Diane Duane > Quotes

“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you've changed, by believing. Once you've changed, other things start to follow. Isn't that the way it works?”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Footsteps in the snow
suggest where you have been,
point to where you were going:
but when they suddenly vanish,
never dismiss the possibility
of flight...”
― Diane Duane

“In Life’s name and for Life’s sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so—till Universe’s end. I will look always toward the Heart of Time, where all times are one, where all our sundered worlds lie whole, as they were meant to be.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“There is a rule for fantasy writers: The more truth you mix in with a lie, the stronger it gets.”
― Diane Duane

“How am I supposed to save the universe with all this noise?!”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War

“Honey, have you seen your sister?”
She’s on Jupiter, Mom.”
― Diane Duane, The Wizard's Dilemma

“Power," Nita heard her father say behind her. "Creation. Forces from before time. This is--this business is for saints, not children!"
Even saints have to start somewhere," Carl said softly. "And it's always been the children who have saved the universe from the previous generation and remade the universe in their own image.”
― Diane Duane, High Wizardry

“Go ahead! Panic!" screamed Picchu from somewhere in the background. "Do it now and avoid the June rush! Fear death by water!”
― Diane Duane, Deep Wizardry

“Something always happens. You still have to promise stuff anyway. If you have to work to make the promises true... it's like a spell. You have to say the words every time you want the results.”
― Diane Duane, High Wizardry

“You should know how terrible a power belief is, especially in the wrong hands -- and how do you tell which hands are wrong? Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you've changed, by believing. Once you've changed, other things start to follow.”
― Diane Duane

“It's always been the children who have saved the universe from the previous generation and remade the world in their own image. ---Carl”
― Diane Duane, High Wizardry

“All the drawing lacks
is the final touch: To add
eyes to the dragon”
― Diane Duane, The Wizard's Dilemma

“But the trouble with sainthood these days is the robe-and-halo imagery that gets stuck onto it." Carl got that brooding look again. "People forget that robes were street clothes once... and still are, in a lot of places. And halos are to that fierce air of innocence what speech balloons in comics are to the sound of the voice itself. Shorthand. But most people just see an old symbol and don't bother looking behind it for the meaning. Sainthood starts to look old-fashioned, unattainable... even repellent. Actually, you can see it all around, once you learn to spot it.”
― Diane Duane, A Wizard Alone

“You do have the idea of being ‘just good friends?’”
He gave her a sideways look. “For so high and honorable an estate,” Roshaun said, “ ‘just’ seems a poor modifier to choose.”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War

“And we will cause it to be well-made, this Sacrifice. You, young and never loving; I, old and never loved. Such a Song the Sea will never have seen.”
― Diane Duane, Deep Wizardry

“Must I accept the barren Gift?
-learn death, and lose my Mastery?
Then let them know whose blood and breath
will take the Gift and set them free:
whose is the voice and whose the mind
to set at naught the well-sung Game-
when finned Finality arrives
and calls me by my secret Name.

Not old enough to love as yet,
but old enough to die, indeed-
-the death-fear bites my throat and heart,
fanged cousin to the Pale One's breed.
But past the fear lies life for all-
perhaps for me: and, past my dread,
past loss of Mastery and life,
the Sea shall yet give up Her dead!

Lone Power, I accept your Gift!
Freely I make death a part of me;
By my accept it is bound
into the lives of all the Sea-

yet what I do now binds to it
a gift I feel of equal worth:
I take Death with me, out of Time,
and make of it a path, a birth!

