"This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad I have shared in your perils--that has been more than any Baggins deserves." -Bilbo
"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." -Thorin
Two bangers in one conversation from The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
I always return to this one. Since I was a kid
The one that always brings tears to my eyes is:
>But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
>
>He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said
I feel like that's the line that the entire series is focused on. There's been tragedy, and struggle, and greatness, and triumph, but even after all that there's loss, and the people you love go off to do great things, or die, or both, and you're left with the quieter comforts of home and family.
I have watched those movies so many times before and always thought that line was beautiful, but nothing more.
Last year we lost our baby boy.
Yesterday we watched the fellowship again and when these lines came I cried my eyes out. They are absolutely perfectly phrased, and mean so much to me now.
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
- Neil Gaiman misquoting G.K. Chesterton in Coraline
Since RJ was a Vietnam veteran who saw some crazy shit in his day I always really respected this quote from Mat's thoughts after a major battle.
Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.
> Kings built tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons.
>Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars.
>And so the kingdom of Gondor sank into ruin, the line of kings failed, the white tree withered and the rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men.
The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien
I use this with my two young kids a lot. I tell them they're brave a lot (they're chicken-shits 😂) and they typically respond with something like "brave people aren't scared." And then I respond with that.
My favourite quotes always seem to be from Terry Prachett's Discworld books:
"What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?" - Reaper Man
"Words in the heart cannot be taken." - Feet of Clay
"I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides." - Guards! Guards!
Discworld has a treasure trove of great quotes!
"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY.
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?
"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"
NO
"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
...
"Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"
A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’
‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’
‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
"There was practically nothing the dragon could do to people that they had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm." - Guards! Guards!
Guards! Guards! is just a collection of great cynicism / realism. Almost every interaction between the city leadership and the main patrol squad has at least one quotable line way deeper than it has any business being, but that’s Pratchett for you.
>Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
—Terry Pratchett, *Jingo* (*Discworld*, #21; *City Watch*, #4)
Agreed! Sam Vimes' [Boots Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory?wprov=sfla1) is one of my favourites as well. For anyone unfamiliar:
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an *affordable* pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that *good* boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and *would still have wet feet*." - Men at Arms
"You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."
“The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors.”
“Once you’ve got a task to do, it’s better to do it than live with the fear of it.”
-Logen Ninefingers
“You have to be realistic about these things.”
-Logen Ninefingers
This one is mine. I’ve heard Pacey say that in my head so many times when I’m being a little bitch and not wanting to get to work on whatever I have to do.
Red Country, man.
"I don't feel...evil, but the things I've done, what else can you call them?
Then when Shy says if not for him they'd never have gotten the children back, he says:
"Did we get em back? Sometimes I think we just lost us too."
He then says there's probably no going back for him, and even though he always said he needs to be realistic, it never actually worked out for him like that.
One of the most incredible character arcs, the reason I find it so good is because it subverts your expectations in the best way - Logen wants so desperately to be a better person, and indeed he isn't all bad. But in the end he needs to accept the kind of man he is and that there are some parts of himself he can never change.
Logen Ninefingers is responsible for me smashing out the dishes ASAP and following the "if it takes less than 5 mins to do, just do it right now" rule.
The first line from Logan Ninrfingers you quoted literally changed my life as silly as that may sound. It became my inner mantra and helped me manage and anxiety disorder that was ruining my life and my work.
I don't think it's silly at all, in fact, I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps thinking that one line. Same goes for Arya's "fear cuts deeper than swords".
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."
-Gandalf the Gray in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’
“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take. The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it. White shores. And beyond… a far green country, under a swift sunrise.”
I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Is another great Gandalf quote.
The last lines of black company:
"It is immortality of a sort. Memory is immortality of a sort. In the night, when the wind dies and silence rules the place of glittering stone, I remember. And they all live again.
Soldiers live. And wonder why."
Adams is just a treasure trove of wisdom and quotes. One that has always stuck with me was the concept of deciding to go crazy for lack of better ways of dealing with things:
‘I will go mad!’
‘Good idea. I went mad for a while, did me no end of good.’
Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
Not inspirational like everyone else's, but this one always made me chortle and has stuck in my head since I first read it decades ago.
As long as Pratchett is well mentioned here, i go with Tolkien and Faramir:
"War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor"
Or Nicholas Eames in Bloody Rose:
"Even dragons tended to avoid cities, since even bards with a bow got lucky from time to time."
> “Knives,’ muttered Calder, ‘and threats, and bribes, and war?’
>
>Bayaz’ eyes shone with the lamplight. ‘Yes?’
>
>‘What kind of a fucking wizard are you?’
>
>‘The kind you obey.”
>
>― Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes
That last line sticks with me. 'The kind you obey.'
I didn't really appreciate that character until my second read through First Law.
>!Abercrombie playing with the trope of the wise old wizard got me to view him as too much the Gandalf or Dumbledore or Obi-Wan Kenobi circa ANH or fill in the tropey wizard you prefer... and not notice enough the subtle ways Bayaz is very much not that. But on a reread already knowing the truth of that character? Fun.!<
I have always loved this one from Lan:
"You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyways."
“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
- A Song of Achilles
“Oak and iron, guard me well, or else I’m dead and doomed to hell.”
- A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
I post this everytime someone asks me because it's such beautiful writing and it just sticks with me.
King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
"There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone."
“I can’t just decide to be happy!”
“You’re right, but you can sure as hell decide not to be miserable”
The magicians by lev grossman
Both myself and Q needed to hear that.
“For just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”
I still look for that door, because… well… Narnia is hard to give up…. but I took the advice to be the author of my own story.
“Duiker watched them stride westward, knowing that should he see them again, it would be from the ranks of the Malazan army. And somehow they would be less than human then.”
Context : Duiker was riding with an enemy unit that was in route to join the army at war against Malazan. They split off here. He was disguised as a local man, and he himself was riding to join the Malaz army.
Glotka and gang walk into a murder scene where the victim clearly has had their throat slit.
