Betty > Betty's Quotes

“Yahweh: You've been unhappy because you've desired things that cannot be.

Lucifer: That's what desire IS. The need for what we can't have. The need for what's readily available is called greed.”
― Mike Carey, Lucifer, Vol. 11: Evensong

“They used to call the devil the father of lies. But for someone whose sin is meant to be pride, you'd think that lying would leave something of a sour taste. So my theory is that when the devil wants to get something out of you, he doesn't lie at all. He tells you the exact, literal truth. And he lets you find your own way to hell.”
― Mike Carey

“We make our own monsters, then fear them for what they show us about ourselves.”
― Mike Carey & Peter Gross, The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity

“All stories are lies. But good stories are lies made from light and fire. And they lift our hearts out of the dust, and out of the grave.”
― Mike Carey, Lucifer, Vol. 11: Evensong

“You use the word "Infinity" very glibly.... Have you ever been there? Time and space are extensions of the mind, the will. Which means that infinity is a purely local phenomenon. You can turn over a stone and find it crawling there. Or you can make it yourself out of whatever materials are at hand.”
― Mike Carey, Lucifer, Vol. 3: A Dalliance With the Damned

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Fear cuts deeper than swords.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth.”
― George R.R. Martin

“What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”
― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“The prince is never going to come. Everyone knows that; and maybe sleeping beauty's dead.”
― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“You do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written — behind your silence and your suffering.”
― Anne Rice

“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.”
― Anne Rice, The Witching Hour

“The world changes, we do not, therein lies the irony that kills us.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself.”
― Anne Rice

“Consequently, if you believe God made Satan, you must realize that all Satan's power comes from God and so that Satan is simply God's child, and that we are God's children also. There are no children of Satan, really.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire