Henry H. Neff > Quotes

“Beware the flatterers of the world...for what is music to the ears may be poison to the soul.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Second Siege

“There are many kinds of leaders. Too often we confuse a forceful personality with leadership. This is a mistake. Those with different talents and styles can reach the same mountaintop; they just take different paths to get there.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Red Winter

“He tossed the deck to David. 'You get first deal.'
'I've got one hand.'
'Right, then. Deal those cards, Max, and let's have ourselves a game.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Fiend and the Forge

“Every student should know that statues are meant for sitting. If we're to endure their terrible old faces leering at us, the least they can do is offer shade or a comfortable perch."
Nigel Bristow to Max McDaniels”
― Henry H. Neff

“The Lover's Maxim
'If you can'r be handsome, be rich. If you can't be roich, be strong. If you can't be strong, be witty'
'What if you can'r be witty?'
'Learn the guitar.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Maelstrom

“Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice-- they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim."

"And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed.

The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty."

"But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered.

"Learn the guitar.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Maelstrom

“If a man does not stand for something, he will fall for anything.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Hound of Rowan

“Ah!' said David, twiddling his fingers with glee as she poured him a cup. 'May the sun shine upon your splendid bosom in all eight kingdoms, Sarah lass!”
― Henry H. Neff, The Second Siege

“You have the courage and will to overcome your fear and do what's required.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Maelstrom

“In the common room, they found Emer dozing in her chair, Lila scratching at the door, and Mine stirring a large pot and peering at its contents with an anxious, irritated expression. With a groan, the Archmage strode across the room and flung open the windows.
"It just needs more basil," Mine assured him. "No, it does not," Bram declared. "It needs less garlic. Didn't I tell you to follow a recipe?"
"I did follow a recipe!" Shouted Mine, defiantly flinging the rest of the basil into the pot.

"Show it to me, then."
"I threw it in the fire!"
"What have I told you about lying, child?"
"To get better at it!”
― Henry H. Neff, The Maelstrom

“If you can’t spot the sucker, the sucker’s probably you.’ ”
― Henry H. Neff, The Fiend and the Forge

“Incomplete data leads to incomplete conclusions.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Hound of Rowan

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea. Ideas bring change and people fear change very much.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Second Siege

“better to keep your mouth shut and have others think you a fool than to open your mouth and prove”
― Henry H. Neff, The Second Siege

“Vengeance lends purpose”
― Henry H. Neff, The Hound of Rowan

“War breaks many things...It can break bodies and hearts. It can break promises, too. But it can't break spirits...not if those who are fighting believe in their cause.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Maelstrom

“is a cruel fate that your kind should be blessed with consciousness yet denied true understanding.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Second Siege

“Some people are born great, but no one is born good. That is a choice they must make for themselves.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Maelstrom

“A warrior craves honor and excellence, not a measure of mild years. Those who cringe at death are half dead themselves; they forever keep to the shallows of life!”
― Henry H. Neff, The Maelstrom

“You’re late,” said one. “Oh, fuck off,” said Laszlo pleasantly. “There’s no need for vulgarities,” the other face groused. “It’s our duty to reprimand you.” “You’re condemned souls,” Laszlo reminded them. “Your only duty is to suffer eternal torment. Besides, what do you care when I show up? Does it honestly upset you when I’m late?” “Yes,” sniffed one of the souls. “It does.” “Then I guess I’m doing my job.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Witchstone

“What’s Italian for ‘wimp’?” “Pappamolle.” “Everything sounds better in Italian,” remarked Laszlo.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Witchstone

“And it wasn’t just physical pain. The experience also included pangs of inconsolable malaise, ennui, and other angsty French terms. It was like reading Camus.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Witchstone

“A sudden realization flashed in her mind.

No one else's opinion mattered.

It was so simple, one of those things a consoling parent might say, and yet it contained a fundamental truth. The entire world could believe in Hazel's greatness but their faith was meaningless if she didn't believe it herself. Conversely, the world could dismiss her ambitions, but it didn't matter as long as Hazel believed in their possibility. Greatness not only started with her, it could not begin anywhere else.”
― Henry H. Neff, Impyrium

“There was once a man who saw Death staring at him in the marketplace,” she muttered. “Afraid, the man stole a horse and rode as fast as he could to the next town. Once there, he took a room at an inn and locked himself inside. But there was Death, already waiting by the fire. ‘How?’ cried the man. ‘How can you be here?’ Death smiled and stood. ‘I asked myself the same when I saw you at the marketplace, for it is here that I was to meet you.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Second Siege

“The shell game was an age-old con whose origins dated back to Ancient Greece. Everyone and their mother knew it was a scam, and thus it only worked on marks who grossly overestimated their own abilities. Fortunately, 100 percent of men fell into this category.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Witchstone

“Sorry, Toby," said Max, plucking up the smee by one end. "This will have to do." He unceremoniously dunked the creature into a nearby pitcher of water. "Better?"

"Invigorated," groused the smee. "And now I will ask you to kindly put me down and never to grab me by that particular part of my anatomy again."

Horrified, Max promptly dropped the smee onto its pillow.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Maelstrom

“Life is too precious a thing to throw away on orders and absurd chains of command.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Hound of Rowan

“one of those things a consoling parent might say, and”
― Henry H. Neff, Impyrium

“Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for a time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Hound of Rowan

“And what is God? Tell me that, David Menlo." All David could do was offer a helpless shrug. "I don't know." "Does it frighten you not to know?" "It would frighten me more to think that God was something I could possibly define or understand.”
― Henry H. Neff, The Red Winter