S.M. Stirling > Quotes

“There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot.”
― S. M. Stirling

“Now let's move on to the subject of how a real man treats his wife. A real man doesn't slap even a ten-dollar hooker around, if he's got any self respect, much less hurt his own woman. Much less ten times over the mother of his kids. A real man busts his ass to feed his family, fights for them if he has to, dies for them if he has to. And he treats his wife with respect every day of his life, treats her like a queen - the queen of the home she makes for their children.”
― S.M. Stirling, Dies the Fire

“And the first king was a lucky soldier.”
― S.M. Stirling, Dies the Fire

“Strange, isn't it, that it's always more difficult to talk people out of killing each other than into it?”
― S.M. Stirling, A Meeting at Corvallis

“You can learn by listening, or by getting whacked between the eyes with a two-by-four. I always found listening easier.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Protector's War

“Stress" is mostly the result of not being allowed to kill some asshole you really want to slice and dice.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Sword of the Lady

“It is easy to kill. It is equally easy to destroy glass windows. Any fool can do either. Why is it only the wise who perceive that it is wisdom to let live, when even lunatics can sometimes understand that it is better to open a window than to smash the glass?”
― S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God

“Sacredness grew like a pearl, sometimes around the most unlikely bits of grit.”
― S.M. Stirling , Lord of Mountains

“Being ignorant is truly bliss compared to being misinformed, especially if you’re aware of the depths of your own ignorance. As Mother says, it isn’t what you don’t know that will kill you, it’s what you think you know that just isn’t so.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Given Sacrifice

“Because those events are so real that they cast their shadow forward and backwards through all time, whenever men think of these matters at all. Even if they are mired in ignorace, they will see...fragments of the Truth, as men imprisoned in a cave see shadows cast by the sun. Likewise, all men derive their moral intuitions from God; how not? There is no other source, just as there is no other way to make a wheel than to make it round.”
― S.M. Stirling

“Sandra was fond of an old Russian saying: When a man causes you a problem, remember: no man, no problem.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Sword of the Lady

“Truth is a ladder of many rungs, and that from each we gain a new perspective?″”
― S.M. Stirling, The Sword of the Lady

“Grief is the tribute we pay the dead," she said, matter-of-fact sympathy in her voice. "But they don't ask more than we can afford to give. They've never really gone from us, you know, those we love; they're part of our story, and we of theirs.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Protector's War

“There may be a worse form of government than theocracy in the long run, but offhand I can't think of any.”
― S.M. Stirling, A Meeting at Corvallis

“He smiled, looking into the flames. "He used to sleep on the foot of my bed, bad breath and gas and all, and I even took him hunting."

"It's odd to take a dog hunting?"

"Max? Yeah, sort of like taking along a brass band. He saved a lot of deer from death.”
― S.M. Stirling, Dies the Fire

“Be your own judge. But commit no trespass, remembering that where another's liberty begins your own inevitably meets its boundary.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God

“Manure grew the fodder for the cow that made that ice cream and fertilized the beets that gave us the sugar, my girl," Juniper said sternly. "Earth must be fed or we all go hungry.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Protector's War

“It doesn't stop being magic because you can you explain it, Father.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God

“Likes to fight, does he?" Sandra said thoughtfully.

"Oh, yeah. He says there are only two reasons to fight."

"Which are?"

"Joy and death."

Her mother's brows went up. "Joy in death?"

"No, no... For joy, to stretch yourself with a friend; or death, to kill as quickly as you can. Nothing in between.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Sunrise Lands

“... and he kills without fear, or anger, or hate, with regret even, simply because its necessary. That's rare, and it's rare still among the really first-rate. God help the enemy that finally frightens him or makes him mad.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Sunrise Lands

“. . . you should always kick a man when he's down. It's much easier then.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Tears of the Sun

“God is the greatest of artists! How good of Him to give us this world, and the change to imitate Him by bettering it. Wryly: If only we did not mar it, and ourselves, so often!”
― S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God

“Mackenzies buried a rapist at a crossroads, with a spear thrust in the soil above; and they buried him living when they could, as a sacrifice to turn aside the anger of the Earth Powers.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God

“(Dennis says) "Hey, you're playing confuse-the-unbeliever again. I have never been able to get a straight answer on whether you guys have two deities or dozens, taken from any pantheon you feel like mugging in a theological dark alley. Which is it? Number one or number two?"

"Yes," Juniper said, with all the other coven members joining in to make a ragged chorus...”
― S.M. Stirling, Dies the Fire

“Yes, she loved the Lord and Lady in Their many forms . . . but those forms spanned the universe of space and time that sprang from Them, and They could be as terrible as the fiery death of suns, as inexorable as Time. A mother's kiss on her child's face came from Them, but so also the glaciers that grind continents to dust.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God

“Sure it is that They have many faces. All the shapes the Divine shows us are true; and none are all the Truth.”
― S.M. Stirling, The High King of Montival

“The others saw him as he stumbled down the stairs, bleeding from nose and ears and eyes an mouth. The sheathed form of the Sword lay across his palms. He met their eyes, and choked out:

"Remember. Remember, all of you."

Mathilda's voice was infinitely gentle. "Remember what?"

"That I was a man, before I was King. Remember for me, when I forget.

His hand closed on the black double-lobed hilt, and the moonfire in the opal glowed. He drew the Sword, thrust it high.

And screamed as pain beyond all bearing ripped through him like white fire, turning his body to a thing of ash smoke.

He screamed, and knew.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Sword of the Lady

“It was hard, to be stripped of the cold comforts of her simple atheistic faith in middle-age. The more so as the evidence seemed to lead to the conclusion that all the religions were true, including the ones that flatly contradicted each other.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Tears of the Sun

“Myths are lies; but I believe in the power of myths the way I believe in rocks.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Sunrise Lands

“God is no respecter of either persons or names - Dieu or Gott or Kyrie or Adonai or Wakantanka. He is the Great Spirit whose pity we ask.”
― S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God