Tabbycat > Tabbycat's Quotes

“To love is to be selfless. To be selfless is to be fearless. To be fearless is to strip enemies of their greatest weapon. Even if they break our bodies and drain our blood, we are unvanquished. Our goal was never to live; our goal is to love. It is the goal of all noble men and women. Give all that can be given. Give even your live itself.”
― N.D. Wilson, Empire of Bones

“Sometimes standing against evil is more important than defeating it. The greatest heroes stand because it is right to do so, not because they believe they will walk away with their lives. Such selfless courage is a victory in itself.”
― N.D. Wilson, Dandelion Fire

“Cowards live for the sake of living, but for heroes, life is a weapon, a thing to be spent, a gift to be given to the weak and the lost and the weary, even to the foolish and the cowardly.”
― N.D. Wilson, Empire of Bones

“Your life is your own, your glory is your glory, but you will lose it if you keep it for yourself. Grasp it for the sake of others...”
― N.D. Wilson, Dandelion Fire

“That wasn't me. I'm not a morning person. There's another person inside of me that does all the morning things.”
― N.D. Wilson, The Dragon's Tooth

“Every year, Kansas watches the world die. Civilizations of wheat grow tall and green; they grow old and golden, and then men shaped from the same earth as the crop cut those lives down. And when the grain is threshed, and the dances and festivals have come and gone, then the fields are given over to fire, and the wheat stubble ascends into the Kansas sky, and the moon swells to bursting above a blackened earth.

The fields around Henry, Kansas, had given up their gold and were charred. Some had already been tilled under, waiting for the promised life of new seed. Waiting for winter, and for spring, and another black death.

The harvest had been good. Men, women, boys and girls had found work, and Henry Days had been all hot dogs and laughter, even without Frank Willis's old brown truck in the parade.

The truck was over on the edge of town, by a lonely barn decorated with new No Trespassing signs and a hole in the ground where the Willis house had been in the spring and the early summer. Late summer had now faded into fall, and the pale blue farm house was gone. Kansas would never forget it.”
― N.D. Wilson, The Chestnut King

“Kansas is not easily impressed. It has seen houses fly and cattle soar. When funnel clouds walk through the wheat, big hail falls behind. As the biggest stones melt, turtles and mice and fish and even men can be seen frozen inside. And Kansas is not surprised.

Henry York had seen things in Kansas, things he didn't think belonged in this world. Things that didn't. Kansas hadn't flinched.”
― N.D. Wilson, Dandelion Fire

“Her evil cannot reach us here. Let us burn the ancient tree-mace trees and close off the ancient ways. Tear down the tower, the crown of our barrow, and let us hide ourselves from evil. Let no one leave the mound, and if evil grows, we shall flee farther.

No! Let evil hear the pounding of our feet! Let evil hear our drumming and our chanting songs of war. Let evil fear us! Let evil flee! In any world, may dark things know our names and fear. May their vile skins creep and shiver at every mention of the faeren. Let the night flee before the dawn and darkness crowd into the shadows. We march to war!"

- Nudd, the Chestnut King”
― N.D. Wilson, The Chestnut King

“What I say is, don't go playing unless you can win. Only sit down to chess with idiots, only kick a dog what's dead already, and don't love a lady unless she loves you first.”
― N.D. Wilson, Dandelion Fire

“He was a man with eyebrows, or maybe they were eyebrows with a man. Ownership would have been hard to establish, and Cyrus couldn’t focus on anything else—the two fur hedges looked like they were trying to escape his face.”
― N.D. Wilson, The Dragon's Tooth

“Don't you touch my sister
or i will seriously try to kill you.
-Cyrus Smith”
― N.D. Wilson, The Dragon's Tooth

“Son," his father said. "Run faithfully to the end, and like all good men, you will die of having lived.”
― N.D. Wilson, The Drowned Vault

“Henry flopped onto his bed, and his steam leaked slowly out. He began telling himself a story in his head. It was about how just and kind and understanding he was. It was about right he had been, how necessary his tone and word choice. It was about a girl who just didn't understand, who was completely ignorant. Then, for some reason, the narrator of the story included an incident in which Henry ha pushed an envelope into a strange place just to see what would happen. It hadn't even been an accident. The incident did not fit with the rest of the story, so Henry tried to ignored it. He couldn't ignore it, so he tried to explain it. Completely different things. The post office was obviously not dangerous. It was yellow. I just wanted to see what the mailman would do. The flashlight was stupid. I didn't shine a flashlight into the post office. She didn't even act sorry. I would have acted sorry. I always act sorry when people get upset. She didn't even care that I probably saved her life. She didn't know. She was unconscious. Oh, shut up.”
― N.D. Wilson, 100 Cupboards

