"“‘Not everything that walks is a man,’” said the boulder conversationally, “‘and not everything that lies quiet is a stone,’ as the wolf remarked when the serpent bit him.”"

"We see what we have always seen. If it seems, it is."

"This sight was terrible, more terrible than words convey, for words are cowards as men are, and hide things as men do."

"Dust had dimmed only a fraction, not enough. Decay had brushed with its rotten fingers not nearly all it should. It was an enchanted sweet, stuck in the throat of time."

"Thinta flew safely, and I realized how much I preferred being with Hergal and feeling the blood drain out of my head with fright. Actually when I’m with Hergal I always realize how much I prefer being with Thinta and not feeling the blood drain out of my head with fright."

"Anyhow, I arrived, and I did feel pretty weird, actually, as if I’d left something behind. My head or something."

"“Can I appeal?” “Oh yes.” “Will it do any good?” “None whatsoever.”"

"Men think for themselves when they’re men."

"I began to feel lighthearted. Don’t ever do that; it tempts some dark and evil force abroad in the universe."

"“I have a plan,” said Xaros, “improbable only in its genius.”"

"There was no room in him for curiosity; The capacity for observation had long since starved on the aridness of his soul."

"I have seen women who thought they loved me look at me that way, and wolves which were hungry."

"What Is, is, what Was, was, but what is To Be, may be otherwise."

"“Sorry,” I said sweetly, “I’m the new one with the quick temper and the uncontrollable homicidal tendencies.”"

"A tomb contains the dead, who are properly immobile and unspeaking. Though Masrians leave lamps for the ghosts, nobody expects they will be lighted."

"They were very careful and kind. So careful and kind it was positively tactless and spiteful."

"A day out from the bay of Saardos, Drokler honored the brass Rorn god in the prow with a pound of incense. The blank god mask stared back at them through the pall of sweet blue smoke....It gazed in myopic stillness out over the long shock of the waves, ignoring their words, their presence, their costly offering."

"Woana was the most talented, amazing and prodigious human in the world, and the most beautiful too. For Woana, if she had summoned them, those bright eyes in the sky would have danced down to earth; but naturally Woana was far too sophisticated to stoop to such a thing. Woana was, in fact, unrivalled, peerless. The reason being that Mitz belonged to her, and Mitz’s feline ego would never consider that anyone, but the most sublime, could have acquired her own exceptional self."

"Power is the wine after which all other wine is mud."

"Somewhere in me was a rod of steel to which I clung. I’d had a vision, as good as any vision given to any poet, sage, or prophet in the past. I wasn’t elated, I wasn’t confident even, but somehow, I knew, and with the end of doubt had come the death of despair."

"What a son I’ve made. The midwives must have turned me in my labor so that I lay on your brain and crushed it."

"“Now you understand,” Rarm said to me. “It was the last cut against yourself to become convinced of your own hideousness. You held to it and nurtured it, and even identified with the devil goddess of Orash in your determination to be accursed. And it never occurred to you that perhaps you saw a false image under the mountain.”"

"“Why aid me?” “God has moved me to help you. Or, if you prefer, it was my reasonless inclination to do so.”"

"There is, too, a sort of relief in admitting defeat. Struggling to drag a mountain from my path, acknowledging at last the mountain would remain, lying down beneath the mountain, thankful for the shade of it."

"I am alone. No one stands beside me. I have no Dark Prince to ride in my chariot, to walk with me, to hold me to him. I have no one. And yet. I myself, at last, I have myself. And to me, at this time, it seems enough. It seems more, much more, than enough."

"Westward and inland there was a form of government, some prince or other sitting on his backside ordering this or that."

"“Is it the regency you want, or me?” “The regency. You, sweetheart, are the worthless dross that comes with it.”"

"He said quietly, “I see a jackal running. His name is I remember.”"

"“Don’t judge yourself,” he said. “None of us are ever good at it.”"

"I cried out. I turned the pages, one after the other, in a frenzy. I could not believe what I saw, would not believe it. For the pages of the book were blank. Oh, yes, there had been writing, this much I could see, but the inks had faded. Now there were only faint smudges and marks here and there on the yellowness. And I could tell nothing from them… It came to me, as I walked, how bitter the irony of the Book had been which had said: Herein the Truth. For it had a truth of its own in its bleached barrenness. What was truth except something which faded, lost its shape, grew unreadable and indistinguishable, at last a blank page for men to write on what they wished."

