164 quotes
Never respect years, only deeds.
Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977)
The sea was a phenomenon I had never clapped eyes on for myself, yet it seemed, from the tales, a destination ultimate and uncompromising. The ocean’s edge, the brink of the land; the lip of Chaos.
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)
No, she is cruel and pitiless and indifferent (which we have learned, through her teaching, the gods are to mankind—and indeed, have not the lessons of our lives ceaselessly informed us this was so?).
Delirium's Mistress (1986)
Sometimes the communications between these two partners are so complex, and have so many permutations, that I can't follow them. Their relationship seems to be a little like chess, but without the rules.
Zelle's Thursday (1989)
They were very careful and kind. So careful and kind it was positively tactless and spiteful.
Don't Bite the Sun (1976)
Who knew? If the illusion is quite perfect, who is to say it is not real?
Volkhavaar (1977)
I found a glimmering brown skull in the snow. I could not tell if it was mortal or god, and there seemed a sobering moral in that.
Quest for the White Witch (1978)
White was the most fashionable color among the nobility and the rich. Because, of course, white is so easily dirtied, and only the wealthy would do little enough that it could not be spoiled.
The Birthgrave (1975)
Lir chiseled at the stone. It would take a month to make a perceptible impression on it. He had a few hours. Work harder, then.
The Castle of Dark (1978)
“What do I care for the god?” the woman suddenly screamed, catching up her dead child. “What god is he that takes away my son and leaves me nothing?”
The Birthgrave (1975)
It was idiotic to be superstitious.
Day by Night (1980)
Dust had dimmed only a fraction, not enough. Decay had brushed with its rotten fingers not nearly all it should. It was an enchanted sweet, stuck in the throat of time.
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)
His creed, both cosmic and precise, had a flexible simplicity which, usually, was soon harnessed and complicated by his devotees, or those who had picked up some smattering.
Night's Sorceries (1987)
Anyhow, I arrived, and I did feel pretty weird, actually, as if I’d left something behind. My head or something.
Don't Bite the Sun (1976)
I had a rare wine in my blood. Expiation was over, guilt washed out, terror canceled.
Quest for the White Witch (1978)
Is the only challenge in the world to be greed and viciousness? Is the only satisfying power the power of the ascent over men, the only dream, ambition? And must the alternative to greed, evil, ambition—be only sluggishness?
Delirium's Mistress (1986)
The bird stabs the worm, the big cat breaks the bird’s neck, the man casts his spear into the heart of the cat. That is how the world is. Even the man had better look behind him; the wolf may be near, or another man, or fate, the hungriest hunter of them all.
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)
We are the sum of our achievements, nothing more and nothing less. … What we create is the only part of us which can survive, or has the right to.
Fashions change. Even in mythology.
Delirium's Mistress (1986)
Wealth, or large amounts of possessions seemed to him limiting. They brought their own prison with them. He preferred, since he had once known a kind of prison, to travel free.
Companions on the Road (1975)