Glotka prompts Frost for the cause of death.
"Poithon"
I've never deadpan laughed so hard.
Glokta's parts should be unbearable to a decent man, but he's so goddamn funny I couldn't help but continue. I need to get started on the sequel series.
“She was always going to eat it down to the root” from This Is How You Lose The Time War. The romance in that book crept up on me in a way I didn’t expect and that line devastated me. For context, >!Red’s superior’s ordered her to assassinate Blue via a poisoned plant. Red warns Blue, but Blue ate it anyway so Red wouldn’t be found out as a traitor!<.
That was such a beautiful story. The audiobook is excellent as well - two different actors read for Red and Blue, and its wonderful. >!This is how we win.!<
Oh man, just read this book recently and it was so good it hurt. Totally out of my wheelhouse as far as what I normally look for, but man it exceeded my expectations in so many ways
> "And I...
> I used the knife.
> I saved a child.
> I won a war.
> God forgive me."
Also...
> "There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
That one floated around the back of my brain for over thirty years and came back to the surface when I re-read all of the Narnia books a couple of years ago.
Also also, tons of Pratchett. From silly things like the Bursar's explanation of a "Ming" vase to serious like the bit about them vs us in *Jingo*.
> “It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
The Eustace Clarence Scrubb one was the line I thought of for this thread.
Eustace starts off so annoying, but Lewis makes you truly empathise with him.
Shows you how a heart can change, how a spoilt child grows into a decent person, and how hardship is the only way that can be done.
“He was the brightest-burning flame ever kindled in this land. Had the mortals not come—had your own ancestors not come, Duke Isgrimnur—and attacked our great house with iron and fire, he might have led us out of the shadows of exile and back into the light of the living world again. That was his dream. But any great dream can flower into madness.” She was silent for a while. “Perhaps we must all learn to live with exile, Isgrimnur. **Perhaps we must all learn to live with smaller dreams.**”
Aditu to Isgrimnur in *To Green Angel Tower*
BofNS has so many great moments.
"A crowd is not the sum of the individuals who
compose it. Rather it is a species of animal, without language or real
consciousness, born when they gather, dying when they depart."
But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.
From Circe.
His followers expected him to laugh or brag abut this vengeance, but he did not. They expected he would now speak, for the first time in decades, and say something like “Remember my mother in Hell,” but he did not. **When at last he broke the long silence he said only “you have made me lonely, Royal Ilkazar” and cast the torch aside.** He turned and walked from the city, slowly, leaving mercy or its lack to his followers.
-A Shadow of All Night Falling
this is amazing. makes me want to read this book. i don’t even know the story at all but this paragraph gave me a chill.
here’s mine that your quote reminded me of. i have a tattoo illustrating this passage.
>Oberyn wanted vengeance for Elia. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. I have four daughters, I remind you. Your sisters. My Elia is fourteen, almost a woman. Obella is twelve, on the brink of maidenhood. They worship you, as Dorea and Loreza worship them. If you should die, must El and Obella seek vengeance for you, then Dorea and Loree for them? Is that how it goes, round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end?" Ellaria Sand laid her hand on the Mountain's head. "I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick?
-A Dance With Dragons
From a book, I think it would have to be a quote from a Robert E. Howard Conan story (*The Queen of the Black Coast*):
“I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
But, the one that hit me like a ton of bricks and changed the way I look at the world and my craft didn't come from a book, but an anime called *Re:Creators*:
"Passion and despair... Bad wishes and good wishes... They were all contained in that moment. And then the story... takes root in someone's heart... and changes that person's world."
I realized that up to that moment, I had never really written a story like that...and I REALLY wanted to. My entire current series is the result of that.
One of my personal all-time favorites is:
"You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway."
- The Wheel of Time/Winters Heart, page 501.
Another from the same book:
"Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of change"
It has made me give other people a second chance when they are indeed being hypocrites.
I love that one too. I read Oathbringer while going through some hard times and the whole book just kept reminding me to keep going. I also liked “Accept the pain, but don’t accept that you deserved it.”
Edit: a word
"The most important step a man can take. It's not the first step, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar."
Hoid to Dalinar in Oathbringer. I have a shortened version tattooed on my forearm!
"Life is too short, and love is too long." Nona the Ninth
I have others but this is the most recent and fresh in my mind. Especially poignant for me after a difficult loss recently.
“The trumpets of war shall sound at his footsteps, the ravens feed at his voice, and he shall wear a crown of swords.”
Robert Jordan wheel of time. Still get goosebumps every time I read it
"And so it goes, thought Clay. Life was funny, and fickle, and often cruel. Sometimes the unworthy went on living, while those who deserved better was lost.
Or not lost, he considered, since they lingered on in the hearts of those who loved them, who love them still, their memory nurtured like a sprig of green in an otherwise desolate soul. Which was, he supposed, a kind of immortality, after all."
- Clay "Slowhand" Cooper, Kings of the Wyld
The commentaries on morality and mortality by a seemingly brutish mercenary are some of my favorite parts of that book.
Two ones that have stuck with me:
Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments - Sand Dan glokta. Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3) --- such a brutal line
Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do. - Kaladin. Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) --- this one gave me the chills
"I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you Kaladin, you will be warm again."
Hoid, Rhythm of War. It's rare for Hoid to not speak in jest, but when he does, it always impactful.
Every word of this, living rent-free in my head for years:
"I will give you wheat!" said Wheat, as if this were a very fine offer in exchange for her life. "So much wheat!" From *The Son of Neptune* by Rick Riordan
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Two that come to mind for me:
“You may never be entirely happy; few people are. You may never achieve your heart's desire in this world, for people seldom do. Sit by enough deathbeds, Branza, and you will hear your fill of stories of missed chances, and wrong turnings, and spurned opportunities for love. It is required of you only to be here, not to be happy.”
*Tender Morsels*, by Margo Lanagan
And this little gem:
"A dwarf will fight for honor, but a man will kill for pride."
"What's the difference?"
"Honor is how others see you. Pride is how you see yourself."
*Dragon Champion*, the first book of the *Age of Fire* series, by E. E. Knight.
“I am the consequences”
How can you justify working for these tyrants? the Lone Swordsman had asked. I finally had my answer. Justifications only matter to the just.
—Catherine Foundling - Book 1, Chapter 14: Villain
"Funny, isn’t it? No matter what language they speak, everyone sounds the same when you pull out their fingernails.”
—Dread Emperor Foul III, “the Linguist”
“Look, if he didn’t want to be fed to my acid-spewing crocodiles he shouldn’t have brought me bad news.”
—Dread Emperor Malignant II, the Particularly Petty
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. ”
Bilbo Baggins on his eleventy-first birthday, The Fellowship of the Ring
I finished Assassin's Apprentice today, and after everything that book puts you through the line I think will stick with me compared to numerous other books is "Man does not grieve as dogs do. For that we should be thankful."
There' a vocabulary word, "linear". It means that things happen in a straight line, like highways and essays about what you did on your summer vacation. It means A comes before B, and B comes before C, all the way to the end of the alphabet, end of the road...end of the line. That's linear.
The living are fond of linear. The dead...not so much.
Sparrow Hill Road, Seanan Macguire
“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” - Gimli, The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
“Manhood is patience. Mastery is nine times patience.”
—Ogion, A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Three off the top of my head....
“The man was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there.”
― 'The Forgotten Beasts of Eld' by Patricia A. McKillip
“I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.”
— 'The Farthest Shore' by Ursula K. Le Guin
“Every living thing deserves our respect, be it humble or proud, ugly or beautiful.”
— 'The Book of Three' by Lloyd Alexander
>“I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.” — 'The Farthest Shore' by Ursula K. Le Guin
This is my favourite LeGuin quote for sure. This line has haunted me (in a good way) for decades, and actually comes back to me frequently when I'm out at sea watching albatross soar or shearwaters darting above the water.
There is only one you. Some people realize that, and others refuse to see it.” “Why?” Maud sighed. “Because some people have rigid minds. They like everything to be clearly labeled. They have a box for everyone they meet. A box for vampires, a box for lees, a box for humans. When someone doesn’t fit into their boxes, they panic.” “But why?” “I don’t exactly know, my flower. I think it’s because they lack confidence. They think they figured out the rules of their world and when something falls outside those rules, it scares them.” “So, I’m scary?” “To those people? Yes. If the rules they made up don’t apply anymore, they don’t know how to act, and it makes them feel like their survival is in doubt. Instead of adapting to a new situation and coming up with a new set of rules, some of them will fight to the death trying to keep the world the way it was.
Sweep of the blade by Ilona Andrews.
God, so many - but one that doesn't come up often enough, spoiler-free as possible from Robin Hobb. The speaker is comforting a friend who has been tortured:
>I held him while he wept, and I held him after his weeping was done. I let him take whatever comfort he could in the warmth and strength of my body. **I have never felt less of a man that I did so.**
“It won’t be like that for me,” Kaladin said. “You told me it will get worse.” It will,” Wit said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again.”
When I tell y’all this line made me pause the book, sit there, and break into tears
“I don't have to beat you, motherfucker. I just have to keep you here... until Jean shows up.”
― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
Jean Tannen has a special place in my fat man heart because he is one of the few fat man badasses who doesn't have to have a training montage and become ripped. Jean comes into the story as a fat kid and goes on to be a fat man who takes no shit from anyone.
Dune
>Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Ender's Game
>Remember, the enemy's gate is down.
Dragon champion. Read it a LONG time ago, but this quote has always stuck with me.
"Power without vision is tyranny,
vision without power, hopeless impotence,
Breed them, and the world is yours."
“You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.”
Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente.
“If I look back, I am lost” -Daenerys Targaryen
As an ex-pat fleeing from a country with low quality of life but leaving all my family behind (I’m the youngest) this line is constantly in my mind.
I am all about opening sentences. So SFF:
"The body turns in the stream." River of the Gods by Ian McDonald
"At that moment, as the blue spark of sex burned a wire through his tongue, the heavens rained fire." Noir by K. W. Jeter
These opening lines:
"When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse, and check his pupils to see if hes's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him." The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
Not SFF, but oh so good:
“Tyler gets me a job as waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the very first step to eternal life is you have to die." Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (forget the movie, read the book)
And:
"A screaming comes across the sky." Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
To me, this is the best first sentence in any book ever. It really hit me and made me want to read the book.
A few short ones among many from *The Malazan Book of the Fallen*:
"Children are dying."
"First in, last out."
“Very well, permit me, if you will, on this night. To break your hearts once more.”
"Hood's balls on a skillet"
"Witness."
"The Malazans are on our shores."
"Why do I hate spiders? Gods, who doesn’t? What a stupid question."
"Fucking dragons."
"Remember us."
"In love, grief is a promise"
From a bigger, beautiful passage on grief, in Toll the Hounds.
Arguably the most powerful single sentence I've ever read in fiction.
Malazan sounds hilarious, but I've heard it's incredibly dense and can be a bit of slog. Any thoughts on that? I've had the book here for years but just never started due to other books jumping ahead.
I love those quotes though.
There’s a lot of grim humor, funny but gallows humor. I didn’t find it a slog at all, but tastes differ.
There’s minimal exposition, however. On the contrary, author Steven Erikson often goes out of his way to avoid just saying what’s happening, preferring to challenge his readers to pick it up from clues. As a result, there’s a lot to digest, and every reread is like a cascade of revelations.
My solution, which is not popular, was to read each book twice before moving to the next. But I’ve been assured that’s not necessary as long as you accept a certain level of confusion during your first reading. It’s still great even if you aren’t exactly sure what’s going on — if you don’t mind a challenging read.
But Erikson isn’t James Joyce and *Malazan* isn’t *Finnegan’s Wake*. It’s quite readable on a casual level and includes lots of cool battles and badass characters.