"“All my life,” I said, “knowledge has come to me for which I was not ready.”"

"“Anackire asks nothing because she needs nothing, being everything,” Raldnor said tightly, using a quotation of the temple. The Ommos laughed gently and shook his head. “Such undemanding gods.”"

"“Uasti was a good teacher,” he said. “She made you look a little way into yourself, see what you could become.”"

"The countryside meant grain and herds, and a river meant fish. And if the sky meant anything, it meant a cruel God who took no notice of their pains and chastised them if they sinned."

"I would be a drudge now, among the tents, and I would kneel before the warriors, and run from them when they shouted at me. I would be a woman, as women were reckoned in this place, a half-souled, witless animal, created to bear and pleasure men: an afterthought of the god."

"At that, I understood for sure I must not lose her, for the earth is not the earth without some light to see it by, and she was mine."

"And now, Uastis, get up. This room is architecturally designed to please the eye, and your present position mars it for me."

"Strange, that when we feel we understand all things, we understand nothing. Strange, that when we feel we understand nothing, we have begun, at last, to understand."

"Anxiety grew, the fear that always comes when an established pattern falters."

"Azhrarn said: “The earth is dying. Man, your creation, is dying. Did you not hear of this?” But the gods did not answer, or look at him, or seem to see him. Then Azhrarn told them how the earth split and burned, and men slew each other under the goad of a sorcerous enduring hatred that fed and grew more vital on destruction. He told them everything and spared no word. But the gods did not answer, or look at him, or seem to see him. Then Azhrarn went to a single god... “Men you made,” Azhrarn said, “but me you did not make, and I will have an answer.” So the god spoke to Azhrarn at last... “Mankind is nothing to us, and the earth is nothing to us. Man is a mistake we made. Even gods are entitled to one mistake. But we will not perpetrate another by saving him. Let him vanish from the earth, and the earth vanish from the state of Being. You are the Demon, and humanity is your beloved toy, but we have graduated from such trivia. If you wish man to be saved, then you must save him, for we shall not.”"

"“When will they fight?” I asked. “Tomorrow. Daybreak. It is man’s work.” I laughed. “I too have fought and killed, Kotta. It is the work of fools, not men.”"

"True beauty is always oddly surprising."

"“I think Kathaos fears no divine forces.” “Then he’s a brave man.” “Oh, men make their own gods,” Yannul remarked. “I have a god with a fat belly, and a house full of expensive women to attend his every need, and I call him Yannul the Lan in Five Years from This.”"

"I do not know why it distressed me so much to see an animal die when human death did not move me. Perhaps because they were more beautiful, and there is no corruption in them, while in the best of men there can always be found some guilt or wickedness which seems to have earned him death."

"Now there was that look of waiting, and submission—not the frenzy of the stadium, but the quiet sleep-trance of belief. Something stirred in me at it, as I realized I had them in my palm. I stood very still in my white and black, holding the copper things in my hands, and then I began to walk between them toward the god. And I laughed at the god as I went toward him. You—what are you? And he had no answer for me, for here it was the priest who was the power, not the god, poor empty stone."

"I raised my arms as if in prayer and heard the mutter of response behind me. Then I scattered the dried grains, red and brown and black, and studied the patterns they formed on the stone ledge before Sibbos. This is not such a mystic thing. You see what it is sensible to see, or else you interpret what you see so that the meaning comes out as you want it."

"Sickness, the serpent, is coming to bite you, Death, the old dark man, is coming to carry you off, Rest uneasy, you stinking carrion, on your gold beds."

"It’s legend now, but legend is the smoke from the fire, and the wood that the fire consumes is the substance."

"He has been described as having a dancer’s body, a wrestler’s shoulders, a pianist’s hands, the legs of a marathon runner, the face of a young god, and the hair of a Renaissance prince. None of these descriptions seemed, to the off-hand observer, to be inaccurate."

"We should go and ask the princess for help. She seems very nice, and she’s much too beautiful to be unkind."