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Guy Gavriel Kay Quotes

Guy Gavriel Kay is a Canadian writer of fantasy fiction. Many of his novels are set in fictional realms that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Justinian I or Spain during the time of El Cid. Those works are published and marketed as historical fantasy, although Kay has expressed a preference to avoid genre categorization.

As of early 2016, Kay has published 13 novels and a book of poetry. His fiction has been translated into more than 25 languages.

✵ 7. November 1954
Guy Gavriel Kay photo

Works

Tigana
Tigana
Guy Gavriel Kay
The Lions of Al-Rassan
The Lions of Al-Rassan
Guy Gavriel Kay
The Summer Tree
The Summer Tree
Guy Gavriel Kay
Tigana
Tigana
Guy Gavriel Kay
The Lions of Al-Rassan
The Lions of Al-Rassan
Guy Gavriel Kay
The Summer Tree
The Summer Tree
Guy Gavriel Kay
Guy Gavriel Kay: 28 quotes5 likes

Famous Guy Gavriel Kay Quotes

“He opened his arms and she moved into the space they made in the world, and laying her head against his chest she permitted herself the almost unimaginable luxury of grief.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book The Lions of Al-Rassan

Source: The Lions of Al-Rassan

“Even the birds above the lake
Are singing of my love,
And even the flowers along the shore
Are growing for her sake.

All the vines are ripening
And the trees come into bud,
For my love's footsteps passing by
Are summoning the spring.

Rian's stars in the night
Shine more brightly over her,
The god's moon and the goddess's
Guard her with their light.

Even the birds above the lake
Are singing of my love,
And even the flowers along the shore
Are growing for her sake”

Guy Gavriel Kay

Source: A Song for Arbonne

“most hated by the dark, for their name is light.”

Guy Gavriel Kay The Fionavar Tapestry

Source: The Fionavar Tapestry

“I suppose being right will have to compensate me for being poor—the story of my life, I fear.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 1 (p. 14)

“Words were power, words tried to change you, to shape bridges of longing that no one could ever really cross.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 17 (p. 561)

Guy Gavriel Kay Quotes about life

“Sometimes you didn't really arrive at a conclusion about your life, you just discovered that you already had.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Lord of Emperors

Source: Lord of Emperors

“Devin had never trusted the priests of Eanna in his whole life. They were too shrewd, by far the most subtle of the clergy, by far the most apt to steer events to their own ends, which might lie out of sight, generations away. Servants of a goddess, he supposed, might find it easier to take the longer view of things. But everyone knew that all across the peninsula the clergy of the Triad had their own triple understanding with the Tyrants from abroad: their collective silence, their tacit complicity, bought in exchange for being allowed to preserve the rites that mattered more to them, it seemed, than freedom in the Palm.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 15 (p. 461)

“He didn’t think he would understand the strangeness of life if he lived to be a hundred years old.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Part 4 “The Price of Blood”, Chapter 14 (p. 443)
Tigana (1990)

Guy Gavriel Kay Quotes

“There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Part 3 “Ember to Ember”, Chapter 10 (p. 317)
Source: Tigana (1990)

“In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 19 (p. 613)

“How we remember changes how we have lived.
Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Under Heaven

Source: Under Heaven

“There are kinds of action, for good or ill, that lie so far outside the boundaries of normal behavior that they force us, in acknowledging that they have occurred, to restructure our own understanding of reality. We have to make room for them.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book The Summer Tree

Source: The Summer Tree

“The deeds of men, as footprints in the desert.
Nothing under the circling moons is fated to last.
Even the sun goes down.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book The Lions of Al-Rassan

Source: The Lions of Al-Rassan

“Ice is for death and endings.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana

“We must be what we are, or we become our enemies.”

Guy Gavriel Kay

Source: A Song for Arbonne

“The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Under Heaven

Source: Under Heaven

“The heart has its own laws… and the truth is… the truth is that you are the law of mine.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana

“By things so achingly small are lives measured and marred.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana

“We salvage what we can, what truly matters to us, even at the gates of despair.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book The Summer Tree

Source: The Summer Tree

“Only then, invisible to everyone and with her curtains drawn, did she allow her tears to fall: in love, and for his hurts, and in terrible pride.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana

“Music trains the mind, like mathematics, or logic, to precision of mind.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 77)

“It was true, it was all true. But none of it was the truth.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Part 5, “The Memory of a Flame”, Chapter 17 (p. 541)
Tigana (1990)

“Home was a dream she’d had yesterday. A place where children used to play. Among towers near the mountains, by a river, on curving sweeps of white or golden sand beside a palace at the edge of the sea.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 8 (p. 225)

“When power is gone the memory of power lingers.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Part 1 “A Blade in the Soul”, Chapter 1 (p. 9)
Tigana (1990)

“A reminder of what it was to be mortal and so doomed to tread one road only and that one only once…We can never truly know the path we have not walked.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 79)

““The Tyrants have cleaned out most of the highway brigands. Just a matter of protecting their own interests. They want to make sure no one else robs us before they do with their border tariffs and taxes.” He spat, discreetly, into the dust of the road. “Personally I preferred the brigands. There were ways of dealing with them.””

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Part 2 “Dianora”, Chapter 7 (p. 184)
Tigana (1990)

“The Tyrants have cleaned out most of the highway brigands. Just a matter of protecting their own interests. They want to make sure no one else robs us before they do with their border tariffs and taxes.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

He spat, discreetly, into the dust of the road. “Personally I preferred the brigands. There were ways of dealing with them.”
Part 2 “Dianora”, Chapter 7 (p. 184)
Tigana (1990)

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