Fantasy Authors

"This warrior says you must fight him for the leadership," said Bran, and Kull, eyes glittering with growing battle-joy, nodded: "I guessed as much. Give us space." "A shield and a helmet!" shouted Bran, but Kull shook his head. "I need none," he growled. "Back and give us room to swing our steel!"

"The men on the Dauntless have disliked the Sea Girl's crew ever since our skipper took their captain to a cleaning on the wharfs of Zanzibar—them being narrow-minded that way. They claimed that the old man had a knuckle-duster on his right, which is ridiculous and a dirty lie. He had it on his left."

"All men know that a dead magician is more evil than a living one."

"My sorcerer is rattling his bones," whispered the host, then laughed wildly. "Dying, he swore his very bones would weave a net of death for me. I shackled his corpse to the floor, and now, deep in the night, I hear his bare skeleton clash and rattle as he seeks to be free, and I laugh, I laugh! Ho! ho! How he yearns to rise and stalk like old King Death along these dark corridors when I sleep, to slay me in my bed!"

"Fool that I was to trust a Frenchman!"

"For there are worlds beyond worlds, as Kull knows, and whether the wizard bewitched him by words or by mesmerism, vistas did open to the king’s gaze beyond that strange door, and Kull is less sure of reality since he gazed into the mirrors of Tuzun Thune."

"This is an age of scientific wonders. You miss somebody so you pick up the phone to say hello. Three minutes for sixty-five cents. Nobody goes broke."

"My enduring feeling about René Lévesque is that if he had chosen to hang me, even as he tightened the rope round my neck, he would have complained about how humiliating it was for him to spring the trapdoor. And then, once I was swinging in the wind, he would blame my ghost for having obliged him to murder, thereby imposing a guilt trip on a sweet, self-effacing, downtrodden Francophone."

"Canada is not so much a country as a holding tank filled with the disgruntled progeny of defeated peoples. French-Canadians consumed by self-pity; the descendants of Scots who fled the Duke of Cumberland; Irish, the famine; and Jews, the Black Hundreds. Then there are the peasants from Ukraine, Poland, Italy and Greece, convenient to grow wheat and dig out the ore and swing the hammers and run the restaurants, but otherwise to be kept in their place. Most of us are huddled tight to the border, looking into the candy store window, scared of the Americans on one side and of the bush on the other."

"I was a voracious reader, but you would be mistaken if you took that as evidence of my quality."

"The chief rabbi of the underworld, that's me."

"...the contempt that he has for Quebecers, and for the facts, that trickles from every page, hurt me, as a Quebecer, [...] as a journalist also, as an author, the intellectual dishonesty with which he plays with the facts, he makes comparisons that are absolutely unacceptable, it gave me an enormous headache to read this book, it stopped me from sleeping. [...] Evidently, here in Quebec, we know that he exaggerates, but someone has to say it to English Canadians."

"So far as one can generalize, the most gracious, cultivated, and innovative people in this country are French Canadians. Certainly they have given us the most exciting politicians of our time: Trudeau, Lévesque. Without them, Canada would be an exceedingly boring and greatly diminished place."

"Non-fiction contains facts, fiction contains truth."

"I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker."

"...I have seen the future of implausible plotting, and his name is Clive Barker."

"Three is the number of those who do holy work; Two is the number of those who do lover's work; One is the number of those who do perfect evil Or perfect good."

"“Are you coming?” he said. “In a moment.” “It’s now or never.” Maybe it would be never, then. She was so transfixed by the formidable power being unleashed in front of her, she couldn’t avert her astonished gaze. It fascinated her that strength of this magnitude should be turned to the sordid business of atrocity; something was wrong with a reality that made that possible, and offered no cure for it, nor hope of cure."

"“Don’t worry,” he told her. “Me?” she said. “I never worry. It’s all going to end badly whether I worry or not.”"

"“Don’t be sentimental,” he chided. “Memories aren’t enough.” It was fruitless to argue the niceties of that: he was telling her that he was in pain; he didn’t want platitudes or metaphysics."

"There was such sanity in his voice; a politician’s sanity, as he sold his flock the wisdom of the bomb. This soulless certainty was more chilling than hysteria or malice."

"Always the sightseers: open-mouthed, disbelieving. There was a force for desolation loose in their midst which could consume their lives at a glance, surely they could see that? But they’d watch anyway, willing to embrace the void if it came with sufficient razzmatazz."

"So he believes. The truth may be more...complex."

"Suzanna didn’t wait for confirmation. There was no use disbelieving the worst now."

"As to the remnants of his army—those Seerkind who’d embraced the Prophet’s visions—they’d been the authors of their own punishment, waking from their evangelical nightmare to find it had destroyed all they held dear."

"She told him she made a rule of never marrying bankers. The next day he sent flowers, and a note saying that he’d relinquished his profession."