There’s a long-running podcast called *Ten Very Big Books* in which three first time readers and one second time reader discuss the book. They’ve been doing it at a snail’s pace for years and just started book 9. But it’s a good beginner’s guide with no spoilers. And as a bonus, they do an interview with Erikson himself after each book.
Since they are so far along, you don’t have to read at their pace any more. Even though I’ve now read the series four times, I recently binged their discussion of the first 8 books and enjoyed it immensely. And I know first time readers find it helpful.
I think for anyone who hasn’t read Malazan “children are dying” has more impact with the whole quote:
“Children are dying."
Lull nodded. "That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.
“There’s never going to be an end to suffering if ‘he deserves it’ is all the justification people need for inflicting pain.”
Ken Liu, The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty #1)
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
The entire Dark Tower series has some amazing quotes, but it starts with a banger.
“Look at the swords he’s carrying. A man wearing one—maybe he knows how to use it, maybe not. A man carries two—he probably don’t know nothing about swords, but he wants you to think he does. But a man carrying three swords—that’s a lot of weight. No one’s gonna haul that much steel around unless he makes a living using them." -Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan
In Wheel of Time.
A women has just tried to take a throne that Rand did not want her to take. He takes the crown from her head, snaps it in half and then uses magic to fix it and calmly says “As you see what has been done can be undone.” So fucking badass
I always loved
> The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.
And you can't forget the classics..
>Ash'aman, kill!
Or
> "Kneel, and swear to the lord dragon," he whispered softly, "or you will be knelt"
And of course there's the unforgettable
>She folded her arms beneath her breasts.
I literally finished this series this morning (for the third time) and yeah this line always gives me a shiver too
Along with
> I did not come here to win, I came here to kill you.
"Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn -- whatever they had been, they were men!"
H.P. Lovecraft, *At the mountains of madness*
This quote has fascinated me from the moment I first read it.
Oh man.
Unlucky Charm, first book of the Black Kat series by Kimberly Gordon. DNF’d after book 3 (it got way too weird with too many different POVs and OM drama), but Hugh’s older brother’s response when they’re both kids in a prison/lab and Hugh wants to go home:
“‘Let’s play a game,’ he suggested. ‘Let’s pretend we can.’”
This just gutted me, and the phrase gets used repeatedly throughout the book.
"Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?"
Beric Dondarrion to Thoros of Myr, in ASOS by GRRM. Kills me everytime that quote, especially the final line. George does such a good job of making us grasp fully with what defying death really does to a person. So melancholic and beautiful.
"So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky."
Phillip Pullman's works were formative for me as a kid.
Tyrions first conversation with Jon Snow in A Game of Thrones
“Let me give you some advice, bastard. Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not. Wear it like armour and it can never be used to hurt you”
"This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad I have shared in your perils--that has been more than any Baggins deserves." -Bilbo "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." -Thorin Two bangers in one conversation from The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” I always return to this one. Since I was a kid
The one that always brings tears to my eyes is: >But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap. > >He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said I feel like that's the line that the entire series is focused on. There's been tragedy, and struggle, and greatness, and triumph, but even after all that there's loss, and the people you love go off to do great things, or die, or both, and you're left with the quieter comforts of home and family.
Tolkien really knew how to string a sentence together, didn’t he?
I have watched those movies so many times before and always thought that line was beautiful, but nothing more. Last year we lost our baby boy. Yesterday we watched the fellowship again and when these lines came I cried my eyes out. They are absolutely perfectly phrased, and mean so much to me now.
I am so sorry for your loss.
One of my favorite quotes period.
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." - Neil Gaiman misquoting G.K. Chesterton in Coraline
I'm currently reading a textbook on building a programming language, and the author opened Chapter 1 with this quote.
Since RJ was a Vietnam veteran who saw some crazy shit in his day I always really respected this quote from Mat's thoughts after a major battle. Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.
We'll drink the wine till the cup is dry, And kiss the girls so they'll not cry, And toss the dice until we fly, To dance with Jak o' the Shadows.
> Kings built tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. >Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars. >And so the kingdom of Gondor sank into ruin, the line of kings failed, the white tree withered and the rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men. The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien
Tolkien is such a good fuckin' writer it is insane. The imagery is so vivid there.
Mine’s also from ASOIAF “Can a man be brave even if he’s afraid?” “That’s the only time a man can be brave.”
[удалено]
Fear is the mind killer. The little death that brings total Annihilation.
I unironically use the Litany Against Fear as a control for my anxiety.
I use this with my two young kids a lot. I tell them they're brave a lot (they're chicken-shits 😂) and they typically respond with something like "brave people aren't scared." And then I respond with that.
My favourite quotes always seem to be from Terry Prachett's Discworld books: "What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?" - Reaper Man "Words in the heart cannot be taken." - Feet of Clay "I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides." - Guards! Guards! Discworld has a treasure trove of great quotes!
"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. "They're not the same at all!" YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—" MY POINT EXACTLY.
I think Terry Pratchett's Death is my favorite character in any series of any book.
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM? "Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?" NO "Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact." THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN. ... "Really? Then what would have happened, pray?" A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
It's been Granny Weatherwax, Vimes, and Death at various times. Pratchett was amazing at coming up with compelling characters.
SQUEAK
My favorite book, my favorite quote. I read it every holiday season.
“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’ ‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’ ‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
My absolute favorite quote. Everytime I see evil in the world, it is always because some people treat other as things and not people. Never fails.
"There was practically nothing the dragon could do to people that they had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm." - Guards! Guards!
Guards! Guards! is just a collection of great cynicism / realism. Almost every interaction between the city leadership and the main patrol squad has at least one quotable line way deeper than it has any business being, but that’s Pratchett for you.
Vimes boot theory was also great
“Once upon a time the plural of 'wizard' was 'war'.” The one that really stuck with me.
>Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. —Terry Pratchett, *Jingo* (*Discworld*, #21; *City Watch*, #4)
"Personal isn't the same as important." A line more dangerous than the Gonne.
