Garth Nix Quotes (88 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Famous Garth Nix Quotes

“Who or what are you? Besides insufferably rude?”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“It's always better to be doing.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“For everyone and everything, there is a time to die. Some do not know it, or would delay it, but its truth cannot be denied. Not when you look into the stars of the Ninth Gate.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Abhorsen (2003), p. 343.

“Five Great Charters knit the land
together linked hand and hand.
One in the people who wear the crown
Two in the folk who keep the Dead down
Three and Five became stone and mortar
Four sees all in frozen water.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Sabriel (1995), p. 216.

“So I'll do that, and I'll do my best and if my best isn't good enough, at least I will have done everything I could, everything that is in me. I don't have to try to be someone else, someone I could never be.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Abhorsen

“Fine!" muttered Mogget. "Wet, cold, and full of holes. Another fun day on the river.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

Garth Nix Quotes about thinking

“Knowledge, like all things, is best in moderation," intoned the Will. "Knowing everything means you don't need to think, and that is very dangerous.”

Garth Nix book Lady Friday

Source: Lady Friday

“Please," said Lirael…"I think I would like to work in this Library."
"The Library," repeated Sanar, looking troubled. "That can be dangerous to a girl of fourteen. Or a woman of forty, for that matter.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“"What do we do if we don't go through a hole?" asked Suzy.
"I think we get smashed to bits," said Arthur. "But like Longtayle said, it's mostly holes. And the current must aim for the holes, or get directed through them. We'll be all right."
"What happens if we don't get smashed completely to bits, but just a bit smashed to bits?" asked Suzy after a while. "I mean, so we're still alive but drowning?"
"Suzy, please don't ask me these questions right now," said Arthur, with as much restraint as he could manage.”

Garth Nix

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Drowned Wednesday (2005), p. 276.

“Lieutenant Crosshaw says you are a special case!" bellowed Helve. "I do not like special cases! Special cases do not make good soldiers! Special cases do not help other recruits become good soldiers! Therefore, you will not be a special case! You understand me!”

Garth Nix

"I think so-"
"Shut up! That was not a question!"
Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Sir Thursday (2006), p. 124.

“"Summon him forth," instructed the Will. "Let justice be meted out. There is much to do, you know, Arthur."
"You'd think we could 'ave a cup of tea and biscuit first," muttered Suzy.”

Garth Nix

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Mister Monday (2003), p. 392.

“I don't believe authors need to keep any specific values or ideas in mind while they are writing for children, but I do think authors need to be aware of their audience, and of the effect their work may have.”

Garth Nix

As quoted in "A conversation with Garth Nix" by Claire E. White at Writers Write (July-August 2000) http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jul00/nix.htm <br class="br">Context: I don't believe authors need to keep any specific values or ideas in mind while they are writing for children, but I do think authors need to be aware of their audience, and of the effect their work may have. So if they want to address particularly sensitive topics or taboos, they have to do so consciously and carefully. This is very different to toeing a particular moral line or leaving things out.<br>Certainly I don't think good always has to triumph over evil; it depends on the story and the aims of the book. For example, I could envisage telling a story where the inaction of people leads to the triumph of evil. But I would include the hope that this would lead to the people involved doing better next time. Is that story then really about the triumph of evil, or is it about the awakening of opposition to evil?

Garth Nix: Trending quotes

“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Quoted various times by different characters in all three books.
Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy)
Source: Sabriel

“Gold-Eye didn't wait to see more.”

Garth Nix book Shade's Children

Source: Shade's Children (1997), p. 9.
Context: Gold-Eye's Change Vision suddenly gripped him, showing him a picture of the unpleasantly close future, the soon-to-be-now.
Doors slid open at each end of the carriage, forced apart by metal-gauntleted hands four times the size of Gold-Eye's own. Fog no longer fell in lazy swirls, but danced and spiraled crazily as huge shapes lumbered in, moving to the pile of blankets...
Gold-Eye didn't wait to see more. He came out of the vision and took the escape route he'd planned months before, when he'd first found the carriage. Lifting a trapdoor in the floor, he dropped down, down to the cold steel rails.

“Gold-Eye's Change Vision suddenly gripped him, showing him a picture of the unpleasantly close future, the soon-to-be-now.”

Garth Nix book Shade's Children

Garth Nix Quotes

“My parents are going to kill me!"
"That seems rather harsh…”

Garth Nix book Sir Thursday

Source: Sir Thursday

“Maybe if I act well enough, I'll come to believe it myself.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Abhorsen

“Sometimes it is easier to see the light when you stand partly in the darkness.”

Garth Nix book Mister Monday

Source: Mister Monday

“Fear and realisation of ignorance, strong medicines against stupid pride.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Sabriel

“"Choosers will be beggars if the begging’s not their choosing," said the Dog.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr (2001), p. 398.

“Let this be my final lesson. Everyone and everything has a time to die.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Variant: For everyone and everything, there is a time to die.
Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Abhorsen (2003), p. 343.
Source: Sabriel
Context: For everyone and everything, there is a time to die. Some do not know it, or would delay it, but its truth cannot be denied. Not when you look into the stars of the Ninth Gate.

“Often, I get the feeling that the story is really happening somewhere and all I'm doing is trying to work out the best way to tell it.”

