the dead eyes and shredded skin of someone’s shattered dream.”

— G.R. Matthews

26. “Stubborness isn’t a choice, it’s a way of life.”

— G.R. Matthews

27. “Gone was the snow covered peak that had pierced the sky. It was shorter and from its truncated summit red flame spewed forth. He watched, mesmerised, as great sparks of red and orange, leaped into the air from the mountain only and fell to the earth in an imitation of a rain drop.”

— G.R. Matthews

28. “It may seem strange, but I have an aversion to people trying to kill me. It sparks this almost unconscious desire to do something about it. It also sets fire to my desire to survive.”

— G.R. Matthews

29. “The subtle hum of the Oxyquid filters and motors ceased. A noise I’d long ago grown accustomed to, that had become just background and automatically ignored, stopped. It was unsettling in it’s absence. The ocean is never truly silent but, at that moment, it was quieter than I ever wished it to be ever again. A quiet that made me doubt my sanity, made my eardrums hurt as they sought a sound, a faint tremor of noise to cup and hold ddear.”

— G.R. Matthews

30. “The fear receded. It didn’t disappear. It lurked in the shadows, its claws hooking into passing thoughts and twisting them, turning them from their purpose to its own. He held it back. It was the hardest fight of his life.”

— G.R. Matthews

31. “Getting lost in the ocean was a sure way to get yourself killed. Back in the academy, they’d spent weeks teaching us the formulae, tips and tricks. The exams had been a special sort of hell that accounted for almost as many drop outs as the first lungful of Oxyquid. And now, out in the endless expanse of the ocean, I used a computer program that did it all for me. Education; never a waste of time.”

— G.R. Matthews

32. “Zhou turned away and looked back at the mountain. His first home, the city of Wubei, had been destroyed by fire and he had lost his wife and child. Now, his second home was gone. All of his security, his friends, his loved ones, the roof over his head, it was all gone. A wave of loneliness swept through him. Tears swelled in his eyes and flowed down his face, leaving tracks in the dust covering his skin.”

— G.R. Matthews

33. “Zhou,” her voice was just a whisper, “they have not hurt me physically, they have damaged and drained my Qi. I need to rest and recover.”

— G.R. Matthews

34. “I am sorry, Zhou,” the fuzzy looking figure said quietly. “War is not what I had thought. There is no honour to be earned or won. Only the blood of innocents. I am sorry.”

— G.R. Matthews

35. “The life of a Wu is to raise, protect and nurture that spirit. The spirit has been gifted to us, to understand it, to commune with it. We are the fathers and mothers of the spirit. Everything we do must be to honour that gift. We can harm the spirit, abuse it, treat it as a slave, we can even kill it though we would die too, but this is not our way.”

— G.R. Matthews

36. “Even two steps back, I could feel the heat of his anger. If I’d had some bread, I could have stuck it on a fork and toasted it. Least that way I’d have got something to eat.”

— G.R. Matthews

37. “The young woman didn’t move or acknowledge my presence, but when you’ve lost the back half of your skull I’d imagine that the appearance of a man as handsome as me was low on your list of priorities.”

— G.R. Matthews

38. “Lad, the Fish-Suit was one of the Special Forces during Corp Wars. They don’t give off much electromagnetic radiation and they are quiet to move about in, if the user chooses. They were the sabotage units. Not much use in a fight, but they’d go in and wreck the enemies capability before the battle even started. More civilians died to them than were collateral damage in any battle,” he said. “There was a time when they weren’t liked by any side.”

— G.R. Matthews

39. “You must be ready to change and be aware when things are changing. For instance, even now, outside the door is something that will change today’s lesson. You must learn to listen between the rain drops. A change, when it comes, will step lightly before it kicks like thunder. Hear the light steps and be ready for the thunder.”

— G.R. Matthews

40. “Now, best if you strip off.” “What?” He backed away three steps. “Your clothes will slow you down,” she said and started to remove her robe, stopping when she saw the look on his face. “Haung, you don’t have anything I have not seen before and if your modesty is important, keep your undergarments on.”

— G.R. Matthews

41. “There is bathhouse a couple of streets away.” Gang walked over to Haung and slipped a hand underneath the Taiji’s arm, lifting him onto his feet. “Come on, I’ll take you. It is time for my yearly bath anyway.”

— G.R. Matthews

42. “Me, a strap and a wrench. A mostly empty room and a door locked from the outside. I was trapped.”

— G.R. Matthews

43. “An information panel was helpfully flashing the word “Emergency”. I couldn’t fault its grasp of the situation.”

— G.R. Matthews

44. “The image of Jiao’s face when she was told he had been drowned with a half-naked woman tied to his body made him giggle and he realised he was close to panicking.”

— G.R. Matthews

45. “Being in that suit means you are pretty much on your own. When I was being trained, the first thing I had to know how to do was fix it. From the boots to the helmet, there is nothing, given access to the spare parts, I can’t fix.”

— G.R. Matthews

46. “With air, you can struggle for a time. If you’ve trained in a Fish-Suit, you can struggle quite some time. However, without blood to your brain a few seconds is all it takes to become unconscious. Keep it up a few seconds more and that brief sleep can be extended by hours. A few more seconds and you can kill someone. It was all in the timing. Too little and they’d wake up whilst you were about your business. Too much and you’d kill them.”

— G.R. Matthews