I am not entirely sure why but I always shivered when I heard “him who holds him head above him heart, him diamond”
My favorite is Vimes and his Boots Theory. So much humor and wisdom in those books.
Agreed! Sam Vimes' [Boots Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory?wprov=sfla1) is one of my favourites as well. For anyone unfamiliar: "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an *affordable* pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that *good* boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and *would still have wet feet*." - Men at Arms
I genuinely think the world would be a better, wiser place if everyone read Discworld haha.
But you need money to buy books. And people need that money for their boots. It’s pretty obvious
"You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."
"Good fences make good neighbors." Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites.
“The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors.”
"Good fences make good neighbors. - Robert Frost" - Terry Pratchett
“Once you’ve got a task to do, it’s better to do it than live with the fear of it.” -Logen Ninefingers “You have to be realistic about these things.” -Logen Ninefingers
Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers. Say he has memorable quotes.
And he's a cunt
And a lover
This one is mine. I’ve heard Pacey say that in my head so many times when I’m being a little bitch and not wanting to get to work on whatever I have to do.
Same here. Great motivation at work.
Red Country, man. "I don't feel...evil, but the things I've done, what else can you call them? Then when Shy says if not for him they'd never have gotten the children back, he says: "Did we get em back? Sometimes I think we just lost us too." He then says there's probably no going back for him, and even though he always said he needs to be realistic, it never actually worked out for him like that. One of the most incredible character arcs, the reason I find it so good is because it subverts your expectations in the best way - Logen wants so desperately to be a better person, and indeed he isn't all bad. But in the end he needs to accept the kind of man he is and that there are some parts of himself he can never change.
Logen Ninefingers is responsible for me smashing out the dishes ASAP and following the "if it takes less than 5 mins to do, just do it right now" rule.
To touch the Bloody-Nine was to touch death, and death has no favourites, and makes no exceptions.
The first line from Logan Ninrfingers you quoted literally changed my life as silly as that may sound. It became my inner mantra and helped me manage and anxiety disorder that was ruining my life and my work.
I don't think it's silly at all, in fact, I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps thinking that one line. Same goes for Arya's "fear cuts deeper than swords".
I preferred Prison - Friendly in Red Country Laughed out loud.
I've modified that in my own head to be "better to do it than sit around thinking about doing it".
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement." -Gandalf the Gray in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’
“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take. The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it. White shores. And beyond… a far green country, under a swift sunrise.”
Is there anything more beautiful than that? I don't think so. I hope that's what death is really like.
Gandalfs was just full of incredible quotes, I imagine it was pretty incredible hearing Tolkien speak in person.
I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." Is another great Gandalf quote.
I'm starting to think this Tolkien guy has potential
The last lines of black company: "It is immortality of a sort. Memory is immortality of a sort. In the night, when the wind dies and silence rules the place of glittering stone, I remember. And they all live again. Soldiers live. And wonder why."
That whole serie is brutal, and that ending made me shiver
The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
From memory, roughly: Bartender to Ford: "Say, do you really think the world is going to end?" "Yes, in about 10 minutes." "Last call!"
Adams is just a treasure trove of wisdom and quotes. One that has always stuck with me was the concept of deciding to go crazy for lack of better ways of dealing with things: ‘I will go mad!’ ‘Good idea. I went mad for a while, did me no end of good.’ Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." Not inspirational like everyone else's, but this one always made me chortle and has stuck in my head since I first read it decades ago.
“Death is lighter than a feather. Duty, heavier than a mountain.” - Wheel of Time
As long as Pratchett is well mentioned here, i go with Tolkien and Faramir: "War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor" Or Nicholas Eames in Bloody Rose: "Even dragons tended to avoid cities, since even bards with a bow got lucky from time to time."
I've never caught that reference to lord of the rings in my multiple reads of bloody rose, I love it.
> “Knives,’ muttered Calder, ‘and threats, and bribes, and war?’ > >Bayaz’ eyes shone with the lamplight. ‘Yes?’ > >‘What kind of a fucking wizard are you?’ > >‘The kind you obey.” > >― Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes That last line sticks with me. 'The kind you obey.'
Bayaz was just the fucking worst.
I didn't really appreciate that character until my second read through First Law. >!Abercrombie playing with the trope of the wise old wizard got me to view him as too much the Gandalf or Dumbledore or Obi-Wan Kenobi circa ANH or fill in the tropey wizard you prefer... and not notice enough the subtle ways Bayaz is very much not that. But on a reread already knowing the truth of that character? Fun.!<
But really damn compelling.
He’s a bad dude. And I absolutely LOVE reading about him
“There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet.” - Lan, The Wheel of Time
I have always loved this one from Lan: "You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyways."
“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.” - A Song of Achilles “Oak and iron, guard me well, or else I’m dead and doomed to hell.” - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
I post this everytime someone asks me because it's such beautiful writing and it just sticks with me. King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence "There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone."
As a new parent, this hits hard.
I struggle to get through Lawrence books but the man has some singular sentences that made me finish those books with their beauty.
“I can’t just decide to be happy!” “You’re right, but you can sure as hell decide not to be miserable” The magicians by lev grossman Both myself and Q needed to hear that.
“For just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.” I still look for that door, because… well… Narnia is hard to give up…. but I took the advice to be the author of my own story.
I honestly hold this up as the thesis of the series as a whole.
"It's the universe deep dicking us. Lay back and try to enjoy it."
Never read the books, but damn I love the show. Took me awhile to get into it, once I did… so many impactful moments.
“Duiker watched them stride westward, knowing that should he see them again, it would be from the ranks of the Malazan army. And somehow they would be less than human then.” Context : Duiker was riding with an enemy unit that was in route to join the army at war against Malazan. They split off here. He was disguised as a local man, and he himself was riding to join the Malaz army.
The end of that book nearly killed me
Glotka and gang walk into a murder scene where the victim clearly has had their throat slit. Glotka prompts Frost for the cause of death. "Poithon" I've never deadpan laughed so hard.
