Tad Williams Quotes
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A king’s son has nothing but inferiors, each one a potential assassin.
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Tiamak closed his eyes to make a short prayer of thanks, hoping that the gods, like children, could be confirmed in good behavior by praise.
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She had been dressed in her sky-blue gown and had been suddenly almost terrible in her completeness-so different from the ragged serving girl who had slept on his shoulder. And yet, the very same girl had been inside that blue dress.
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To fight a war, you must believe it can accomplish something. We fight this one to save John’s kingdom, or perhaps even to save all of mankind...but isn’t that what we always think? That all wars are useless-except the one we’re fighting now?
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'Now, boy, now...' he said bewilderedly, 'what is all this talk of glory? Have you caught the sickness, too? Curse me for a blind beggar, I should have seen. This fever has cankered even your simple heart, hasn’t it, Simon? I’m sorry. It takes a strong will or practiced eye to see through the glitter to the rotten core.'
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People in science fiction flicks always seemed to know useful things about the places time travel took them. But what if the time traveler had been only an average history student? What then?
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Thank you for your news, Princess. It is none of it happy, but only a fool desires cheerful ignorance and I try not to be a fool. That is my heaviest burden.
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The last thing a drunkard loses, you see, is his cunning: it outlasts his soul by a long season.
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Sometimes you men are like lizards, sunning on the stones of a crumbled house, thinking: 'what a nice basking-spot someone built for me.'
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'In my experience,' he said with more than a touch of bitterness, 'the gods do not seem to care much what their servants deserve-or at least the rewards they give are too subtle for my understanding.'
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If you have not noticed, we are preparing for war. I’m sorry if that inconveniences you.
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'You have something that might be more use to me than either gold or power-something that in fact brings both in its train.''And what is that?'The count leaned forward. 'Knowledge.'
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Ambitious men never believe others aren’t the same.
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She realized now that she knew little about people outside the courts of Nabban and Erkynland, although she had always thought herself a shrewd judge of humanity. However, it was a larger and much more complicated world on the other side of the castle walls than she had ever suspected.
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Part of manhood, I am thinking, is to ponder one’s words before opening one’s mouth.
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No charm is proof against a dagger in the back.
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She had little doubt that whatever happened to her on this drifting ship was of scant interest to a God who could allow her to reach this sorry state in the first place.
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'It would please me your not being obsequious. That is a trait of marketplace people who are selling shoddy goods. I am sure to prefer endless, stupid questions to that.''Ob...obseek...?''Obsequious. Flattering with oiliness. It is not liked by me. In Yiqanuc we say: ‘Send the man with the oily tongue to go and lick the snowshoes.’'
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'Do you get tired, singing?' she asked.Gan Itai laughed quietly. 'Does a mother grow tired raising her children? Of course, but it is what I do.'
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'Sharp it away, lad, sharp it away,' the burly guardsman said, making the blade skitter across the whetstone, 'lest otherways ye’ll be a girl afore ye’re a man.'
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If God is all-powerful, then the Devil must be nothing more than a darkness in the mind of God. But if the Devil is something real and separate, than perfection is impossible, and there can be no God... except for the aspirations of fallen angels.
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You can never tell when princes will get squinty on you. You can never tell when they might suddenly feel their blood and go all royal.
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Empires were like seawalls, he thought sadly, even those which embodied the best of hopes. The tide of chaos beat at them, and as soon as no one was shoring up the stones any more...
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'Thank you, Duke,' the troll said seriously. 'May your god be blessing us indeed. We go into unknown places.''As do all mortals,' Josua added. 'Sooner or later.'