Come and be splendid

“Steampunk is...a joyous fantasy of the past, allowing us to revel in a nostalgia for what never was. It is a literary playground for adventure, spectacle, drama, escapism and exploration. But most of all it is fun!”
— George Mann

“To some, ‘steampunk’ is a catchall term, a concept in search of a visual identity. To me, it’s essentially the intersection of technology and romance.”
— Jake von Slatt

Quasi Anachronism

“Steampunk is a genre that imagines how different the past might have been had the future come earlier.”
— Douglas Fetherling

“Victor Vigny: It is like the old fairy tale. The boy saves the princess; they fall in love. He invents a flying machine – along with his dashing teacher, of course. They get married and name their firstborn after the aforementioned dashing teacher.
Conor: I don’t recall that fairy tale from the nursery.
Victor Vigny: Trust me, It’s a classic.”
— Eoin Colfer, Airman

Most of us have gears we never use

“Ask not what steampunk can do for you, but what you can do for steampunk.”
— Winston Churchill (the alternative history version)

“All right boys, let’s sail away! Show those bastards how airship pirates fly a ship!”
— Katherine McIntyre, An Airship Named Desire

“Living on steam isn't easy.”
— Jessica Fortunato, Steam

Improvidus, apto, quod opiparum

“The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.”
— Queen Victoria

“Sometimes he felt as if he'd been born in the wrong century. The people of this time were all wrong for him, and he was all wrong for them. But he refused to become something he wasn't just for society's approval.”
— Heather Massey, The Watchmaker's Lady

“I came, I saw, I was splendid.”
— - Julius Caesar during his steampunk odyssey