# Quote — China Miéville, Perdido Street Station

> My cloak (heavy cloth unfamiliar and painful on my skin) tugs at me and I can feel the weight of my purse. That is what protects me here; that and the illusion I have fostered, the source of my sorrow and my shame, the anguish that has brought me to this great wen, this dusty city dreamed up in bone and brick, a conspiracy of industry and violence, steeped in history and battened-down power, this badland beyond my ken.

- Author: [China Miéville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville.md)
- Book: [Perdido Street Station](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/perdido-street-station.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville#Prologue) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/perdido-street-station/my-cloak-heavy

## More from this book

> We say: votes for all and vote for change!

p. 127 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/perdido-street-station/we-say-votes.md)

> This is what makes the world, Ms. Lin. I believe this to be the fundamental dynamic. Transition. The point where one thing becomes another. It is what makes you, the city, the world, what they are. And that is the theme I’m interested in. The zone where the disparate become part of the whole. The hybrid zone.

p. 41 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/perdido-street-station/this-is-what.md)

> We have watched mutant creatures crawl from sewers into cold flat starlight and whisper shyly to each other, drawing maps and messages in faecal mud.
>
> I have sat with the wind at my side and seen cruel things, wicked things.
>
> My scars and bonestubs itch. I am forgetting the weight, the sweep, the motion of wings. If I were not garuda I would pray. But I will not obeise myself before arrogant spirits.

p. 58 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/perdido-street-station/we-have-watched.md)