Let the teeth come! As they tear me,
they tear Your ancient hate for aye-
-so rage, proud Power! Fail again,
and see my blood teach Death to die!”
― Diane Duane, Deep Wizardry

“Don't be afraid to make corrections," Picchu said. "Don't be afraid to lend a hand." She fell silent, seeming to think for a moment. "And don't look down.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“It’d be a poor kind of world where there was just one explanation for things. ---Rhiow”
― Diane Duane, To Visit the Queen

“I’m lying on a Star Wars bedspread,” said a dry voice behind them, “Will I ever be able to look myself in the eye again?”
They all turned.
“By the fact that I’m not on Rashah,” Ronan said, looking about him, “but instead apparently in suburban hell, and in contact with this dubious cultural artifact, I take it we won?”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War

“Don't be afraid to make corrections! Whether the voice came from her memory or was a last whisper from the blinding new star far above, Nita never knew. But she knew what to do. While Kit was still on the first part of the name she pulled out her pen, her best pen that Fred had saved and changed. She clicked it open. The metal still tingled against her skin, the ink at the point still glittered oddly- the same glitter as the ink with which the bright Book was written. Nita bent quickly over the Book and with the pen, in lines of light, drew from the final circle an arrow pointing up-ward, the way out, the symbol that said change could happen- if, only if-”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Sometimes we do not hear the Whisperer even at her loudest because she speaks in our own voice, the one we most often discount.”
― Diane Duane, The Book of Night with Moon

“Virtue," he said. "The real thing. It's not some kind of cuddly teddy bear you can keep on the shelf until you need a hug. It's dangerous, which is why it makes people so nervous. Virtue has its own agenda, and believe me, it's not always yours. The word itself means strength, power. And when it gets loose, you'd better watch out."
Something bad might happen..."
Impossible. But possibly something painful"
-A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane”
― Diane Duane, A Wizard Alone

“She tried to walk softly and wished the trees wouldn't stare at her so.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Nita drank her tea, watching Roshaun read while he maneuvered the lollipop from one side of his mouth to the other. The bulge it produced looked very out of place against his otherwise flawless facial structure.
Roshaun felt Nita’s gaze resting on him, and looked up. “What?”
Nita controlled her smile. “The lollipop…”
“What about it?”
“I hate to say this, but you’re kind of spoiling your grandeur.”
“What grandeur he has,” Dairine remarked.
“Kings are made no less noble by eating,” Roshaun said. “Rather, they ennoble what they eat.”
“Wow, who sold you that one?” Nita said.”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War

“Yeah, I know, the Mars thing. I've been meaning to talk to you about that. When did you get the idea it would be cute to carve my dad's cell-phone number on a rock in the middle of Syrtis Major? He hates it when people call me on his phone."
Kit gave Nita a resigned look. "Sorry," he said, "I couldn't resist.”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War

“Dear Artificer, I’ve blown my quanta and gone to the Good Place!”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Where's my bed?!" Dairine shrieked.
"It's on Pluto," Nita said. "On the winter side, somewhere nice and dark and quiet, where you won't find it if you look all day-which you're not going to have time to do, becaus you'll be in school.”
― Diane Duane, A Wizard Alone

“Except when the freedom is one you don't choose to grant," Memeki said, more loudly this time. She was shaking herself all over, struggling to stand stright again. "You hold our hope with one claw and take it away with her other! I may be weak and doomed soon to die, but I will die as an I, not just one more nameless scarp of shell to be thrown out into the sucking mud! No matter how little a time it lasts, I will be what all these are" -she looked around at Kit and Ponch and Nita and the others-"selves unto themselves and being what matters to each other! Such a life, even a breath's worth of it, is better than anything you've ever given me!" Memeki was trembling again, but with passion with determinatin, desperate and doomed. She took a stem toward the dias, and another, her claw lifted not in that old gesture of submission, but in one more like a warrior's threat. "I will be what the Voice said I was, the Hesper I will be the Aeon of Light, the Power that made a different choice from yours. I will be the Star that did not fall, no matter how little a time the light lasts!”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War

“Fred started to follow, but Nita caught him in cupped hands, holding him back for a moment. "Fred! Did we do right?" Even here she couldn't keep the pain out of her question, the fear that she could have somehow have prevented his death. But Fred radiated a serene and wondering joy that took her breath and reassured her and filled her with wonder to match his, all at once. Go find out, he said.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard