J A Bird

“Indeed, with words. Form an opinion, say it often enough and pretty soon everyone’s saying it right back at you, and then it becomes a conviction, fed by unreasoning anger and defended with weapons of fear. At which point, words become useless and you’re left with a fight to the death.’ Karsa grunted. ‘A fight beyond death, I would say.’ ‘True enough. Generation after generation.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“The artist looked down at the paper. “‘She has the face,’” he read, “‘of a Spink.’” “Right,” said Dibbler. “Right!” “I thought maybe Sphinx—” “Will you listen to the man?” said Dibbler, talking to the sky again. He glared at the artist. “She doesn’t look like two of them, does she? One Spink, two Spinks. Now get on with it. I want those posters all around the city first thing tomorrow.”
― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

“Everything you’ve said is true. It’s hard, and it’s awful, and it’s how things happened. The past is no longer in motion. There’s nothing for you to do but accept it. Only now did Bell realize that, to him, acceptance had meant something too close to “surrender.” That wasn’t it at all. Acceptance was strength. It was being able to carry the weight of what had been, and what had not, through all the many days, months, years, and decades to follow.”
― Claudia Gray, The Fallen Star

“There was no doubt it was a forbidding door. It looked as though its designer had studied all the cell doors he could find and had then gone away and produced a version for, as it were, full visual orchestra. It was more of a portal. Some ancient and probably fearful warning was etched over its crumbling arch, but it was destined to remain unread because over it someone else had pasted a bright red-and-white notice which read: “You Don’t Have To Be ‘Damned’ To Work Here, But It Helps!!!” Rincewind squinted up at the notice. “Of course I can read it,” he said. “I just don’t happen to believe it.” “Multiple exclamation marks,” he went on, shaking his head, “are a sure sign of a diseased mind.”
― Terry Pratchett, Eric: Discworld: The Unseen University Collection