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“My youngest brother had a wonderful schtick from some time in high school, through to graduating medicine. He had a card in his wallet that read, ‘If I am found with amnesia, please give me the following books to read …’ And it listed half a dozen books where he longed to recapture that first glorious sense of needing to find out ‘what happens next’ … the feeling that keeps you up half the night. The feeling that comes before the plot’s been learned.”
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“In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.”
― Tigana
― Tigana
“The deeds of men, as footprints in the desert.
Nothing under the circling moons is fated to last.
Even the sun goes down.”
― The Lions of Al-Rassan
Nothing under the circling moons is fated to last.
Even the sun goes down.”
― The Lions of Al-Rassan
“How we remember changes how we have lived.
Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.”
― Under Heaven
Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.”
― Under Heaven
“There are kinds of action, for good or ill, that lie so far outside the boundaries of normal behavior that they force us, in acknowledging that they have occurred, to restructure our own understanding of reality. We have to make room for them.”
― The Summer Tree
― The Summer Tree
“Words were power, words tried to change you, to shape bridges of longing that no one could ever really cross.”
― Tigana
― Tigana
“One man sees a riselka: his life forks there.
Two men see a riselka: one of them shall die.
Three men see a riselka: one is blessed, one forks, one shall die.
One woman sees a riselka: her path comes clear to her.
Two women see a riselka: one of them shall bear a child.
Three women see a riselka: one is blessed, one is clear, one shall bear a child.”
― Tigana
Two men see a riselka: one of them shall die.
Three men see a riselka: one is blessed, one forks, one shall die.
One woman sees a riselka: her path comes clear to her.
Two women see a riselka: one of them shall bear a child.
Three women see a riselka: one is blessed, one is clear, one shall bear a child.”
― Tigana
“We must be what we are, or we become our enemies. ”
― A Song for Arbonne
― A Song for Arbonne
“The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was.”
― Under Heaven
― Under Heaven
“The heart has its own laws... and the truth is... the truth is that you are the law of mine.”
― Tigana
― Tigana
“A hard truth: that courage can be without meaning or impact, need not be rewarded, or even known. The world has not been made in that way. Perhaps, however, within the self there might come a resonance, the awareness of having done something difficult, of having done . . . something.”
― The Last Light of the Sun
― The Last Light of the Sun
“Full moon is falling through the sky.
Cranes fly through clouds.
Wolves howl. I cannot find rest
Because I am powerless
To amend a broken world.
Sima Zian added, "I love the man who wrote that, I told you before, but there is so much burden in Chan Du. Duty, assuming all tasks, can betray arrogance. The idea we can know what must be done, and do it properly. We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is.”
― Under Heaven
Cranes fly through clouds.
Wolves howl. I cannot find rest
Because I am powerless
To amend a broken world.
Sima Zian added, "I love the man who wrote that, I told you before, but there is so much burden in Chan Du. Duty, assuming all tasks, can betray arrogance. The idea we can know what must be done, and do it properly. We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is.”
― Under Heaven
“We salvage what we can, what truly matters to us, even at the gates of despair.”
― The Summer Tree
― The Summer Tree
“We like to believe, or pretend, we know what we are doing in our lives. It can be a lie. Winds blow, waves carry us, rain drenches a man caught in the open at night, lightning shatters the sky and sometimes his heart, thunder crashes into him bringing the awareness he will die. We stand up, as best we can under that. We move forward as best we can, hoping for light, kindness, mercy, for ourselves and those we love.”
― A Brightness Long Ago
― A Brightness Long Ago
“Sometimes you didn't really arrive at a conclusion about your life, you just discovered that you already had.”
― Lord of Emperors
― Lord of Emperors
“Branching paths. The turning of days and seasons and years. Life offered you love sometimes, sorrow often. If you were very fortunate, true friendship. Sometimes war came.
You did what you could to shape your own peace, before you crossed over to the night and left the world behind, as all men did, to be forgotten or remembered, as time or love allowed.”
― Under Heaven
You did what you could to shape your own peace, before you crossed over to the night and left the world behind, as all men did, to be forgotten or remembered, as time or love allowed.”
― Under Heaven
“We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can’t even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176]”
― Sailing to Sarantium
― Sailing to Sarantium
“Only then, invisible to everyone and with her curtains drawn, did she allow her tears to fall: in love, and for his hurts, and in terrible pride.”
― Tigana
― Tigana
“The sailors say the rain misses the cloud even as it falls through light or dark into the sea. I miss her like that as I fall through my life, through time, the chaos of our time. I dream she is alive even now, but there is nothing to give weight or value to that, it is only me, and what I want to be true. It is only longing. We can want things so much sometimes. It is the way we are.”
― A Brightness Long Ago
― A Brightness Long Ago
“Eyyia?" said her husband, and Eliane bet Danel heard the mangling of her name as music.
"You sound like a marsh frog," she said, moving to stand before his chair.
By the flickering light she saw him smile.
"Where have you been," she asked. "My dear. I've needed you so much."
"Eyyia," he tried again, and stood up. His eyes were black hollows. They would always be hollows.
He opened his arms and she moved into the space they made in the world, and laying her head against his chest she permitted herself the almost unimaginable luxury of grief.”
― The Lions of Al-Rassan
"You sound like a marsh frog," she said, moving to stand before his chair.
By the flickering light she saw him smile.
"Where have you been," she asked. "My dear. I've needed you so much."
"Eyyia," he tried again, and stood up. His eyes were black hollows. They would always be hollows.
He opened his arms and she moved into the space they made in the world, and laying her head against his chest she permitted herself the almost unimaginable luxury of grief.”
― The Lions of Al-Rassan
“most hated by the dark, for their name is light.”
― The Fionavar Tapestry
― The Fionavar Tapestry
“He wanted to achieve something of surpassing beauty that would last. A creation that would mean that he--the mosaic worker Caius Crispus of Varena--had been born, and lived a life, and had come to understand a portion of the nature of the world, of what ran through and beneath the deeds of women and men in their souls and in the beauty and the pain of their short living beneath the sun.”
― Sailing to Sarantium
― Sailing to Sarantium
“Do you know the wish of your heart?" - The Darkest Road”
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