Quotes from Grimma
'Why can’t women be Stationeri, then?’ said Grimma.
‘It’s a well-known fact that women can’t read,’ said Gurder. ‘It’s not their fault, of course. Apparently their brains get too hot. With the strain, you know.' (Truck)
'And there’s something else called progress chasing.’
‘What's that?’
‘I think it means shouting at people, “Why haven’t you done it yet?"' (Truck)
'How did you work that out?' said Grimma.
‘The Thing told me,’ said Masklin. ‘It’s something called critical path analysis. It means there’s always something you should have done first. For example, if you want to build a house you need to know how to make bricks, and before you can make bricks you need to know what kind of clay to use. And so on.’
‘What's clay?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘What’re bricks?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Well, what’s a house?’ she demanded.
‘Haven’t quite worked it out,’ said Masklin. ‘But anyway, it's all very important.’ (Truck)
'Can he hear me?' said Gurder.
'Maybe,' said Grimma. 'Perhaps. But he won't be able to answer you, because he's dead.' (Truck)
The school-hole was under the floor of the old shed with 'Canteen' on the door. It was Grimma's personal world. She'd invented schools for children, on the basis that since reading and writing were quite difficult it was best to get them over early. (Dig)
Not only was Grimma the best reader among the nomes, she had an amazing ability to understand what she was reading. (Dig)
'When people are faced with lots of troubles and they don't know what to do, there's always someone ready to say anything, just to get some power,' said Grimma. (Dig)
She'd found 'nose to the grindstone' in a book. Apparently it meant 'to get on with things.' She didn't see why people were supposed to work hard if you ground their noses; it seemed more likely that they'd work hard if you promised to grind their noses if they didn't. (Dig)
'We could make a run for the thicket or something,' he said vaguely.
'We could stay and fight,' said Grimma.
Dorcas growled. 'Oh, that's easy. We fight all the time. Bicker, bicker, bicker. That's nomish nature for you.' (Dig)
'What does "surrender" mean?' said Dorcas, desperately.
'We don't know the meaning of surrender,' said Grimma.
'Well, I don't,' said Dorcas. (Dig)
'You'd think one world would be big enough for all of us,' said Grimma.
'Oh, I don't know,' said Masklin. 'Maybe one world isn't big enough for anyone.' (Wings)