Poets From England

"To be dead was a state which played odd tricks on dreams of vengeance."

"Into her shrewd and youthful brain there came an inspiration. It was an inspiration of the sort to set heart banging, teeth jittering, hands cold and mouth dry. It was of the sort which comes only once, and must be hearkened to and acted on—or let go and ever regretted. Lylas chose not to regret."

"The desert, like every landscape, had its own persona. It was a situation of white glare by day, white glare glimmering from the sands up into the atmosphere. Beneath, faintly showed the contours of the dunes as if through mist or water. Above, a flat coppery sky rested on the framework of the glare. Sometimes a formation of rock came swimming out of the glare like a great thorn-backed fish; items at a distance were of a tindery brittle blueness unlike the fluid blueness of a watered country. The heat of the desert was not like a heat, but like a whittling away. There seem to sound in the desert, a high-pitched whistling, but there was no sound save the furnace wind raising the sand like smoke from the ridges, as if the dunes actually burned. The word of the desert was this: I am made from all the dusts of the bones of men who have perished here, and my rocks are monuments to mountains I have ground away. There were no green places, no springs. To this desert, such as these were wounds which it had healed with aridity. What it could not eradicate, it buried. By night the sand chilled. Frost scaled its surfaces so it shone with a pure black shining. It was beautiful as only such a spot could be beautiful—because it had warped the natural laws, and here it told you the hideous was fair. And was believed."

"And some who were not elegant said: “He is too elegant to be honest.” And some who were not tall said: “He is too tall to be trusted,” and some who were intuitive shuddered, though they were not sure why."

"The thought had taken hold: Only the best must survive, not a hierarchy of riff-raff. Gods, who had such power of life or death as he, must choose carefully. And one day he would have to choose: Shall I immortalize this one, or this? But not yet."

"Within, in the lowest region of her soul and mind, unknown to herself, she was still a small voice crying for another glory to salve her hurts. She must better the best, none must withstand her, she must conquer what others dare not face, drink seas and trample mountains. She would never rest till death, the last battle, made mockery of all her victories."

"“What else is she like?” The Eshva sighed at the touch of Azhrarn’s fingers. The sigh said this: Like a white moth at dusk, a night-blooming lily. Like music played by the reflection of a swan as it passes over the strings of a moonlit lake."

"Who would dare invite such a smoke? To some it might be healing, but to others, bane. Breathed in at the nostrils, it seemed to fill the eyes and ears and brain. To a man who knew many things, it would reveal many more, to a man who knew little it would reveal too much. Its name was self-knowledge."

"Superstitious, they did not go after her. They had a robber-god which they worshipped in a cave. His creed declared: ‘For every fifty travelers robbed and slain, let one go free. The gods care for excess in nothing.’"

"Flat or round, there has always been hate in the world."

"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.”"

"Men cried to their gods. In the morning they would slay each other; by night, fresh from the battlefield, they raved before unreplying altars. So they came to hate even the gods, and smashed their images and defiled their sanctums. “There are no gods!” they cried. “Then who has done this thing to us?”"

"The dark storyteller did not look about. He said: “You have presumed the gods value man so much that they will hurry to his rescue. I think you misjudge the gods.” “And you,” declared the philosopher sternly, “suggest that they are merely as stones.” “There, I admit, I have maligned them. For if you strike a stone, it may disgorge a stream of water, or a precious jewel. Or you may build a house from it, or scratch words on its surface with a knife. Stones can be serviceable to men.”"

"Lir chiseled at the stone. It would take a month to make a perceptible impression on it. He had a few hours. Work harder, then."

"Resist. Come, you’re tough enough, my lady, aren’t you, if you beg for death rather than inflict evil?"

"“What’s Hell?” inquired Wild-Eye. “You should visit before you pass judgement on a place. And have you never heard it said, the Dark One is a gentleman?”"

"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."

"This much poison cannot pour in one’s ears without it will leave some trace."

"The antithesis of myself. No fervor in him, no greed for life, only his ruthless craving to possess, which took no pleasure in possession."

"She had never acquired in-between shades of character, had not had the opportunity. She had been utterly selfish, and was now selfless, because she had never become a whole person, did not like herself, or know herself. Nor had she ever gained sufficient wisdom to be properly horrified at what she meant to do. She couldn’t think that intensely."

"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."

"That evening I met a black witch with a red cat, walking on a headland above the sea. I had reached the sea unexpectedly, but the sea is unexpected in any event to one who has never known it. You think it land at first, or sky, and penultimately mist. Then you realize a vast azure mass of water lies like a dragon in the sun’s last rays, breathing and shifting on the beaches."

"As for their healers and their worship of gold books of old lore, there had been tribal stories of this, too, all nonsense, as anything chattered by the ill-informed must be."

"I had made vows and to spare, but the present cannot be ruled forever by the past."

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

"For you are mad, my dear, in following this vocation. Even your goodness is a craziness. But then, all the very good are mad, just as the very wicked are mad. In fact, there is hardly any difference between the holy and the profane, save in their ideals and their deeds. Both are fanatics. Both are ruthless."

"The year was woven on the loom, finished and folded away upon the pile of other years in the tall chests of Time."

"The sea was a phenomenon I had never clapped eyes on for myself, yet it seemed, from the tales, a destination ultimate and uncompromising. The ocean’s edge, the brink of the land; the lip of Chaos."

"Human aspiration is often blind, its motto: I want, therefore I will have."

"There are two clever tricks men know. One is to make much of nothing. The second is to make nothing of much."

"To fall suddenly sick when you have never been ill is a hard lesson. If it teaches anything, it teaches you that you must not trust to the thing you know, that it is better to build on shifting sand than the rock which may confound you on the day it shatters."

"There is one sound way a man can bind a woman to him, the same way she will bind him, and with the same rope."

"Who knew? If the illusion is quite perfect, who is to say it is not real?"

"I had not yet learned the lesson that when you are forever telling yourself that such and such is worth the price, then the price is too high and has been paid too often."

"It was as easy to be alone with six kin as it is to be alone by yourself, and maybe easier."

"When a road is very dark it is hard to see the milestones on it."

"Night, the dark widow, came walking on the hills."

"“Well now,” he said, “was I as good as you were when you were me?”"

"The sun in his golden chariot had driven almost to the last meadow of the sky."

"“‘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.”"

"“Like most loners,” said Moddik, “you carry the seeds of violent authority. Loners need to be bossy. They quickly learn it’s the only method they have of shoving people off their backs.”"

"Tonight it was to be a play for aristocrats to watch, concerning gods and shepherds; it was the humble villages that clamored for princesses and emperors."

"I see you laugh, and rightly so. What is this silly old fool rambling on about? Good for you. Never respect years, only deeds."

"I said, “When you are on your deathbed, Erran, pray that you never meet me in the place you are going to.”"

"Kernik had stumbled on an immutable truth, a truth older than the world. Priests claimed the gods made men, but this was not so. Men made the gods. Firstly, by forming them in clay, by chipping them from stone. Secondly, and more importantly, by believing in them, believing in them utterly."

"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."

"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."

"Having failed, do you accept failure, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn to other things? When night comes, do you accept the blackness of it, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn and wait for morning? Or do you go on striving to light a candle against that dark however often the wind blows out the flame, however often the night returns?"

"It was, therefore, the sort of loveliness which is not perfect, but draws its charm from a measure of imbalance, which can accommodate flaws and make little of them, for a while at least."

"“I can’t guess,” said Olvia, “why he accepted my invitation. If I had realized he would, I would never have sent it.”"