Esther Friesner

"Three there are and three there be, Each will gain the rest for thee: Flesh to flesh in burning hold; Song of silver, chink of gold; Power to make others bend. None the Answer in the end."

"Beautiful. She had been born with an appreciation for beauty. Mortals who imagined that they shared that same appreciation knew nothing. In them, the taste had to be learned, cultivated, forced into being. If it had been a natural part of their souls, they never would have destroyed so much loveliness with their repetitive stupidities."

"The women treated you like a kid until you showed them you could put down a man’s stack of cash. Enough bills on the table and you could wear a Sesame Street bib and they wouldn’t care."

"Bravery cannot be taught, but duty can."

"Who obeyed the commands of ghosts except madmen?"

"Like all grandmothers, she wouldn’t mind if the world ended so long as everyone cleaned his plate first."

"It is more comfortable for us to pretend that we are a kindly race, to let bygones be bygone, to let the dust of history mingle with the ashes of the dead and to sweep both under the same rug."

"Gratitude and love. He wasn’t the only one who lived with the pretty lie that one must necessarily lead to the other."

"Money is easier to manipulate than men, but then it manipulates them for you."

"My lady, I shudder to meet so much blind enthusiasm in one soul. It is dangerous when bravado envelops bravery."

"It was a lie, what lesser men taught, that immortality must lead to tedium. For those unwilling to learn, those entirely wrapped in the mummy-bands of self, that might be true. In time one tired of the world within, grew morose, looked to death as relief and release. But for the real scholar? Each day of existence was adventure, mystery, delight. The learning never ceased. Death gained a renewed measure of terror as realization grew that all the richness and the joy of life would indeed have an end."

"She knew the odor of ruthlessness, though she was sure he would call it political practicality."

"There went a young lady with what most people would call a healthy attitude toward self-advancement. Anything for money, short of her body. The trouble with plunging into indefinite pronouns—anything, anywhere, anytime, anyone—is that no one knows how deep the water is until it closes over your head."

"Should be is not is. Ignorance sees to that."

"At least when you’re dead, you can stop worrying about your health."

"When the majority is crazy, the sane ones are kept in asylums. She knew that well; she’d majored in World History."

"Melisan frowned and informed her leader that politics was the answer to every demon’s fondest dreams. Politics, she said, meant less work for Mother. It covered all the bases when it came to the Seven Top Deadly Sins. “You get a minor political conflict, like, say, an argument over candidates at a cocktail party,” said Melisan, who only knew about such gatherings from Murakh, “and right away you generate a whole room full of Wrath. Then you move on to elections, and you get the bunch that won’t vote at all because they don’t like either candidate and besides, they figure one vote’s not important.” “Ahhh,” sighed Horgist, eyes moist with yearning. “Sloth!” “Exactly, my love. Then someone wins the election, and you’ve got the ones who voted for him swelled with pride and the ones who didn’t consumed with Envy. Avarice, Lechery, and Gluttony come after he’s in office, and that’s just what happens in a minor political situation! When you’ve got Avarice and Gluttony working on the grand, international scale, you’ve got the way paved for all-out war, and when what they call National Pride shows up, you’ve got guaranteed Gehenna.”"

"Innocence is only a matter of not being able to believe in a possibility you can’t imagine."

"Faith gagged again, in earnest. Amanda had let her to believe that she was anything but pure, purity no longer being the fashion. Yet here was Geordie, carrying on over her in a style that was popular in the Middle Ages, when you had to adore your lady from afar because if you did it from anear, you’d get her Daddy’s sword in your belly."

"Hell is full of incompetent rebels."

"Few hearts are brave enough to stand between old newspapermen and their liquor. Fewer still would defy the thirsty hordes of the electronic media."

"Amanda gave him the freeze, too. The blue demon hesitated, unsure of whether this snub was a rejection of his leadership or his dubious social standing. There were only a few demons in Debrett’s."

"Possession was nine-tenths of the law, and the stray tenth was self-possession."

"Someone should either make the rewards of good better or the punishment of evil worse. Poor planning on a grand scale, I call it. Nothing but poor planning."

"The wind had blown since before time had a name and it would blow until time lost all meaning. It blew the dwindling sands of the desert across the encroaching greenness of the fields and forests, past the teeming cities with their needle spires, silver in the glaring sun. It sang a dirge for all the waste that once stretched past the edge of imagination, and it moaned a lament for all who wandered, lost and outcast and alone."

"“Satanism? In Whitman?” “Mmm-hmm.” She threaded her arm through his. “You can find Satanism in everything if you’ve got the right sort of mind and you look hard enough.”"

"Like many a freshman with dangerous leanings toward the Humanities, Noel circled the topic of choosing a major cautiously, occasionally poking it with a stick to see which way it lunged and which way he should jump to avoid it."

"“This—this guy is dead now, right?” Marguerite shrugged. “Death is such a fragile thing. Who knows? I’ve heard rumors, but you can’t depend on anything these days. The greatest wizards of antiquity turn up with less warning than Hamptons houseguests.”"

"Adulthood is not just gauged by years survived. An adult is able to act independently, to resist manipulation, to make his own decisions. And to take the consequences."

"“I’m not a Freudian.” Dr. Fitzgerald pronounced the word as if it were axe-murderer."

"Listen, Noel, I don’t believe in the occult—not the dime store demonism all the right people are barking about. They see devils everywhere but in the mirror, and they raise such a hunting howl about it that they distract attention from the real evils. What I do believe is that there are great powers walking this world—forces for true good, forces for evil we can’t begin to imagine. Too many of the small-souled can only feel good by proving how bad everyone else is. They find it easier to turn a searchlight on some imaginary wickedness outside than to strike a single inner spark that might show them their own hearts."

"Yesterday’s sin is today’s trendy must-do."

"A high-handed air of command was one of the first symptoms of increasing power-hunger."

"“You don’t have to go by anyone’s rules but your own. Everything about you is special. The only trouble is, no one but you ever seems to see it that way.” “I don’t think I like your attitude.” “I don’t think I care.”"

"He did not know the proper name by which to call preshrunk designer jeans, yet if left to his own lexical devices, he would name them Paradise. Like many another man of faith, he yearned for entry thereto."

"Don’t try weaseling through too many loopholes or one of them could turn into a noose."

"“Come on, Noel, you know me. You know how I feel about books. Do you think I’d ever willfully destroy one? Ten? Hundreds? A whole library full?” “You wouldn’t,” Noel agreed. “But those friends of yours are straight out of the Dark Ages. Who knows what they’d do?” “They’d tell you what made the Dark Ages so damn dark was not enough books, that’s what they do.” Roger stuck out his chin. “They know what they owe to books more than a lot of the sitcom slaves out there. They know you can’t solve any problem in thirty minutes, less commercial breaks. They know that the past wasn’t perfect but they also know how to look through the histories for past mistakes so they’ll recognize them if they come around again. They’ll do a lot of things, but they won’t hurt books.”"

"It was an edifice that combined high tech and low taste to an astonishing degree."

"The shortest way to multiply damnations is to divide mortals. Fear’s a great one for that—fear the stranger, fear the different, fear the afflicted—long as you can keep your pigeons so damn scared there’s no room in them to even try to figure out whether there’s anything real to be scared of in the first place."

"“What is it about L.A.?” “The Great Cosmic Belly Button that attracteth the spiritual lint of the universe,” Faith replied."

"His salvation flunkies. Mouthing off a hundred and one misapplied Biblical justifications a minute for why they can split heads, kick butt, and burn anything or anyone who tells them No. They are still going to Heaven. They’ll be the only ones there, but what the hey!"

"Growing up’s not something that just happens south of your belt buckle. It’s opening your eyes and taking on the nightmares yourself, without calling for Mommy or Daddy or even God. It’s facing down evil, even when you know it might be the last thing you ever do."

"Have lunch. It wasn’t anywhere near noon, but for food like this, they weren’t about to quibble. Suddenly the idea of going forth and smiting the heathen didn’t seem that attractive. Life is too short and sweet to waste it bludgeoning your brother into accepting your way of seeing Heaven."

"Raleel let his head tilt back as he filled his nostrils with the satisfying reek of small hearts and mouldering souls. Selfish greed for their own salvation pulsed from those fifteen in waves he could almost touch, and damnation take anyone who dared to stand between them and the Heaven for which only they were good enough."

"The winter of ignorance could come, the cold stoked by a thousand bonfires. There would always be loveless souls ready to kindle such blazes with their neighbors’ books, or dreams, or children."

"That didn’t really fit the facts or make very much sense, but as a theory it had a certain perverse appeal."

"“The trouble with having royal advisors,” the king muttered half to himself, “is that they’re always trying to give a man advice!”"

"“We are all doomed, condemned to have the flesh seared from our bones, our blood gouting from our headless necks as the dragon rends limb from limb!” “Wait a minute,” the first guard said. “How can the dragon rend us limb from limb, blood gouting and all, if it’s already seared the flesh from our bones?” Another Gorgorian guard gave him a smart thwack in the head and said, “It’s a holy vision, you clod. Things don’t need to make sense when they’re holy visions.”"

"“What a hero!” “What an idiot!” “What’s the difference?”"