Nemesis Quotes

“Perhaps scorpions were the only ones who could save each other.
Whatever lay ahead, it would always be the two of us above the rest of the universe, and woe to any who dared step in out path.”
― S.J. Kincaid, The Diabolic

“I really cannot understand the point of what you're saying. Really,' said Clotilde, looking at her. 'What a very extraordinary person you are. What sort of a woman are you? Why are you talking like this? Who are you?'

Miss Marple pulled down the mass of pink wool that encircled her head, a pink wool scarf of the same kind that she had once worn in the West Indies.

'One of my names,' she said, 'is Nemesis.'

'Nemesis? And what does that mean?'

'I think you know,' said Miss Marple. 'You are a very well educated woman. Nemesis is long delayed sometimes, but it comes in the end.”
― Agatha Christie, Nemesis

“Some might call us a monstrous pair, and they would be right. Tyrus and I were both scorpions in our way, dangerous creatures crossing the most treacherous of rivers together. Together we might sting - but we also would float.”
― S.J. Kincaid, The Diabolic

“A Diabolic is ruthless. A Diabolic is powerful. A Diabolic has a single task: Kill in order to protect the person you've been created for.”
― S.J. Kincaid, The Diabolic

“When you see something so often you tend to develop a blindness to it.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Things you don't need in your life targets you the most.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes

“We're a family in shock, still reeling. Mother was the songbird, the smile, the spirit of our house. In her absence, none of us knew how to fill the void. Father tries, but after two minutes of small talk, out comes his pocket watch, and off he goes, mumbling, leaving the conversation half done.”
― Michael Benzehabe, Persianality

“Voices of village idiots roiled in a jester's stew of odds-making tomfoolery. Occasionally, a monkey screamed in the heat of competition, and crude words were freely spoken. The more sophisticated were forced to tolerate such low-minded displays.”
― Michael Benzehabe, Persianality

“As a whoreson, you are a prince.”
― Stanley Goldyn, The Cavalier's Commission

“The process of dying, much like the process of being born, is a very intimate affair. The reason people in such situations instinctively have a desire to hide is not just because they feel physically vulnerable. Dying in the sight of others, as in a public execution, is a double punishment as it is an affront to the victim's modesty in the most brutal way conceivable. It was one of the reasons public executions were considered to have a more criminally preventative effect on the population than execution in the solitude of the cell. Some allowances were made, however, such as obliging the executioner to wear a mask. That wasn't, as many think, to conceal the executioner's identity. The mask was out of consideration for the condemned man, so that he didn't feel a stranger was close to him at the moment of death.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Experience had thought him that silence was the most effective of all methods to make people talk. When two strangers sit facing each other, silence functions like a vacuum, sucking words out.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Where you believe your defenses are most certain, from that direction your nemesis will strike.”
― Graeme Rodaughan, The Key of Ahknaton

“You can't get into the real meat of hatred and eternal enmity without love and betrayal, without that, it's just an argument with occasional gun music. The good stuff, the all-obliterating all-annihilating one-for-the-novels mano-a-mano crackling on the pork roast, that has to come, as the hermits will tell you, from attachment.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Future Is Blue

“Don't think about what you are searching for. Think about what you find. Why is that there? Should it be there? What does it mean? It's like reading - if you think about an "l" while looking at a "k", you won't see the words.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Does it not sometimes happen in life that our actions are solely for an enemy, so as to stand up to him, to confound him, to humiliate him by a finer effort or a more difficult victory? Without him we might perhaps give up. Having an enemy stimulates us, gives us strength. In him we hope to defeat the universe and the malevolence of fate.”
― Georges Rodenbach, The Bells of Bruges

“The problem is that only thirty to forty per cent of all words can be read directly from the lips. To understand the rest you have to study the face and body language, and use your linguistic instincts and logic to insert the missing words. Thinking is as important as seeing.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Evolutionary speaking, the practice of taking revenge has shown itself to be so effective that only the most vengeful of us have survived. Vengeance or death. It sounds like the title of a western, right, but remember it was the logic of retaliation that created the constitutional state. The enshrined promise of an eye for an eye, the sinner burning in hell or at least dangling from the gallows. Revenge is basically the foundation of civilisation.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate! A contempt that drives you through fire, makes you risk everything and lose everything, makes you a long sight better than you ever knew you could be.”
― Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark

“The man you see here, tied up off the shore of tortuga, is called Raven. He is an infamous pirate. He can fight, he can sail, and he fears no man. But he is not immune to mistakes.”
― Mathieu Lauffray, Raven, Tome I : Némésis

“The Enemy Within by Stewart Stafford

There is more to a smile than the baring of teeth,
His grin had all the warmth of daggers unsheathed,
The lips did part but the eyes remained staring,
The skin was pocked and trust was badly faring.

The lips quivered at every imagined slight,
The eyes glittered like a serpent's at twilight,
Arms crossed in constant defence,
The foot tapping, waiting to take offence.

Who knows or cares of his jealousy's genesis,
He strove beyond measure to become my nemesis,
Seeking to frustrate me at every turn,
And put me prematurely in a cremation urn.

The hero can fend off any attack,
Except for the knife that's plunged in the back,
They may not even know the weapon's in far,
Until the assailant's coup de grâce.

© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“We should be careful of what we wish others,for we reap what we sow”
― Kingsley Onwuchekwa

“Diabolics are so creepy," Neveni said.
I smiled at her. Yes, I supposed we were.”
― S. J. Kincaid

“[R]ally your sons to our cause,
To defend our homes against the Bloody Baron.
Never was (there) a more cruel and dangerous tyrant,
Than mad Baron Ungern-Sternberg.”
― Thomas Pride, The Baron

“We are playwrights scripting our personal reality show and enigmatic fantasy world. Without a questing protagonist and a strong antagonist, the plot is tepid. All heroic conduct requires a journey filled with hardship, adventure, and a personal nemesis to conquer.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“How did Max even know of Ethel? It's not like I talked about my long time nemesis around the dinner table. Maybe it had been Milo or Colt who blabbed about how Ethel had hated me since I was born. She was the nurse who delivered me! And shit you not, told my parents that I was gonna be a tyrant because I peed on her. I was three minutes old, lady! Give me a break! Babies pee! Correction... not Max. Max's first sentence was probably "And the shall name me Max and I shall rule the world!" AHH!!”
― Rachel Van Dyken

“I leave my books and cross the grass toward them. Cardan half-turns and I shove him so hard that his back hits one of the trees. His eyes go wide.

'I don't know what you said to her, but don't you ever go near my sister again,' I tell him, my hand still on the front of his velvet doublet. 'You gave her your word.'

I can feel the eyes of all the other students on me. Everyone's breath is drawn.

For a moment, Cardan just stares at me with stupid, crow-black eyes. Then one corner of his mouth curls. 'Oh,' he says. 'You're going to regret doing that.'

I don't think he realises just how angry I am or how good it feels, for once, to give up on regrets.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Went off in one of his pets as soon as he heard you wasn't home," said Ferdy. "Said he'd call on Revesby to answer for his villainy. Good God. I'm dashed if that Greek thing hasn't got after Monty too, Sherry! Very remarkable circumstance, 'pon my soul it is!"

"What the devil *is* all this about a dashed Greek?" demanded Sherry. "George was trying to tell me about him, but I'm hanged if I could make head or tail of it! All I know is, I'm not acquainted with any Greeks, and what's more I don't want to be!"

"It ain't a thing you're acquainted with, dear old boy. Duke knows what it is. Comes up behind a fellow when he ain't expecting it. Thought it was after me, but it turns out to be Monty. Good thing."

"Yes, but what *is* it?"

Mr. Tarleton said, with a quiver of amusement in his voice: "I fancy he means Nemesis."

"That's it!" Ferdy said, looking at him with respect. "Nemesis! You know him too?"

"Well, it's more than I do!" declared Sherry. "What's more, whoever he is, he had nothing to do with my coming to Bath!”
― Georgette Heyer, Friday's Child

“who the hell was Gary, or was Gary, and why the hell didn't you know about him?' 'you ever run into a new co-worker, ask them their name, only to have them tell you they worked there for 5 years? that was Gary. a man so dull, and forgettable, that he never appeared on your radar. it's like that was his superpower, a stealth human being. we never stood a chance.”
― Jason Pargin, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits

“The door opened. I stopped. Beyond it, orks lined both sides of the corridor. They had been watching for me. The moment I appeared, they roared their approval. They did not attack. They simply stood, clashed guns against blades, and hooted brute enthusiasm. I had been subjected to too many celebratory parades on Armageddon not to recognise one when it confronted me. I went numb from the unreality before me. I stepped forward, though. I had no choice.

I walked. It was the most obscene victory march of my life. I moved through corridor, hold and bay, and the massed ranks of the greenskins hailed my passage. I saw the evidence of the destruction I had caused around every bend. Scorch marks, patched ruptures, buckled flooring, collapsed ceilings. But it hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. Only enough for this… this…

At length, I arrived at a launch bay. There was a ship on the pad before the door. It was human, a small in-system shuttle. It was not built for long voyages. No matter, as long as its vox-system was still operative.

I knew that it would be.

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka awaited me beside the ship’s access ramp. I did not let my confusion or the sense that I had slipped into an endless waking nightmare slow my stride. I did not hesitate as I strode towards the monster. I stopped before him. I met his gaze with all the cold hatred of my soul. He radiated delight. Then he leaned forward, a colossus of armour and bestial strength. Our faces were mere centimetres apart.

My soul bears many scars from the days and months of my defeat and captivity. But there is one memory that, above all others, haunts me. By day, it is a goad to action. By night, it murders sleep. It lives with me always, the proof that there could hardly be a more terrible threat to the Imperium than this ork.

Thraka spoke to me.

Not in orkish. Not even in Low Gothic.

In High Gothic.

‘A great fight,’ he said. He extended a huge, clawed finger and tapped me once on the chest. ‘My best enemy.’ He stepped aside and gestured to the ramp. ‘Go to Armageddon,’ he said. ‘Make ready for the greatest fight.’

I entered the ship, my being marked by words whose full measure of horror lay not in their content, but in the fact of their existence. I stumbled to the cockpit, and discovered that I had a pilot.

It was Commander Rogge. His mouth was parted in a scream, but there was no sound. He had no vocal cords any longer. There was very little of his body recognisable. He had been opened up, reorganised, fused with the ship’s control and guidance systems. He had been transformed into a fully aware servitor.

‘Take us out of here,’ I ordered.

The rumble of the ship’s engines powering up was drowned by the even greater roar of the orks. I knew that roar for what it was: the promise of war beyond description.”
― David Annandale, Yarrick: The Omnibus

“Very odd, isn't it, that the retribution one brings on oneself fits so closely with what has caused it.”
― Agatha Christie, Nemesis