Garth Nix

“When the Dead do walk, seek water’s run,
For this the Dead will always shun.
Swift river’s best or broadest lake
To ward the Dead and haven make.
If water fails thee, fire’s thy friend;
If neither guards, it will be thy end.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr (2001), pp. 359-360.

“Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Sabriel

“I love you," he whispered. "I hope you don't mind.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Sabriel

“Choosers will be beggars if the begging's not their choosing," said the Dog
"What does that mean?"
"I have no idea," said the Dog”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“Charity is a very labour-intensive virtue.”

Garth Nix book Mister Monday

Source: Mister Monday

“Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Sabriel

“I can see time," whispered Mogget, so softly that his words were lost.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Sabriel

“I am a great believer that anything not expressly forbidden is explicitly allowed.”

Garth Nix

Source: Clariel

“Time and death sleep side by side.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Variant: "Time and death sleep side by side," said the Dog. "Both are in Astrael's Domain."
Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Abhorsen (2003), p. 64.

“The visions are fragmented and a dark cloud spreads like spilt ink across the pages of possible futures.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“Hear, hear," said the Dog, raising her head. "It's always better to be doing, Prince. Besides, you don't smell like a coward, so you can't be one.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“I am not going to change who I am. I am human and I know how to love, and be kind, and be compassionate to those who are weaker than me. Just because I have power doesn't mean I have to use it!”

Garth Nix book Superior Saturday

Source: Superior Saturday

“But we survived, didn’t we? That makes it an adventure. If you get killed it’s a tragedy.”

Garth Nix

“Yep," said Arthur. Somehowseemed the most positive thing he could say. Stronger thanand more heroic than. He hoped he could live up to it.”

Garth Nix book Drowned Wednesday

Source: Drowned Wednesday

“There is never one absolutely right thing to do. All you can do is honor what you believe, accept the consequences of your own actions, and make the best out of what happens.”

Garth Nix book Superior Saturday

Source: Superior Saturday

“He was obviously a very arrogant ragamuffin, and younger than she was, to boot. And he was wearing a necromancer's bells! Apart from that, he was quite handsome, which was another black mark as far as she was concerned.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“Be careful.. you're all I've got left, to remind me who I really am.”

Garth Nix

“Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn't surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Abhorsen

“Time plays tricks between here and home," said Mogget sepulchrally, frightening the life out of the telephone operator.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Abhorsen

“I have never known what to tell anybody. Except that it is better to do something than nothing, even if the cost is great.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Abhorsen

“A hundred hundred heartbeats…" whispered Sabriel, tears falling down her face.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

pp. 358-359.
Source: “Toys, Abhorsen. And too late. Much too late.”
It was not just words he spoke, but power, Free Magic power that froze Sabriel’s nerves, caught at her muscles. Desperately, she struggled to ring the bells, but her wrists were locked in place…
Tantalizingly slowly, Kerrigor glided forward, till he was a mere arm’s length away. Towering over her like some colossal statue of rough-hewn night, his breath rolling down on her with the stench of a thousand abattoirs.
Someone – a girl quietly coughing out her last breath on the floor – touched Sabriel’s ankle with a light caress. A small spark of golden Charter Magic came from that dying touch, slowly swelling into Sabriel’s veins, traveling upwards, warming joints, freeing muscles. At last it reached her wrists and hands–and the bells rang out.
It was not the clear, true sound it should be, for somehow the bulk of Kerrigor took the sound in and warped it– but it had an effect. Kerrigor slid back, and was diminished, till he was a little more than twice Sabriel’s height.
But he was not subject to Sabriel’s will. Saraneth had not bound him, and Kibeth had only forced him back.
Sabriel rang the bells again, concentrating on the difficult counterpoint between them, forcing all her will into their magic. Kerrigor would fall under her domination, he would walk where she willed…

“I am Abhorsen…"
He looked at the baby again and added, almost with a note of surprise, "Father of Sabriel”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

p. 14.
Source: "I am a necromancer, but not of the common sort, while others of the art raise the dead, I lay them to rest - or try too - and those that will not rest I bind, for I am Abhorsen..."
He turned to the baby again and added, almost with a note of surprise, "Father of Sabriel."

“Clearly the Old One had the capacity to kill - or easily deliver some sort of final ending that sounded remarkably like death.”

Garth Nix book Mister Monday

Source: Mister Monday

“I suppose you could call me… Soot," said the thing. "Yes… Soot. I have breathed it, lived in it, and eaten it for so long that it is a fitting name."
"Eaten it?" asked Suzy. "Why eat soot?"
"Boredom," said Soot.”

Garth Nix book Grim Tuesday

Source: Grim Tuesday

“"What happened?" Arthur asked. He caught a glimpse of something below, but couldn't quite make out what it was. "The Nithling-"
"Missed me," called out Suzy. "Close-run thing. Bit off my right clog. I was kicking it in the teeth, so I s'pose that's fair."”

Garth Nix

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Grim Tuesday (2004), p. 177.

“"You mean he's dead too?" asked Suzy.
"Yes," said Dusk. "This morning, in his cell. The guards outside were also slain, and only Sir Thursday's boots remained."
"Sounds more like he escaped," Suzy said.
"His feet were still in the boots," said Dusk.”

Garth Nix

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Lord Sunday (2010), p. 143.