"He would be vigilant, but he would anticipate nothing, neither disaster nor revelation. That was not to say he would give up looking to the future. True, he was just a Cuckoo: scared and weary and alone. But so, in the end were most of his tribe: it didn’t mean all was lost. As long as they could still be moved by a minor chord, or brought to a crisis of tears by scenes of lovers reunited; as long as there was room in their cautious hearts for games of chance, and laughter in the face of God, that must surely be enough to save them, at the last. If not, there was no hope for any living thing."

"What can be imagined— —need never be lost."

"Godhood called, and he went, fleet-footed, to worship at his own altar."

"Life and wisdom. What more could anybody ask?"

"What the enemy believed of you was probably true, or else why were you enemies in the first place?"

"Shadwell threw down his gun, and—though he had no taste for abattoirs—forced himself to survey the carnage before him. It was, he knew, the responsibility of one aspiring to godhood never to look away. Willful ignorance was the last refuge of humanity, and that was a condition he would soon have transcended. And, when he studied the scene, it wasn’t so unbearable. He could look at the tumble of corpses and see them for the empty sacks they were."

"“Shadwell?” said Suzanna. “Their beloved Prophet,” came the reply. “Beneath that show of holiness I lent him there beats a salesman’s heart.” So Shadwell was the Prophet. What a perfect irony, that the seller of encyclopedias should end up peddling hope. “It was his idea,” said the Incantatrix, “to give them a Messiah. Now they’ve got a righteous crusade, as Hobart calls it. They’re going to claim their promised land. And destroy it in the process.” “They won’t fall for this.” “They already have, sister. Holy wars are easier to start than rumors among your Kind or mine. They believe every sacred word he tells them, as though their lives depended upon it. Which in a sense they do. They’ve been conspired against and cheated—and they’re ready to tear the Fugue apart to get their hands on those responsible. Isn’t that perfect? The Fugue’ll die at the very hands of those who’ve come to save it.” “And that’s what Shadwell wants?” “He’s a man: he wants adoration.”She gazed over Suzanna’s shoulder toward the unweaving, and the Salesman, still in its midst. “And that’s what he’s got. So he’s happy.”"

"Perhaps there was a natural process at work here; a means by which the mind dealt with experiences that contradicted a lifetime’s prejudices about the nature of reality. People simple forgot."

"It was absurd and frustrating, to feel so much and know so little."

"...Take this all of you and eat it. This is my body which will be given up for you... Old words; old rituals. But they still made sound commercial sense. Talk of Power and Might would always attract an audience. Lords never went out of fashion."

"Of course, there was Hobart. The Inspector was probably insane, but that was all to the good. And he had one particular aspiration which Shadwell knew he might one day need to turn to his own ends. That was, to lead—as Hobart put it—a righteous crusade."

"“And us?” said the Hag. “What happens to us then? Will we be free?” “That’s what we agreed.” “We can go into extinction?” “If that’s what you want.” “More than anything,” said the Hag. “More than anything.” “There are worse things than existence,” said Immacolata. “Oh?” the Hag replied. “Can you name one?” Immacolata thought for a short while. “No,” she conceded, with a soft sigh of distress. “You may be right, sister.”"

"True joy is a profound remembering; and true grief the same."

"Among their members were some of the wealthiest individuals in the world; between them, fortunes sufficient to trade in nations. None of the seven had a name that would have meant anything to the hoi polloi—they were, like the truly mighty, anonymously great."

"“Believe nothing,” Apolline advised. “This woman wouldn’t know the truth if it fucked her.”"

"Lilia sighed. “Why me?” she said, still shaking. “Why should I have to tell it?” “Because you’re the best liar,” Jerichau replied with a tight smile. “You can make it true.”"

"Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs. The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that: though as the narrator’s voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making. Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys. Nothing is fixed. In and out the shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden amongst them is a filigree which will with time become a world. It must be arbitrary then, the place at which we chose to embark. Somewhere between a past half forgotten and a future as yet only glimpsed."

"Life is short, and pleasures few, and holed the ship, and drowned the crew, But O! But O! How very blue the sea is!"

"Here is a list of fearful things: The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings, The rabid bite of the dog's of war, The voice of one who went before. But most of all the mirror's gaze, which counts us out our numbered days."

"We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present."

"Your average game show host on TV, for instance, doesn't believe himself to be banal. He actually thinks that he's quite interesting. And if you look at the viewing figures, so do an enormous number of people in this country."

"Writing a book is like masturbation, and making a movie is like an orgy."

"The paintings of Francis Bacon to my eye are very beautiful. The paintings of Bosch or Goya are to my eye very beautiful. I've also stood in front of those same paintings with people who've said, "let's get on to the Botticellis as soon as possible." I have lingered, of course."

"The monsters act out our rage. They act on their worst impulses, which is appealing to a certain part of us. They get punished for it, but we've enjoyed the spectacle of their liberation."