16 quotes
All knowledge is sacred, but it should not be secret.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
He made the quick apologetic grimace that seemed to be as near as he ever came to a smile.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
Strong as a young lion, pliant as a loving woman, and bitter to the taste, as all enchantment in the end must be.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
That one is so sharp he will cut himself.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
Never dismiss anyone’s value until you know him.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
Nearly every tale that men tell of magic and witches and such is born out of foolishness and ignorance and sickness of mind—or is a way of explaining things they do not understand.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
Nothing is what it seems, boy. Expect nothing and fear nothing, here or anywhere. There’s your first lesson.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back,
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
“But why Latin?” demanded Barney.
“I don’t know, the monks just always used it, that’s all, it was one of their things. I suppose it’s a religious-sounding kind of language.”
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
Will saw the cruelty now as the fierce inevitability of nature. It was not from malice that the Light and the servants of the Light would ever hound the Dark, but from the nature of things.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
He was not for that moment a human being, but a frenzied creature possessed by rage, turned into an animal. All that could be seen in him was the urge to hurt, and it was, as it will always be, the most dreadful sight in the world.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
No, he is not of the Dark. But he is very useful. A man so wrapped in his own ill-will is a gift to the Dark from the earth. It is so easy to give him suitable ideas...Very useful, indeed.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
The Land is neither of the Dark nor the Light, nor ever was. Its enchantment was of a separate kind, the magic of the mind and the hand and the eye, that owes no allegiance because it is neither good nor bad. It has no more to do with the behaviour of men, or the great absolutes of the Light and the Dark, than does the blossom of a rose or the curving leap of a fish.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
Each wave of men in turn grew peaceful as it grew to know and love the land, so that the Light flourished again. But always the Dark was there, swelling and waning, gaining a new Lord of the Dark whenever a man deliberately chose to be changed into something more dread and powerful than his fellows. Such creatures were not born to their doom, like the Old Ones, but chose it.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
The mindless ferocity of this man, and all those like him, their real loathing born of nothing more solid than insecurity and fear...It was a channel. Will knew that he had been gazing into the channel down which the powers of the Dark, if they gained their freedom, could ride in an instant to complete control of the earth.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)
Only the creatures of the earth take from one another, boy. All creatures, but men more than any. Life they take, and liberty, and all that another man may have—sometimes through greed, sometimes through stupidity, but never by any volition but their own. Beware your own race, Bran Davies—they are the only ones who will ever harm you, in the end.
The Dark Is Rising (1965)