Григорий Георгиевич > Григорий's Quotes

“There's really nothing quite like someone's wanting you dead to make you want to go on living.”
― Roger Zelazny, This Immortal

“I watched the spinning stars, grateful, sad and proud, as only a man who has outlived his destiny and realizes he might yet forge himself another, can be.”
― Roger Zelazny, Isle of the Dead

“Nobody steals books but your friends.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon

“I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.”
― Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber

“No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“There's no such thing as civilization. The word just means the art of living in cities.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Great Book of Amber

“His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils; and on that great Day of which the prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on the day the world is utterly cleansed of evil, then I too will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. Until then, I will not wash my hands nor let them hang useless.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon

“Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?"

"Because the world has need of your humility, your piety, your great teaching and your Machiavellian scheming.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“Love is a negative form of hatred.”
― Roger Zelazny, This Immortal

“The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Dream Master

“Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak.

"Yes—and no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape—then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect."

"Oh? And what may that be?"

"It is not a supernatural creature."

"But it is all those other things?"

"Yes."

"Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not—so long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will."

"Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy—it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“Of course it does not apply to me. I am the soul of honor, kindness, mercy and goodness. Trust me in all things.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon

“An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time. One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to have a chance of succeeding.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“You are a fool to speak of last great battles, Sam, for the last great battle is always the next one.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“Thus did I bear Sir Lancelot de Lac to the Keep of Ganleon, whom I trusted like a brother. That is to say, not at all.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon

“It is a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you.”
― Roger Zelazny, Trumps of Doom

“We fought.'
'A duel?'
'Nothing that formal. A simultaneous decision to murder one another is more like it.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon

“There are none of you, good doctors, could cope with my family anyway.”
― Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber

“He smelled the smells of commerce and listened to the cursing of the sailors, both of which he admired: the former, as it reeked of wealth, and the latter because it combined his two other chief preoccupations, these being theology and anatomy.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“In the State of Denmark there was the odor of decay...”
― Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber