AoC > AoC's Quotes

“Fear is the heat of the forge, the beating of the hammer. If the iron is good then a good blade may come of it. If the iron is poor then something brittle and useless will be born and broken soon after. When you face men across the field of battle, then we will see what kind of iron you are made of. You have my blood in you. Trust in it, and bring no shame upon our tribe. And be wary. Victory will test your iron in ways defeat cannot. Remember your brothers, your kin, your fealty to the gods.”
― Schuyler Hernstrom, Thune's Vision

“No, but you see what I mean: you should be able to renew your youth in the generation that follows yours. In your thirties, your sons keep you nimble and laughing. In your forties, they keep you worried and attached to the world. In your fifties, you may have grandchildren to play with. You can live till your grandchildren come along to see your creaking smiles and your card tricks… They replenish you. If everyone's cut off from all that — who's to wonder if time goes wrong, or if poor old Charley gets some crazy idea about seeing gnomes?”
― Brian W. Aldiss, Greybeard

“In China the egalitarian movement came not just from Zhu’s vision, but also from the Daoist ideas of balance, as Zhu would always point out. In Travancore it rose out of the Buddhist idea of compassion, in Yingzhou from the Hodenosaunee idea of the equality of all, in Firanja from the idea of justice before God.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt

“Far from being unnatural, as you call, it is commonplace when you have evil conditions. Poverty is more strong than morality. That’s another reason why for the world must submit to progress. Misery must be decreased before everyone will choke to death on it.”
― Brian W. Aldiss, The Malacia Tapestry

“The Guardships don't defend Canon, they exterminate Canon's enemies. There's a difference.”
― Glen Cook, The Dragon Never Sleeps

“And explaining them - I now feel myself duty-bound to do it, if only because I am the author of these records, to say nothing of the fact that the unknown is in general the enemy of man, and Homo sapiens is not fully man until his grammar is absolutely rid of question marks, leaving nothing but exclamation points, commas, and periods.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Pity always was a luxury. It’s all right if the tragedy’s a comfortable distance away – if you can watch it from a seat in the cinema. It’s different when you find it on your doorstep – on every doorstep.”
― John Christopher, The Death of Grass

“Each smiled and nodded courteously, and each knew the other lied.”
― Robert E. Howard, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King

“After all, show me a man who dislikes being raped slowly and enthusiastically by a hotblooded gorgeous Irish colleen, and I’ll show you a man with a problem.”
― David Graham, Down to a Sunless Sea

“This was a showdown between things that had the shape of men, but weren’t men.”
― Hideyuki Kikuchi, Vampire Hunter D Volume 2: Raiser of Gales

“The functions filled spacetime and they pierced his soul. Exhilarated, he rode their gaudy brilliance through the hearts of aging stars.”
― Stephen Baxter, Timelike Infinity

“I will never be a scholar, but this I know: talk of omens and portents is ridiculous. Star charts are fine for navigation, but not prognostication. Perhaps someday people will accept that the time of prophecy has passed and take upon themselves the responsibility of their own decisions.”
― Elaine Cunningham, Dark Tapestry

“Dresden, who was a king as of the old age, swished his tail--just once. Then, deliberately, he turned to face the coming dogs. Every muscle stood out in stark relief. He roared. The sound echoed down the street, bouncing off the neat suburban houses and well-manicured hedges with the force of dynamite. The dogs flowed at him like a tide, bottomless and unstoppable.

Dresden charged them.”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“It is far, far better to earn the loyalty of the people you are forced to trust. I find that slaves make unreliable servants. Many of my enemies keep their retainers in bondage - and that, Thompson, is a very useful thing.”
― Stewart Wieck, Clan Novel Saga, Volume 2: The Eye of Gehenna

“Now that difference was a cold lump within her, a lump which had grown with every moment of time since they had snapped out of hyper to enter this system. Were the old calculations really to be trusted? Was this the home planet from which her species had lifted into space at the beginning of man's climb to the stars?”
― Andre Norton, Breed to Come

“Please don't think that my actions have been an attempt to earn redemption, or that what I've told you is a plea for mercy. I deserve to die.”
― Robbie Morrison, Shakara: The Avenger

“In all things we strive to eradicate weakness, but it is not weakness to ask for help, my brothers. It is weakness to deny that help is needed. To fight on without hope when there are those who would gladly lend a hand is foolish, and I have been as blind as any to this, but no more.”
― Graham McNeill, Fulgrim

“SENSORS DETECT GODWAVE ACTIVATION. COUNTDOWN RUNNING. THE UNIVERSE ENDS IN 4.25 MINUTES.”
― Robbie Morrison, Shakara: The Destroyer

“A wailing sound exploded and filled the universe, a shrieking, terrible sound that reverberated and beat against itself. It came so suddenly that it made me jump and stiffen. The sound seemed to fill the world and to dog the sky and it didn’t stop, but kept on and on.”
― Clifford D. Simak, All Flesh is Grass

“Alone and in the silence, I sensed the purpleness - the formless, subtle personality of the things that owned this planet. There was a friendliness, I thought, but a repulsive friendliness, the fawning friendliness of some monstrous beast. And I was afraid.”
― Clifford D. Simak, All Flesh is Grass

“Humanity has been accidentally causing global warming for a century. Let’s see what we can do when we really set our minds to it.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“There was a silence for a while. Finally, Sloosh opened his eyes. He said, "I've traced my line of thought. It's rational and analytic. No. I'm not crazy.”
― Philip José Farmer, Dark is the Sun

“So here you are near the end of the world, savages, beings who, given the time, would build up a great civilization again. You don't have the time, and the long, long story, the many-eons tale of humankind, will end. For what reason? I don't know. The universe, looked at logically, is, despite all its intricate order and irresistible physical principles, senseless.”
― Philip José Farmer, Dark is the Sun

“But people had grown soft. What else was the point of victory? They had Poles to dig their gardens and Ukrainians to sweep their streets, French chefs to cook their food and English maids to serve it. Having tasted the comforts of peace they had lost their appetite for war.”
― Robert Harris, Fatherland

“This was long before internal parasites had labyrinth their way into the mechanisms of eternity.”
― Brian W. Aldiss, Moment of Eclipse

“I have walked long path to get to you, Varth. A lot longer than your labyrinth... the path of a lifetime.”
― Grzegorz Rosiński, Thorgal, Vol. 6: The City of the Lost God

“Here you could find a chromosartor or genebender or simple trope doser who would perform any possible alteration on your somatype or genotype-for a price. If you had the eft, you could be snipped, ripped or zipped; pumped, stumped or trumped; strobed, lobed or probed; primped, skimped or pimped; vented, scented or demented.”
― Paul Di Filippo, Ribofunk

“Let this discovery pass us by. Record it and relegate it to the darkest part of the Vaults, some unused corner of the Repository. Just don't let it leave this lodge.”
― James L. Sutter, The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline

“It was with pure secular horror that Maria watched the Behemoth knit together the strands of protein to create a pig before her very eyes.”
― Mur Lafferty, Six Wakes

“Death is no plague. I free you from the plague. I am the warm, cozy nest where the little lives filled with fear can flee. I am a festival of freedom, the biggest. I am the last slumber song.”
― Dave Maass, Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis