226 quotes
Will, Lady. The Will will reign triumphant. My husband had said that often, confident that nothing could resist his will.
He had believed that right up to the moment I killed him.
Dreams of Steel (1990)
There are several huge monasteries—of which Khang Phi is the greatest—dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. The monks do not sort it into good and evil knowledge, nor do they make moral judgments. They take the position that no knowledge is evil until someone chooses to do evil with it.
Soldiers Live (2000)
Bomanz could not get away from the bird, who, if he had been human, would have hung out in taverns masquerading as the world’s foremost authority, armed with an uninformed and ready opinion on every conceivable subject. His cheerful bigotry and who-cares ignorance drove the old man’s temper to its limit.
The Silver Spike (1989)
Bomanz sighed. A man couldn’t get five minutes alone. What the hell did he get married for? Why did any man? You spent the rest of your life doing hard time, doing what other people wanted, not what you wanted.
The White Rose (1985)
“I don’t get the Kina story. If she died back at the beginning of the world, how could she be giving us trouble for the last twenty or thirty years?”
“It’s religion, dimwit,” Goblin barked. “It don’t got to make sense.”
Water Sleeps (1999)
The resources would have to come from that absurd wall project. The city was too big to surround effectively. The project could not be justified. It was a tool for transferring the wealth of the state to a few individuals.
Dreams of Steel (1990)
“I’ve been on my own before, Mather.” And I hadn’t been happy a moment. But happiness is a fleeting creature. It’s no birthright. Not anything I expect but something I accept when I tumble into it. Meantime, power will do nicely.
Dreams of Steel (1990)
We Loghyr have never found proof of the existence of any gods. Neither have we disproved their existence, although logic militates against it. They are not necessary to explain anything. Nature does not provide that which is not needed.
Cold Copper Tears (1988)
“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.”
Sweet Silver Blues (1987)
An old, tired man. That is what I am. What became of the old fire, drive, ambition? There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.
The White Rose (1985)
I heard Mather’s blather but it did not register as sense. I uttered, “Tooga ain’t no crazier than any other religion around here.”
That seemed to offend everyone equally.
Good.
Bleak Seasons (1996)
I must be driven. I figured that as long as I had to stay out there I ought to keep scouting around. Working in my sleep. Ought to have the Old Man double my pay. How much is two times a stab in the back?
She Is the Darkness (1997)
That damned rain had a personal grudge. It got no heavier but it never let up. Yet to east and west I saw light that indicated clear skies in those directions. The gods, if such existed, were laying on the misery especially for me.
Shadow Games (1989)
I could not get my feelings straight. I did not believe in evil as an active force, only as a matter of viewpoint, yet I had seen enough to make me question my philosophy. If the Lady were not evil incarnate, then she was as close as made no difference.
The Black Company (1984)
I decided she wouldn’t show. What was in it for her? I was pretty sure she was a gal who didn’t take a deep breath without calculating her return on investment. Such a shame; all that beauty wasted.
Cold Copper Tears (1988)
She wouldn’t have to work to charm the wardrobe off me. She had that something that goes beyond beauty, beyond style—an aura, a presence. She was the kind of woman who leaves eunuchs weeping and priests cursing their vows.
Cold Copper Tears (1988)
I do not believe in evil absolute. I have recounted that philosophy in specific in the Annals, and it affects my every observation throughout my tenure as Annalist. I believe in our side and theirs, with the good and evil decided after the fact, by those who survive. Among men you seldom find the good with one standard and the shadow with another.
Shadows Linger (1984)
I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled toward absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing we are just plain nice folks.
Shadow Games (1989)
That was not supposed to happen. It was unthinkable, supposedly. And for ordinary people that was mostly true. But not so at a level where men began to believe that they existed outside the usual rules.
Water Sleeps (1999)
And there went some good old-fashioned wishful thinking, Sleepy. We were talking about human beings. If there is any way to be contrary, unreasonable and obnoxious, human beings are sure to find and pursue it. With verve and enthusiasm at whatever might be the most inconvenient time.
Water Sleeps (1999)