40 quotes
I may be called upon to address the company. No one will listen, of course, which is just as well, since I have nothing to say.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
Kings, like children, tend to be opportunistic. Generosity only spoils them. They equate affability with weakness and hasten to exploit it.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
King Aillas talks softly and with great politeness; he has the uncomfortable skill of calling one a false-hearted blackguard, a liar, a cheat and a villain, but making it seem a fulsome compliment.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
Dismount and kneel before me, that I may strike off your head with fullest ease. You shall die in this tragic golden light of sunset.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
You have frightened and daunted me. I will stop stealing at once.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
“Sir Tristano spoke: “Stop! You are taking the great green pearl!”
“Naturally!” said the voice from a point close behind. “That is the whole point of robbery: to acquire the victim’s valuables!”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
A notable scheme has occurred to me.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
In measured tones he answered Madouc: “Your condition lacks dignity; you bring ridicule upon us all.”
Madouc gave a stony shrug. “If you do not like what you see, look elsewhere.”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
“It is no hardship whatever,” said Aillas. “You have never strained at the deed. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and suddenly you find the idea incredible. Do you not sense a taint of unreality?”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
“Tell me, then! What is so important?”
“Your life! I could not bear that you should lose it!”
“I feel much the same. Say on.”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
Aillas replied that while King Audry cited several points of technical interest, and used the resources of abstract logic in an adroit manner, he had actually made no connection with reality.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
What is peace? Balance three iron skewers tip to tip, one upon the other; at the summit, emplace and egg, so that it too poises static in mid-air, and there you have the condition of peace in this world of men.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
Shimrod said: “Once I thought of you as a child in a woman’s body.”
Melancthe smiled a cool smile. “And now?”
“The child seems to have wandered away.”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
“You drink only sparingly. Is the beer too thin?”
“No at all. I merely wish to keep my wits about me. It would not do if both of us became addled, and later woke up in doubt as to who was who.”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since wherever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapours rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
“We are supposed to set you a good example,” said Devonet. “As a start, I will point out that a lady of refinement would not wish to be found so high in a tree.”
“Then I am a lady of refinement well and truly,” said Madouc, “since I did not wish to be found.”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
“I would define ‘avarice’ as a consequence of the human estate: a condition arising from turbulence and inequality. In none of the paradises, where conditions are no doubt optimum, does ‘avarice’ exert force. Here, we are men struggling toward perfection and ‘avarice’ is a station along the way.”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
They call me a renegade.
The epithet is inaccurate and undeserved. I cannot be faithless to a cause which I never have endorsed. Indeed, I am absolutely faithful to the only cause I espouse, which is my own welfare. I take pride in this unswerving loyalty!
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
“If ambush I must, then ambush I will,” Aillas muttered to himself. “A fig for chivalry, at least until the war is won.”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)
“Are you yourself a Christian?”
The young man made a negative sign. “The concepts of religion baffle me.”
“This inscrutability is perhaps not unintentional,” said the ex-priest. “It gives endless employment to dialecticians who otherwise might become public charges or, at very worst, swindlers and tricksters.”
Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)