“The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not try to pretend there is no danger. Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.”
― N.D. Wilson, Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God's Spoken World

“Self-loathing and self-worship can easily be the same thing. You hate the small sack of fluids and resentments that you are, and you would go to any length, and betray anything and anyone, to preserve it.”
― N.D. Wilson, Dandelion Fire

“Woman and children behind the lines!' he yelled, and all the girls jumped. Henry froze with his mouth open. 'Bang the drum slowly and ask not for whom the bell's ringing, for the answer's unfriendly!' He threw a fist in the air. 'Two years have my black ships sat before Troy, and today its gate shall open before the strength of my arm.' Dotty was laughing from the kitchen. Frank looked at his nephew. 'Henry, we play baseball tomorrow. Today we sack cities. Dots! Fetch me my tools! Down with the French! Once more into the breach, and fill the wall with our coward dead! Half a league! Half a league! Hey, batter, batter!'
Frank brought his fist down onto the table, spilling Anastasia's milk, and then he struck a pose with both arms above his head and his chin on his chest. The girls cheered and applauded. Aunt Dotty stepped back into the dining room carrying a red metal toolbox.”
― N.D. Wilson, 100 Cupboards

“You can't buy history new.”
― N.D. Wilson, 100 Cupboards

“Frank sniffed. 'You know me well, wife. I thought those were in the
basement.'
'They were. You should have been an English teacher, Frank.'
'What are we going to do?' Henry asked.
'We're going to build a wooden horse, stick you inside it, and offer
it up as a gift,' Frank answered.
'Burn your bridges when you come to them,' Dotty said. She smiled at
Frank, picked up the empty plates, and walked back into the kitchen.
'Can we watch?' Henrietta asked.
'You,' Frank said, 'can go play in the barn, the yard, the fields, or
the ditches, so long as you are nowhere near the action. C'mon, Henry.'
The girls moaned and complained while Henry followed his uncle up the
stairs. At the top, they walked all the way around the landing until
they faced the very old, very wooden door to Grandfather's bedroom.
Uncle Frank set down his tools.
'Today is the day, Henry. I can feel it. I never told your aunt this,
but my favorite book's in there. I was reading it to your Grandfather
near the end. It's been due back at the library for awhile now, and
it'd be nice to be able to check something else out.”
― N.D. Wilson, 100 Cupboards

“Cyrus squinted through the rain at the old man, at the truck, at the crackling Golden Lady. What was going on? None of this seemed real. But it was. The rain on his skin. The soggy waffle and drooping napkins. The smell of gunpowder.”
― N.D. Wilson, The Dragon's Tooth

“Henry successfully kept his mind on the game, which might seem strange for a boy who slept beside a wall of magic. But baseball was as magical to him as a green, mossy mountain covered in ancient trees. What's more, baseball was a magic he could run around in and laugh about. While the magic of the cupboards was not necessarily good, the smell of leather mixed with dusty sweat and spitting and running through sparse grass after a small ball couldn't be anything else.”
― N.D. Wilson, 100 Cupboards

“Horace smiled. "Always breakfast like a man condemned. One never knows that a day may bring.”
― N.D. Wilson, The Dragon's Tooth

“I have ridden with death, and walked beside it. Some say I have sought it. The search would not have been difficult, but I look for the death of my enemies first. That is much harder to find.”
― N.D. Wilson, Dandelion Fire

“Henry's in the cupbord,' Richard said. 'I opted to sit this one out. Would it be incovenient for me to stay?”
― N.D. Wilson, 100 Cupboards

“No place is ever the same tomorrow.”
― N.D. Wilson, Empire of Bones

“Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others.”
― Brandon Mull, Fablehaven

“We humans are conflicted beings. Our beliefs don't always harmonize with our instincts, and our behavior doesn't always reflect our beliefs. ... We wage war between the person we are and the person we hope to become.”
― Brandon Mull

“Drink the milk.”
― Brandon Mull, Fablehaven

“Choices determine character.”
― Brandon Mull, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

“An unread book does nobody any good. Stories happen in the mind of a reader, not among symbols printed on a page.”
― Brandon Mull

“When jumping is the sole option, you jump, and try to make it work.”
― Brandon Mull, Grip of the Shadow Plague