slowlights > slowlights's Quotes

“One day, perhaps, you will see for yourself that regrets are as nothing. The value lies in how they are answered.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains

“The heart of wisdom is tolerance.”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“You stand before a god! Speak your eloquence for all posterity. Be Profound!"
"Profound ... huh." Temper was silent for a long moment, studying the cobbles of the alley mouth. And then he lifted his helmed head faced Shadowthrone, and said "Fuck off.”
― Steven Erikson, The Crippled God

“He was not a modest man. Contemplating suicide, he summoned a dragon.'
Gothos' Folly”
― Steven Erikson, The Crippled God

“It is not enough to wish for a better world for the children. It is not enough to shield them with ease and comfort. Lostara Yil, if we do not sacrifice our own ease, our own comfort, to make the future's world a better one, then we curse our own children. We leave them a misery they do not deserve; we leave them a host of lessons unearned.”
― Steven Erikson, The Crippled God

“Is it not miraculous, reader, the power of the mind to believe and not believe at once?”
― Ada Palmer, Too Like the Lightning

“The great breakthrough of our age is supposed to be that we measure success by happiness, admiring a man for how much he enjoyed his life, rather than how much wealth or fame he hoarded, that old race with no finish line. Diogenes with his barrel and his sunlight lived every hour of his life content, while Alexander fought and bled, mourned friends, faced enemies, and died unsatisfied. Diogenes is greater. Or does that past-tainted inner part of you—the part that still parses ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘he’ and ‘she’—still think that happiness alone is not achievement without legacy? Diogenes has a legacy. Diogenes ruled nothing, wrote nothing, taught nothing except by the example of his life to passersby, but, so impressed were those bypassers, that, after the better part of three millennia, we still know this about him.”
― Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders

“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“The truth was, most people simply weren’t worth one’s attention. *”
― Ian C. Esslemont, Dancer's Lament

“He didn't know what he wanted. He only knew what he didn't want.”
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

“Eventually you can't help but figure out that, while gender is a construct, so is a traffic light, and if you ignore either of them, you get hit by cars. Which, also, are constructs.”
― Imogen Binnie, Nevada

“It's fucking wild if you think about it, how well being totally checked out emotionally can look like normal American masculinity.”
― Imogen Binnie, Nevada

“I believe in God the way I believe in quarks. People whose business it is to know about quantum physics or religion tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks and God exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they've learned, I'd find quarks and God just like they did.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns

“A preoccupation with the next world clearly shows an inability to cope credibly with this one.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Broken Angels

“The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“If they asked how I died tell them: Still angry.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“To condense fact from the vapor of nuance.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“I just saved your fucking life, Mom. . . . You could at least offer me an Oreo.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“Stand high long enough and your lightning will come.”
― William Gibson

“All explicit knowledge is translated knowledge, and all translation is imperfect.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“Maple. Maypole
Catch and carry.
Ash and Ember.
Elderberry.
Woolen. Woman.
Moon at night.
Willow. Window.
Candlelight.
Fallow farrow.
Ash and oak.
Bide and borrow.
Chimney smoke.
Barrel. Barley.
Stone and stave.
Wind and water.
Misbehave.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“The only way to really appreciate your way is to compare it to somebody else's way. Figure out what you love, specifically. In detail. Figure out what you want to keep. Figure out what you want to change. Otherwise, it's not love. It's clinging to the familiar--to the comfortable--and that's a dangerous thing for us short-term thinkers to do. If you stay, stay because you want to, because you've found something here worth embodying, because you believe in it. Otherwise...well, there's no point in being here at all, is there?”
― Becky Chambers, Record of a Spaceborn Few

“I love learning. I love history. But there's history in everything. Every building, everybody you talk to. It's not limited to libraries and museums. I think people who spend their lives in school forget that sometimes. -Tak”
― Becky Chambers, A Closed and Common Orbit

“Just because someone goes away doesn't mean you stop loving them.”
― Becky Chambers, A Closed and Common Orbit

“All the things I’ve done to my body, I’ve done out of love.”
― Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

“Ninety percent of all problems are caused by people being assholes.”
“What causes the other ten percent?” asked Kizzy.
“Natural disasters,” said Nib.”
― Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet