Dinniman, Matt

Dungeon Crawler Carl

  • p.cover – “You will not break me.”

  • pp.32-33 – “Mordecai shook his head. ‘You humans are all the same. This is the seventh or eighth human-seeded world, and it’s always the same. You always want to know why. why can’t you just accept your circumstances and move on? My people, the skyfowls, we generally last much longer than you humans. You know why? Because we roll with it.’ "

  • p.44 – “Ten million people. It was more than I expected. But still, three million additional people dead in a matter of minutes. The number was so huge, it lost meaning.”

  • p.70 – “The cat sat on the floor. She seemed to deflate. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I… It’s just… Have you ever woken up from a long dream, one where you’re one thing, and now you’re awake, it takes you a moment to realize that’s not who you really are?’ "

  • p.70 – " ‘Oh, I am a princess, Carl. But I’ll try not to be too much of an asshole. I need you. And you need me, okay? Look, I’m really scared here. I don’t want to be alone. And I know you, and you don’t want to be alone, either. I saw you the other day, looking at the map on your computer, and then at those apartments on Craigslist.’ "

  • pp.310-311 – " ‘Look,’ she said, after a moment. ‘I know. Okay? Nobody in this room is an idiot.’ She pointed at Mordecai. ‘The moment I appeared, he was terrified of me. Once he saw I wasn’t wearing a party badge, he relaxed. When I’m done here, I go back down to the production headquarters, and I will have to face my boss, who is a member of the party. If I do or say the wrong thing, my entire family will be wiped from the universe. You’re going to go out there and face mobs who know people like you are prowling the halls, trying to find and kill them. They, the sapient ones? They live in constant fear of you guys. We are all parts of the same, inexorable machine. All of us are afraid. Yes, your place in this really sucks. It’s not fair. You know it. I know it. The cat knows it. But believe it or not, I am on your side. The better you do, the longer you survive, the better I do. So when I tell you that you should do something, you best listen because I know what I’m talking about.’ "

  • p.357 – “New achievement! Grease Monkey! Don’t get ahead of yourself, Dale. You built and deployed a wheeled device. When the primitive humans in Mesopotamia made the first wheel, they probably thought they were hot shit, too. It still took them another 5,000 years after that to invent the toilet.”

  • p.422 – “A week and a half ago, I’d been planning on kidnapping a prize-winning cat and then selling everything I owned in order to bribe my ex-girlfriend to keep her from suing me. And even that was more drama than I’d ever wanted to deal with. All of this… with the Skull Empire and everything else, it was just too much, too fast. How could we focus on surviving when we had all this other stuff to deal with?”

  • p.ack – “Dedicating a book to a hippo might sound like a waste of space or a silly joke, but the truth is, I’ve always been fascinated by the stories of those who survive against all odds. I think in order to truly enjoy Dungeon Crawler Carl, no matter how dark it gets (and believe me, it’s gonna get dark), you need to be the type of person who is able to cling onto hope, no matter how small that spark is. You will not break me is more than a mantra. It’s the theme to this whole series, and by dedicating this book to Fiona, I’m really dedicating it to everything she represents. Perseverance. Grit. Hope. And that’s you. Hell, it’s all of us after the shit of the past few years.”