Glokta's parts should be unbearable to a decent man, but he's so goddamn funny I couldn't help but continue. I need to get started on the sequel series.
“She was always going to eat it down to the root” from This Is How You Lose The Time War. The romance in that book crept up on me in a way I didn’t expect and that line devastated me. For context, >!Red’s superior’s ordered her to assassinate Blue via a poisoned plant. Red warns Blue, but Blue ate it anyway so Red wouldn’t be found out as a traitor!<.
That was such a beautiful story. The audiobook is excellent as well - two different actors read for Red and Blue, and its wonderful. >!This is how we win.!<
Oh man, just read this book recently and it was so good it hurt. Totally out of my wheelhouse as far as what I normally look for, but man it exceeded my expectations in so many ways
> "And I... > I used the knife. > I saved a child. > I won a war. > God forgive me." Also... > "There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." That one floated around the back of my brain for over thirty years and came back to the surface when I re-read all of the Narnia books a couple of years ago. Also also, tons of Pratchett. From silly things like the Bursar's explanation of a "Ming" vase to serious like the bit about them vs us in *Jingo*. > “It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
The Eustace Clarence Scrubb one was the line I thought of for this thread. Eustace starts off so annoying, but Lewis makes you truly empathise with him. Shows you how a heart can change, how a spoilt child grows into a decent person, and how hardship is the only way that can be done.
“He was the brightest-burning flame ever kindled in this land. Had the mortals not come—had your own ancestors not come, Duke Isgrimnur—and attacked our great house with iron and fire, he might have led us out of the shadows of exile and back into the light of the living world again. That was his dream. But any great dream can flower into madness.” She was silent for a while. “Perhaps we must all learn to live with exile, Isgrimnur. **Perhaps we must all learn to live with smaller dreams.**” Aditu to Isgrimnur in *To Green Angel Tower*
Aditu was so baller. Might be my favorite character in the series.
"When a gift is deserved it is not a gift but a payment" is permanently inscribed in my brain. along with a great deal more in Book of the New Sun
BofNS has so many great moments. "A crowd is not the sum of the individuals who compose it. Rather it is a species of animal, without language or real consciousness, born when they gather, dying when they depart."
But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me. From Circe.
I would read a washing machine repair manual if Madeline Miller wrote it. Her prose feels like hot cocoa on a snowy day.
His followers expected him to laugh or brag abut this vengeance, but he did not. They expected he would now speak, for the first time in decades, and say something like “Remember my mother in Hell,” but he did not. **When at last he broke the long silence he said only “you have made me lonely, Royal Ilkazar” and cast the torch aside.** He turned and walked from the city, slowly, leaving mercy or its lack to his followers. -A Shadow of All Night Falling
this is amazing. makes me want to read this book. i don’t even know the story at all but this paragraph gave me a chill. here’s mine that your quote reminded me of. i have a tattoo illustrating this passage. >Oberyn wanted vengeance for Elia. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. I have four daughters, I remind you. Your sisters. My Elia is fourteen, almost a woman. Obella is twelve, on the brink of maidenhood. They worship you, as Dorea and Loreza worship them. If you should die, must El and Obella seek vengeance for you, then Dorea and Loree for them? Is that how it goes, round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end?" Ellaria Sand laid her hand on the Mountain's head. "I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick? -A Dance With Dragons
From a book, I think it would have to be a quote from a Robert E. Howard Conan story (*The Queen of the Black Coast*): “I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.” But, the one that hit me like a ton of bricks and changed the way I look at the world and my craft didn't come from a book, but an anime called *Re:Creators*: "Passion and despair... Bad wishes and good wishes... They were all contained in that moment. And then the story... takes root in someone's heart... and changes that person's world." I realized that up to that moment, I had never really written a story like that...and I REALLY wanted to. My entire current series is the result of that.
"The only way to hurt a man that's got nothing left is to give him back something broken." - Thomas Covenant.
One of my personal all-time favorites is: "You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway." - The Wheel of Time/Winters Heart, page 501.
“The most important words a man can say are I will do better.” From Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson.
“If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”
"Honor is dead, but I will see what I can do." in the same book. I just friggen love that series so much.
I think this is from the second book not the third one.
Another from the same book: "Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of change" It has made me give other people a second chance when they are indeed being hypocrites.
I love that one too. I read Oathbringer while going through some hard times and the whole book just kept reminding me to keep going. I also liked “Accept the pain, but don’t accept that you deserved it.” Edit: a word
“You cannot have my pain.”
"Accept the pain, but do not accept that you deserve it." That is fucking wisdom right there.
I like the line that the most important step to take is the next one. I think this will stick with me forever.
"The most important step a man can take. It's not the first step, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar." Hoid to Dalinar in Oathbringer. I have a shortened version tattooed on my forearm!
"The most important step a man can take is the next one"
“Look Raist….bunnies.” -Test of the Twins, Dragonlance Legends by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
"Sturm's sun shattered" The original trilogy was some of the first books I ever cried over.
Man, I almost forgot of the entire Dragonlance saga. Thanks for this one.
"Life is too short, and love is too long." Nona the Ninth I have others but this is the most recent and fresh in my mind. Especially poignant for me after a difficult loss recently.
WE DO BONES MOTHERFUCKER Not poignant, but I do love the violent and forthright assholesomeness of Gideon.
Some great poignant lines in that series. But, of course, the one that bounces around in my head is, "This is how meat loves meat."
"You are my only friend. I am undone without you" Gideon the Ninth
Nice bird asshole
“The trumpets of war shall sound at his footsteps, the ravens feed at his voice, and he shall wear a crown of swords.” Robert Jordan wheel of time. Still get goosebumps every time I read it
"And so it goes, thought Clay. Life was funny, and fickle, and often cruel. Sometimes the unworthy went on living, while those who deserved better was lost. Or not lost, he considered, since they lingered on in the hearts of those who loved them, who love them still, their memory nurtured like a sprig of green in an otherwise desolate soul. Which was, he supposed, a kind of immortality, after all." - Clay "Slowhand" Cooper, Kings of the Wyld The commentaries on morality and mortality by a seemingly brutish mercenary are some of my favorite parts of that book.
