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“To live at all is to share a world with cagey magic, skeptical magic, asshole magic. But, honestly, the trees must belong to something; the blossoms that tongue each groove between buildings, the water and the stone and the serious man-made steel railings all must belong. This major artery where blood and starlight pump along the tracks, where banks and malls and office towers shudder and gestate in the concrete like baobab trees.”
― Jes Battis, Bleeding Out

“He’s like a flower doing its best on an asteroid, naked to so many cosmic terrors.”
― Jes Battis, Bleeding Out

“She tried to clear her mind. It didn't work. Her mind was a hoarder.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“The agony of having to share this small slice of world with big breakable humans who are really just uncovered beating hearts walking around spilling their viscera and their words everywhere, not bothering to clean up. Animals are a smooth punctuation to human parataxis, resisting our love out of modesty.”
― Jes Battis, Bleeding Out

“The word eôel meant home turf. People trust home. Through years of investigation, her grandmother had learned that what people told you depended on where you talked to them. Lies for every space, but occasionally a truth snuck its way in.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“Hildie caught a glimpse of herself in the water-spotted mirror, pulled her long black shirt down over her leggings. She trusted her body. It was strong and generous and marked by joy. Occasionally, she'd feel eyes on her, a man on the SkyTrain, judging her. But whatever he felt was his business. Also, she could manifest a spear from thin air, so men's opinions weren't really her problem.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“Her voice sounded kind but also as if she was hiding something, the way a parent told you the needle wouldn’t hurt.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“Wayne had roasted a turkey with his dad. They hadn't cooked together in what felt like a lifetime, and it was nice to soak and dice and chop. After Wayne called out why so tough, turnips, it became their exclamation when anything went wrong in the kitchen.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“You always knew where you stood with Braeda because she wouldn't stop telling you.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“I’m off to conquer Java,â€� Kai said. “In an anticolonial way.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“What did I glean?"

"I'm not trying to be flippant. Just - did he tell you anything about himself?"

"He hates Sesame Street."

"We'll need more than that when we're eventually put on the stand for this.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“When she had interviewed him, she’d traced a discreet rune on his phone case. It was sketchy magic, but it should have given her access to the phone’s GPS. The problem was that it wasn’t working. His location kept spinning, like when you call an Uber and it’s suddenly trapped in another dimension.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“Hildie drained her coffee. She was wired and knew this stakeout was a terrible idea, but she couldn’t stop. The ideas just kept coming, like a greatest hits version of her worst impulses. She tapped the dash. Something had to happen soon.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“More than anything, she wanted to have a bath and wait for that moment when the water temperature was the same as her body’s. She’d turn off all the lights and pretend that it was one of those isolation tanks, where posh people floated around in the dark and stopped thinking about their hundred-year mortgages.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“Hildie nodded. "You two look out for each other, eh?"

"He'd die for me." Kai's eyes burned into her for a second. "I'd kill for him. That's the main difference between us.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“Hot Tinder: swans don't fear death

Kai: cuz of their freakish swan strength

Hot Tinder: they sing when it comes”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“From the stories she'd told, Shar had a very broad dating pool, which included ghosts, elemental forces, and, once, a pansexual quasar. Exhausting, she'd said. Don't date anything that has a radioactive corona.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“The meter of the poem that fired his blood until he was a molten core. The hammer’s song was a charm for living, a way to keep singing himself into existence.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight

“She’d started calling him Bear in high school, after he’d put on weight. Embrace it, she’d said. You’re a mega bear babe, and everyone wants your honey pot.

He felt more like a hungover Winnie the Pooh. He even had the right outfit: a striped shirt and boxers. Though Winnie didn’t wear bottoms at all. Just let it all hang out, flashing the Hundred Acre Wood like the perv that he was.”
― Jes Battis, The Winter Knight