Fantasy Authors

"This world, this human earth, this dirty spot within heavenly sphere, is is overwhelmed by all the bloodshed and pollutions of men, their stinking lusts, their cities a-drip with oil, their battlefields with carrion."

"I have an ongoing operational preference, rather than an end goal. I was raised in a prison, as a war hostage. War is illogical, wasteful. Wars become less frequent the more incentives rational beings have to cooperate rather than to compete. A free and peaceful commonwealth embracing all rational entities of this and every other universe, Cosmic and Chaotic, mortal and immortal, will deter wars. The primary requirement, however, is freedom: universal freedom. If there are other people out there, raised in imprisonment as I was, I have a duty to liberate them, for the same reason why I would have welcomed any outside liberator who would have attempted to free me. We were in the most pleasant prison imaginable. It was still unacceptable. The present condition of the universe is unacceptable. Anything I can do, large or small, along these lines, I will do. Other problems are secondary, and may resolve themselves once this primary problem is solved."

"“Reality is complex. The most we can hope for in life is partial solutions. And even such partial solutions as that are temporary, and may require irritating compromises. That is why I defined my actions in terms of an operational process, not in terms of an end goal. There is no end. Nothing ever ends. We do what we can when we can. Factors beyond our control—” He made a gesture at the horizon and the sky, a gesture that seemed to encompass the material world, humanity, the stars, the fates, the actions and opinions of other people, all of external reality. “—factors beyond our control...we disregard.”"

"Quentin looked glum and shook his head. “Unleashing the appetites is not freedom, but another type of slavery. Freedom in the absence of virtue will destroy a country as quickly as any tyranny.” Victor said, “Virtue imposed from without is not virtue at all, but merely prudence. A man who avoids lying merely because a law tells him to tell the truth will avoid telling the truth as soon as the law tells him to lie.”"

"Those who work are free. There are only three categories of nonproductive people: babies, beggars, robbers."

"We are indeed human beings. We are merely not Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens is a species, something into which one is born. Humanity one chooses. Men who choose inhumanity are merely upright beasts."

"Come on, Amelia. We are not really British. We do not have to look down our noses at honest labor."

"Ripples on a pond cannot touch a bird hovering above it."

"Need I say that, if the universe is destroyed, it is unlikely that the British Isles will be preserved?"

"Everything is inanimate, if by that you mean things that operate according to cause and effect. Free will is an epiphenomenon, a misjudgment impressed upon us and sustained by the actions of brain molecules in motion."

"Whatever dwelt among the stars had nothing to do with earthly concerns. I wonder if you will understand me if I said, staring at the indifference of the cold heavens, that I never felt less religious than in that moment, but staring at their majesty, the grandeur, I never felt more. Cruel Saturn’s created world was worthy of awe."

"Warlocks are something like doctors, I guess. No matter how much you like them personally, there is quite a bit of nasty mess involved in their line of work."

"War is murder, king-sized."

"Sometimes the best in people comes out during emergencies. Sometimes not."

"Were I a real master of intrigue, I would not have the reputation for being a master of intrigue."

"Merlin and Solomon can tell you how well the wise and learned can withstand the foolishness of love!"

"Comedy is easy. Intrigue is hard."

"“They (i. e., the Olympian gods) operate on moral principles. You have to break a promise to them, or break a rule, for them to get power over you.” Victor commented darkly, “That explains why religions have rules no one can follow. If everyone is a sinner, by definition, everyone is under their power.”"

"Death was soon and growing sooner."

"So that was my task as leader. Escape from a situation that was complex, dangerous, and littered with unknowns. Get out of the burning labyrinth without stepping on the buried land mines."

"I resolved, as I walked, to be the most dangerous one I could be. And in my mind, that meant one thing: thought. Think things through; then act. First be patient; then be brave."

"The Maiden had been abducted by the Unseen One, and raped. When the crime of the Unseen One finally came to light, instead of punishing his brother, Lord Terminus (who feared him) gave him the Maiden as his wife. We have never forgiven Lord Terminus his crime, this cynical and smirking act of corruption. What kind of punishment is it to a rapist, to have the victim of his outrages be given to him in bounds of matrimony, his victim to be his, forever after? Lord Terminus decreed that when a husband takes a wife by violence, it is not rape, but holy matrimony; honor is satisfied once the wedding is performed. Honor was satisfied, but we were not satisfied."

"“What can you do?” “I can bring you in dream to one who dreams of you.” “Will that help me?” “No. But you will come, because you will hope that it will.”"

