Masklin Quotes

“He’d seriously thought about leaving alone, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. They needed him. They needed someone to grumble at.”

“To get enough to eat, you needed lots of healthy hunters. But to get lots of healthy hunters, you needed enough to eat.”

″...yes, there it was, far below. A tiny black cube on the ground. The Thing. It was lying in a puddle, although that wouldn’t affect it. Nothing touched the Thing. It wouldn’t even burn.”

“I’m going to die, he thought, just because of this Thing that has never helped us at all, something that’s just a lump of stuff, and now I’m going to die and go to the Heavens.”

“I wonder if old Torrit is right about what happens when you die. It seems a bit severe to have to die to find out. I’ve looked at the sky every night for years, and I’ve never seen any nomes up there...”

“Humans had it really easy. They were big and slow, but they didn’t have to live in damp burrows waiting for daft old women to let the fire go out. They went wherever they wanted and they did whatever they liked. The whole world belonged to them.”

“Good old Masklin, they’d said, stout chap, you look after the old folk and we’ll be back before you know it, just as soon as we’ve found a better place. Every time good old Masklin thought about this, he got indignant with them for going and with himself for staying.”

“He pulled Grimma up last. She was light. They were all light, if it came to that. You didn’t get rat every day.”