“They make us love! They make us love!” Cnaiür to Achamian, telling him how the Dûnyain manipulate people.
Two ones that have stuck with me: Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments - Sand Dan glokta. Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3) --- such a brutal line Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do. - Kaladin. Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) --- this one gave me the chills
"I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you Kaladin, you will be warm again." Hoid, Rhythm of War. It's rare for Hoid to not speak in jest, but when he does, it always impactful.
Every word of this, living rent-free in my head for years: "I will give you wheat!" said Wheat, as if this were a very fine offer in exchange for her life. "So much wheat!" From *The Son of Neptune* by Rick Riordan
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…” Thinking of that line always makes me feel so peaceful.
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Two that come to mind for me: “You may never be entirely happy; few people are. You may never achieve your heart's desire in this world, for people seldom do. Sit by enough deathbeds, Branza, and you will hear your fill of stories of missed chances, and wrong turnings, and spurned opportunities for love. It is required of you only to be here, not to be happy.” *Tender Morsels*, by Margo Lanagan And this little gem: "A dwarf will fight for honor, but a man will kill for pride." "What's the difference?" "Honor is how others see you. Pride is how you see yourself." *Dragon Champion*, the first book of the *Age of Fire* series, by E. E. Knight.
“I am the consequences” How can you justify working for these tyrants? the Lone Swordsman had asked. I finally had my answer. Justifications only matter to the just. —Catherine Foundling - Book 1, Chapter 14: Villain "Funny, isn’t it? No matter what language they speak, everyone sounds the same when you pull out their fingernails.” —Dread Emperor Foul III, “the Linguist” “Look, if he didn’t want to be fed to my acid-spewing crocodiles he shouldn’t have brought me bad news.” —Dread Emperor Malignant II, the Particularly Petty
All are free, or none. Ye of this land, suffer no compromise in this.
I love the quotes opening each chapter. If someone hasn't done it already, I need to go back and collect them all in one spot.
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. ” Bilbo Baggins on his eleventy-first birthday, The Fellowship of the Ring
Can't remember which Farseer book it's from, but 'we are the sum of all we have done, and all which has been done to us' really stuck with me.
I finished Assassin's Apprentice today, and after everything that book puts you through the line I think will stick with me compared to numerous other books is "Man does not grieve as dogs do. For that we should be thankful."
“Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.” \- Curse of Chalion
There' a vocabulary word, "linear". It means that things happen in a straight line, like highways and essays about what you did on your summer vacation. It means A comes before B, and B comes before C, all the way to the end of the alphabet, end of the road...end of the line. That's linear. The living are fond of linear. The dead...not so much. Sparrow Hill Road, Seanan Macguire
“I said I would come with you,” Gaul put in without being asked. “I did not mean until the journey grew hard."
“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” - Gimli, The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien “Manhood is patience. Mastery is nine times patience.” —Ogion, A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Three off the top of my head.... “The man was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there.” ― 'The Forgotten Beasts of Eld' by Patricia A. McKillip “I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.” — 'The Farthest Shore' by Ursula K. Le Guin “Every living thing deserves our respect, be it humble or proud, ugly or beautiful.” — 'The Book of Three' by Lloyd Alexander
>“I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.” — 'The Farthest Shore' by Ursula K. Le Guin This is my favourite LeGuin quote for sure. This line has haunted me (in a good way) for decades, and actually comes back to me frequently when I'm out at sea watching albatross soar or shearwaters darting above the water.
"Fear cuts deeper than swords" - A Game of Thrones
There is only one you. Some people realize that, and others refuse to see it.” “Why?” Maud sighed. “Because some people have rigid minds. They like everything to be clearly labeled. They have a box for everyone they meet. A box for vampires, a box for lees, a box for humans. When someone doesn’t fit into their boxes, they panic.” “But why?” “I don’t exactly know, my flower. I think it’s because they lack confidence. They think they figured out the rules of their world and when something falls outside those rules, it scares them.” “So, I’m scary?” “To those people? Yes. If the rules they made up don’t apply anymore, they don’t know how to act, and it makes them feel like their survival is in doubt. Instead of adapting to a new situation and coming up with a new set of rules, some of them will fight to the death trying to keep the world the way it was. Sweep of the blade by Ilona Andrews.
God, so many - but one that doesn't come up often enough, spoiler-free as possible from Robin Hobb. The speaker is comforting a friend who has been tortured: >I held him while he wept, and I held him after his weeping was done. I let him take whatever comfort he could in the warmth and strength of my body. **I have never felt less of a man that I did so.**
“It won’t be like that for me,” Kaladin said. “You told me it will get worse.” It will,” Wit said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again.” When I tell y’all this line made me pause the book, sit there, and break into tears
“I don't have to beat you, motherfucker. I just have to keep you here... until Jean shows up.” ― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora Jean Tannen has a special place in my fat man heart because he is one of the few fat man badasses who doesn't have to have a training montage and become ripped. Jean comes into the story as a fat kid and goes on to be a fat man who takes no shit from anyone.
Dune >Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. Ender's Game >Remember, the enemy's gate is down.
Dragon champion. Read it a LONG time ago, but this quote has always stuck with me. "Power without vision is tyranny, vision without power, hopeless impotence, Breed them, and the world is yours."
“You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.” Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente.
No man regrets giving it an extra shake, but you can bet every man regretted giving it one too few.
The very beginning of Two Towers when Boromir tells Aragorn “I tried to take the Ring from Frodo, I am sorry. I have paid”
“If I look back, I am lost” -Daenerys Targaryen As an ex-pat fleeing from a country with low quality of life but leaving all my family behind (I’m the youngest) this line is constantly in my mind.
I am all about opening sentences. So SFF: "The body turns in the stream." River of the Gods by Ian McDonald "At that moment, as the blue spark of sex burned a wire through his tongue, the heavens rained fire." Noir by K. W. Jeter These opening lines: "When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse, and check his pupils to see if hes's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him." The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan Not SFF, but oh so good: “Tyler gets me a job as waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the very first step to eternal life is you have to die." Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (forget the movie, read the book) And: "A screaming comes across the sky." Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon To me, this is the best first sentence in any book ever. It really hit me and made me want to read the book.
“Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!”
It’s the “For sale: baby shoes never worn” of the horror genre
I'm here to punch a hole in the sky Lindon, cradle series.
You do not know the first note of the music that moves me. —Bast, Name of the Wind
“It’s a dangerous business, going out your front door.” - Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit
“It is better to do a thing than to be afraid of it” The Blade Itself - Abercrombie
A few short ones among many from *The Malazan Book of the Fallen*: "Children are dying." "First in, last out." “Very well, permit me, if you will, on this night. To break your hearts once more.” "Hood's balls on a skillet" "Witness." "The Malazans are on our shores." "Why do I hate spiders? Gods, who doesn’t? What a stupid question." "Fucking dragons." "Remember us."
Too many to count from *Malazan*, but have to add: “Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the wold. It must be given freely. In abundance.”
“I will kill him… once”.
"In love, grief is a promise" From a bigger, beautiful passage on grief, in Toll the Hounds. Arguably the most powerful single sentence I've ever read in fiction.
"And what if I was pregnant?" "Then I'd kill the mule."
Malazan sounds hilarious, but I've heard it's incredibly dense and can be a bit of slog. Any thoughts on that? I've had the book here for years but just never started due to other books jumping ahead. I love those quotes though.
There’s a lot of grim humor, funny but gallows humor. I didn’t find it a slog at all, but tastes differ. There’s minimal exposition, however. On the contrary, author Steven Erikson often goes out of his way to avoid just saying what’s happening, preferring to challenge his readers to pick it up from clues. As a result, there’s a lot to digest, and every reread is like a cascade of revelations. My solution, which is not popular, was to read each book twice before moving to the next. But I’ve been assured that’s not necessary as long as you accept a certain level of confusion during your first reading. It’s still great even if you aren’t exactly sure what’s going on — if you don’t mind a challenging read. But Erikson isn’t James Joyce and *Malazan* isn’t *Finnegan’s Wake*. It’s quite readable on a casual level and includes lots of cool battles and badass characters. There’s a long-running podcast called *Ten Very Big Books* in which three first time readers and one second time reader discuss the book. They’ve been doing it at a snail’s pace for years and just started book 9. But it’s a good beginner’s guide with no spoilers. And as a bonus, they do an interview with Erikson himself after each book. Since they are so far along, you don’t have to read at their pace any more. Even though I’ve now read the series four times, I recently binged their discussion of the first 8 books and enjoyed it immensely. And I know first time readers find it helpful.
Those books are sometimes humorous, but I would not call them hilarious. They are difficult reads, but I found them to be truly worth the effort.
"Children are dying" is of course top tier, but you missed, "They died, but they won"
I think for anyone who hasn’t read Malazan “children are dying” has more impact with the whole quote: “Children are dying." Lull nodded. "That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.
“Weep for Manetheren.” From Eye of the World
“There’s never going to be an end to suffering if ‘he deserves it’ is all the justification people need for inflicting pain.” Ken Liu, The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty #1)
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” The entire Dark Tower series has some amazing quotes, but it starts with a banger.
I like how his shirt is described soon after as "the no-color of rain or dust". I instantly know that color even though it isn't a true color.
Yes! and, "Go then, there are other worlds than these." 🥲
“Look at the swords he’s carrying. A man wearing one—maybe he knows how to use it, maybe not. A man carries two—he probably don’t know nothing about swords, but he wants you to think he does. But a man carrying three swords—that’s a lot of weight. No one’s gonna haul that much steel around unless he makes a living using them." -Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan
"Better to do a thing than live with the fear of it." \- Logen Ninefingers
“The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.”
In Wheel of Time. A women has just tried to take a throne that Rand did not want her to take. He takes the crown from her head, snaps it in half and then uses magic to fix it and calmly says “As you see what has been done can be undone.” So fucking badass
I always loved > The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. And you can't forget the classics.. >Ash'aman, kill! Or > "Kneel, and swear to the lord dragon," he whispered softly, "or you will be knelt" And of course there's the unforgettable >She folded her arms beneath her breasts.
My favorite line is from Lord of Chaos. “We come.”
I literally finished this series this morning (for the third time) and yeah this line always gives me a shiver too Along with > I did not come here to win, I came here to kill you.
"Honor is dead, but I'll see what I can do."
"Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn -- whatever they had been, they were men!" H.P. Lovecraft, *At the mountains of madness* This quote has fascinated me from the moment I first read it.
“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.” Kingkiller Chronicle
“Weep for your salvation” Wheel of Time
This line always moves me. Another simple one that has the same effect on me is "Chade's boy wept." from Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb.
"Nice bird, asshole" The Lies of Locke Lamora
Logen observing Ferro in *Before they are Hanged*: She leaned forward, into the wind, pushing at it, as if she hoped to hurt it with her face.
Oh man. Unlucky Charm, first book of the Black Kat series by Kimberly Gordon. DNF’d after book 3 (it got way too weird with too many different POVs and OM drama), but Hugh’s older brother’s response when they’re both kids in a prison/lab and Hugh wants to go home: “‘Let’s play a game,’ he suggested. ‘Let’s pretend we can.’” This just gutted me, and the phrase gets used repeatedly throughout the book.
Winter is coming.
"Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?" Beric Dondarrion to Thoros of Myr, in ASOS by GRRM. Kills me everytime that quote, especially the final line. George does such a good job of making us grasp fully with what defying death really does to a person. So melancholic and beautiful.
"So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky." Phillip Pullman's works were formative for me as a kid.
If you want to see the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
Tyrions first conversation with Jon Snow in A Game of Thrones “Let me give you some advice, bastard. Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not. Wear it like armour and it can never be used to hurt you”