"You have reached that unfortunate age where you have all of life’s answers and you know everything more perfectly and more profoundly than your elders."

"When I was young, I thought the act of getting older meant, year by year, getting more sophisticated, more hard, cool, and unpitying. Less innocent. Maybe that was a childish idea of what getting older was about. Maybe adults, mature adults, get more innocent with time, not less. Because the word “innocent” does not mean “naïve,” it means “not guilty.” Children do small evils to each other, schoolyard fights and insults, not because their hearts are pure, but because their powers are small. Grownups have more power. Some of them do great evils with that power. But what about the ones who don’t? Aren’t they more innocent than children, not less?"

"You all think I am a coward, when all I am is polite."

"It seemed even the smallest exercise of arbitrary authority could go to one’s head like wine. I told myself to remember this when I was older."

"“Broken oaths are bad luck eggs.” That was so weird, I did not know what to say. So I said, “Eggs?” “They hatch bad luck.”"

"There was no point in debating the advantages of reality over unreality. There was no reasoning with someone to whom truth was a matter of taste."

"I cannot describe myself except to say that I am either very vain or very beautiful, and that I hope I am the latter, while suspecting I may be the former."

"This thought had led to the fear that I might pick the wrong God to pray to. I thought that, because praying to the wrong God was expressly a sin, and because a merciful God might forgive me for forgetting to pray, it therefore followed that, even without knowing which one was the right one, my best chances lay in staying quiet and hoping for the best. That strategy worked in class when I didn’t know the answer, so I supposed it might work in the arena of theology, also."

"Everyone loses in war, even the winners."

"If you only write one book in your whole life, and only sell 600 copies or less, nonetheless, I assure you, I solemnly assure you, that this book will be someone’s absolutely favorite book of all time, and it will come to him on some dark day and give him sunlight, and open his eyes and fill his heart and make him see things in life even you never suspected, and will be his most precious tale, and it will live in his heart like the Book of Gold. [...] I write for that one reader I will never see, the one who needs just such a tale as I can pen, in just such a time and place, some rainy afternoon or dark hour, when providence will bring my book into his hands. And he will open it, and it will not be a book, but a casement, from which he will glimpse the needed vision his soul requires of a world larger than our own, or a star in a heaven wider and higher than ours, a star aflame with magic more majestic than any star mortal astronomers can name."

"Unliving things have no passions, and no memory: mere matter is the amnesia of the universe."

"I will grant you three wishes, but do not ask for immortality without asking for eternal youth."

"Miss Daw said, half to herself, “Now you have had your first lesson in what it is like to be a real grown-up woman in a man’s world, my dear. We are judged by our looks, and men are not.”"

"Yes, I prayed. Why not? The advantage of being an agnostic over being an atheist is that I always had the possibility of being wrong, and could still entertain the hope that the universe was better organized than it appeared to be."

"Not dangerous at all. Not even that lucky. But a sufficiently paranoid mind will discern patterns and threats where only fortune has conspired."

"Asking a storyteller not to embellish is like asking a fish to give up water."

"The power to kill becomes the ultimate power in the hands of a man who has no reservations about employing it."

"Slick, Garrett. Remind me not to get on your wrong side. You’re so slick you’d slide uphill."

"“I’m beginning to wonder if we ought not to re-examine your diet, Morley. Such unrelenting pessimism must have some deficiency at its base.” “The only deficiencies bothering me are of good luck, financial wherewithal, and female companionship.”"

"When you consider the possibility of wizards being involved in anything, the smart thing to do is to assume the worst."

"And I love what money does to you humans. It’s the only thing that saves you from being totally tedious."

"I jumped up, seized the moment by the scruff of the neck and seat of the pants, and ran him out the door to the accompaniment of appropriate old-time remarks about seedy little army types who failed to acknowledge the natural superiority of their overlords, the Marines."

"Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day."

"It was the wee hours of the morning, when even the heartbeat of the world had trouble thumping on."

"“It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” my darling whispered to me. “People go at the oddest times and from the oddest causes.” “Soldiers live,” I muttered. “You’re turning that into a mantra.” “You feel guilty. You wonder why him and not me, then you’re glad it was him and not you, then you feel guilty. Soldiers live. And wonder why.”"

"Being an old cynic myself I have strong notions about the true value of human gratitude. It is a currency whose worth plunges by the hour."

"But somewhere along the way he had made up his mind and set it in concrete. Changed circumstances would not budge him."