Arnstein > Arnstein's Quotes

“Woe to the rash mortal who seeks to know that of which he should remain ignorant, and to undertake that which surpasseth his power!”
― William Beckford, Vathek

“At these words, the fathers of the fifty boys cried out aloud; the mothers repeated their exclamations an octave higher; whilst the rest, without knowing the cause, soon drowned the voices of both, with still louder lamentations of their own.”
― William Beckford, Vathek

“Monsignor…you are asking whether I promise God chastity, poverty, and obedience. I heard what you said and my answer is no”
― Denis Diderot, The Nun

“I sit, tired of reading. I am sick of books. I can't tell where I leave off and the books begin. I'm nobody. I'm a polluted nothing. A confessed sin, an open door, the clutterer in the clutter.”
― Katherine Dunn, Truck

“Most people seem to turn off at some point in their lives. Maybe it's thirty or forty. For most people it's lots younger. They stop there. Stop growing or changing or learning or something. From that point on they're dead.”
― Katherine Dunn, Truck

“The harvest of this world is to the resolute, and he that is infirm of purpose is ground betwixt the upper and the nether millstone”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“with cunning colubrine and malice viperine and sleights serpentine”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“The sun stooped to the western waves, entering his bath of blood-red fire. He sank, and all the ways were darkened.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“Let worthy minds ne'er stagger in distrust
To suffer death or shame for what is just”
― E. R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“This last best luck of all: that earth should gape for me when my great deeds were ended.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“Us, little children of the dust, children of a day, who with so many burdens do burden us with taking thought and with fears and desires and devious schemings of the mind, so that we wax old before our time and fall weary ere the brief day be spent and one reaping-hook gather us home at last for all our pains.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“But because day at her dawning hours hath so bewitched me, must I yet love her when glutted with triumph she settles to garish noon? . . . Who dares call me turncoat, who do but follow now as I have followed this rare wisdom all my days: to love the sunrise and the sundown and the morning and the evening star.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“Thunder and blood and night must usurp our parts, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this great piece.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“Lightning shall be slow to my hasting.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“He that feareth is a slave, were he never so rich, were he never so powerful. But he that is without fear is king of all the world. Though hast my sword. Strike. Death shall be a sweet rest to me. Thraldom, not death, should terrify me.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“In which star of the unclimbed sky wilt though begin our search? Or in which of the secret streams of the ocean where the last green rays are quenched in oozy darkness?”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“But Gro smiled a sad smile and said, "Why should we by words of ill omen strike yet another blow where the tree tottereth?”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“An offer indeed," said Lord Brandoch Daha; "if it be not in mockery. Say it loud, that my folk may hear." Corund did so, and the Demons heard it from the walls of the burg. Lord Brandoch Daha stood somewhat apart from Juss and Spitfire and their guard. "Libel it me out," he said. "For good as I now must deem thy word, thine hand and seal must I have to show my followers ere they consent with me in such a thing."
"Write thou," said Corund to Gro. "To write my name is all my scholarship." And Gro took forth his ink-born and wrote in a great fair hand this offer on a parchment. "The most fearfullest oaths thou knowest," said Corund; and Gro wrote them, whispering, "He mocketh us only." But Corund said, "No matter: 'tis a chance worth our chancing," and slowly and with labour signed his name to the writing, and gave it to Lord Brandoch Daha. Brandoch Daha read it attentively, and tucked it in his bosom beneath his byrny.
"This," he said, "shall be a keepsake for me of thee, my Lord Corund. Reminding me," and here his eyes grew terrible, "so long as there surviveth a soul of you in Witchland, that I am still to teach the world throughly what that man must abide that durst affront me with such an offer.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“Abase thee and serve me, worm of the pit. Else will I by and by summon out of ancient night intelligences and dominations mightier far than thou, and they shall serve my ends, and thee shall they chain with chains of quenchless fire and drag thee from torment to torment through the deep.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“These things hath Fate brought to pass, and we be but Fate's whipping-tops bandied what way she will.”
― E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

“I wish I were dead," whined Pepsi.
"So do I," said Moxie.
"May the good fairy what sits in the sky grant yer every wish," said Spam.”
― The Harvard Lampoon, Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

“To assist him in his duties there was a rather large police force which did nothing but extract confessions, mostly from squirrels.”
― The Harvard Lampoon, Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

“There were a great many beds arranged around the walls, all of which looked as though they had recently been slept in by perverted kangaroos...”
― The Harvard Lampoon, Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

“At the mention of his name, Frito gurgled loudly and fell off his sheep, and the Ring dropped out of his clothes and rolled to Orlon's feet. One of the sheep trotted up, licked it, and turned into a fire hydrant.”
― The Harvard Lampoon, Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

“If only I'd listened to my Uncle Poo-poo and gone into dentistry," whined Pepsi.
"If I'd stayed home, I'd be big in encyclopedias by now," sniffled Moxie.
"And if I had ten pounds o' ciment and a couple o' sacks, you'd a' both gone for a stroll in that pond an hour ago," said Spam.”
― The Harvard Lampoon, Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

“I find that I have been scribbling away for nearly an hour. Miss Gisborne keeps on saying that I am too prone to the insertion of unnecessary hyphens, and that it is a weakness. If a weakness it is, I intend to cherish it.”
― Robert Aickman, Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories

“Elmo found, as have many, that the death of the heart corrupted the pen into writing a farrago of horrors and insanities, not necessarily the less true for their seeming extravagance, but inaccessible for the most part to the prudent.”
― Robert Aickman, Cold Hand in Mine

“Keep your relationships brief. Don’t let them in. Once they’re inside they have more potential to hurt you. Comfort yourself. You can live with the anguish as long as it only involves yourself. As long as there is no hope.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In

“Eli snorted, her eyes narrowed.
— Because I am like you.
— What do you mean like me? I..
Eli thrust her hand through the air as if she was holding a knife, said:
— What are you looking at, idiot? Want to die, or something? — Stabbed the air with empty hand. — That what happens if you look at me.
Oskar rubbed his lips together, dampening them.
— What are you saying?
— It's not me that's saying it. It's you. That was the first thing I heard you say. Down on the playground.
Oskar remembered. The tree. The knife. How he had held up the blade of the knife like a mirror, seen Eli for the first time.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In

“One thing we were taught as templars is that, in moments of doubt, you must always give people the opportunity to do good. Sometimes they surprise you. Sometimes they don't."
"Which one's the surprise?"
Now it was the templar's turn to offer a small, unfinished smile, barely visible in the dark. "That anyone ever actually gives someone else the chance.”
― Liane Merciel, Last Flight