123 quotes
The idea of brutality actually shocks him, thought Goniface amusedly. I wonder what name he has for the toil we exact of the commoners, and the penances we impose on them?
Gather, Darkness! (1950)
With a happy roaring shout only he could hear, blood rushed through the Mouser’s arteries toward his center, reviving his limp manhood in a mere moment, as a magically summoned genie offhandedly builds a tower.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)
Now it may be that in the world of Newhon there are gods of whom even Death does not know and who from time to time take pleasure in putting obstacles in his path. Or it may be that Chance is quite as great a power as Necessity.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)
Not for the first time Richard reflected that this age’s vaunted ‘communications industry’ had chiefly provided people and nations with the means of frightening to death and simultaneously boring to extinction themselves and each other.
The Wanderer (1964)
“Oaths are made to be kept only until their purpose be fulfilled,” the fluty voice responded. “Every geas is lifted at last, every self-set rule repealed. Otherwise orderliness in life becomes a limitation to growth; discipline, chains; integrity, bondage and evil-doing.”
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)
Fafhrd retorted, a little hotly, “Killing in fight isn’t murder.”
Again the Mouser shrugged. “Killing is murder, no matter what nice names you give. Just as eating is devouring, and drinking guzzling.”
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)
But oh, this lifelong servitude to girls—whimsical, innocent, calculating, icicle-eyed and hearted, fleeting, tripping little demons! White, slim-necked, sharp-toothed, restlessly bobbing weasels with the soulful eyes of lemurs!
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)
It’s this mucking inefficiency and death of the cosmos — and don’t tell me that isn’t in the cards! — masquerading as benign omniscient authority.
The Big Time (1958)
I know only too well from a personal experience that is number one on my list of things to be forgotten.
The Big Time (1958)
Laymen always accuse actors of acting. Because we can portray genuine emotion, we're supposed to be unable to feel it. It's the oldest charge made against us.
Now is a bearable burden. What buckles the back is the added weight of the past’s mistakes and the future’s fears.
The Big Time (1958)
There is an inescapable imperative about certain industrial developments. If there is not a safe road of advance, then a dangerous one will invariably be taken.
Catch that Zeppelin! (1975)
Naturally a parent pretends to his child to be a little more perfect than he actually is. To admit any of his real weaknesses would be too much like encouraging vice.
They are in their fashion fearless, irreligiously considering themselves the coequals of destiny and having only contempt for the Demigoddess of Chance, the Imp of Luck, and the Demon of Improbability.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)
There would have been no insurmountable problem at all, of course, if Bwadres had only had that touch of realism about money matters that, when a true crisis arises, is almost invariably shown by even the fattest, greediest priest or the skinniest, most unworldly holy man.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)
What have I always told you about Soldiers? The bigger the gripe, the smaller the cause! It is infallible!
The Big Time (1958)
For that matter, where did I get off being critical of anyone?
The Big Time (1958)
Then he was running not so much away from the cold and its crippling, supernatural horrors, as toward civilization, which was once again a bright emblem in his brain, an answer to all small-mindedness.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)
Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher's stone. That was the pebble by the seashore he really wanted to find.
Poor Superman (1951)
To understand why George fell for this story, one must remember his stifled romanticism, his sense of personal failure, his deep need to believe. The thing came to him like, or rather instead of, a religious conversion.
A Pail of Air (1964)