Sara > Sara's Quotes

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

“Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Real magic is the hand around the bandsaw, the thrown spark in the powder keg, the dimension-warp linking you straight into the heart of a star, the flaming sword that burns all the way down to the pommel. Sooner juggle torches in a tar pit than mess with real magic. Sooner lie down in front of a thousand elephants.”
― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

“Conventionality is not morality.”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“So the Dark did a simple thing. They showed the maker of the sword his own uncertainty and fear. Fear of having done the wrong thing--fear that having done this one great thing, he would never again be able to accomplish anything of great worth--fear of age, of insufficiency, of unmet promise. All such great fears, that are the doom of people given the gift of making, and lie always somewhere in their minds.”
― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree

“For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it. Old One, do we not? For ever and ever ... so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.”
― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree

“When you know that something's going to happen, you'll start trying to see signs of its approach in just about everything. Always try to remember that most of the things that happen in this world aren't signs. They happen because they happen, and their only real significance lies in normal cause and effect. You'll drive yourself crazy if you start trying to pry the meaning out of every gust of wind or rain squall. I'm not denying that there might actually be a few signs that you won't want to miss. Knowing the difference is the tricky part.”
― David Eddings, Belgarath the Sorcerer

“But men often mistake killing and revenge for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.”
― Robert Jordan

“Take what you can have. Rejoice in what you can save, and do not mourn your loses for too long.”
― Robert Jordan

“She had to find her own story, and she could make it whatever shape she thought best.”
― Tad Williams, River of Blue Fire

“I don't have to agree with you to like you or respect you.”
― Anthony Bourdain

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappaccini's Daughter

“A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“People simplify 'Apollonian' into 'mild', and 'calm', and 'cool'. But 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' are two sides of one coin--a nun kneeling in her cell, holding perfectly still, can be in ecstacy more frenzied than any priestess of Pan Priapus celebrating the vernal equinox.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless.
The tale is the map that is the territory.
You must remember this.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Heroism' often consists in keeping your head in an emergency and doing the best you can with what you have instead of panicking and being shot in the tail. People who fight this way win more battles than do intentional heroes; a glory hound often throws away the lives of his mates as well as his own.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“On the whole, stories don't write themselves.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

“Rules and responsibilities: these are the ties that bind us. We do what we do, because of who we are. If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves. I will do what I have to do. And I will do what I must.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Book of Dreams

“That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake

“Only the phoenix rises and does not descend. And everything changes. And nothing is truly lost.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“Seeing things a human shouldn't have to see makes us human.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“In order to have a change of fortune at the last minute, you have to take your fortune to the last minute.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“Don't you *ever* let go?"
"I haven't yet."
"Why?"
"I suppose... because in this world, after everyone panics, there's always got to be someone to tip the wee out of the shoe.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“You have to believe. Otherwise, it will never happen.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“Them as can do has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men