Michael Moorcock: Trending quotes

“The problems for which I could find no solution in fact had no solution.”

Introduction (p. vi)
The Warlord of the Air (1971)

Michael Moorcock book The Eternal Champion

Source: The Eternal Champion (1970), Chapter 23 “In Loos Ptokai” (p. 137)

“It is the spirit of Salem—the corrupting influence of Puritanism which in itself is perversion of the Stoic ideal—infecting what remains of a nation which could have set an example to the world.”

Michael Moorcock book The Land Leviathan

Book 1, Chapter 8 “A Decision in Cold Blood” (p. 233)
The Land Leviathan (1974)

“They’re Mabden, of course. They are afraid of the city. Afraid of almost everything. And being permitted no weapons with which they can attack what they fear, they are reduced to what you see. It seems the Mabden can only kill or run away. Their brains are of no use to them.”

“This vast pile of natural beauty, those crags and fir trees and hovering hawks, those echoing ravines and vast tumblings of snow and earth, brought me swiftly to the understanding of my own insignificance and, indeed, the insignificance of all human struggle.”

Book 2, Chapter 6 (p. 581)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

““Are you trying to talk peace terms?”
“I’ve given that up,” said Makhno. “It doesn’t appear to work. You mention peace and everyone tries to shoot you or jail you.””

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 2 (pp. 194-195)

“I at least had some knowledge of the warping, mutating power of the Lords of Disorder, the supernatural entities who on John Daker’s Earth would be called Arch-Demons, the Dukes of Hell. I knew that they made use of our most treasured virtues and most honoured emotions. That they were capable of almost any illusion. And that all that was keeping them from pouring forth from their stronghold to engulf so many other Realms of the multiverse was their caution, their unreadiness or unwillingness to war against the rival power of Law. But if we humans invited them to our realms, they would come.”

Book 2, Chapter 5 “A Question of Attitudes” (p. 368)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Thus woman trusts in man down all the years and so, as always, is betrayed.”

Book 2, Chapter 9 (p. 613)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

“What good is a martyr, Captain Bastable? A martyr shows us the power of faith. But what if that faith is misinformed? While people believe in heroes and the magic power of an individual to save them from the human condition, they will never be free.”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 19 (p. 446)

“You’re as worthless as one of that decrepit mob. Lucifer has rejected you. Now mankind rejects you. Have the good taste, Sir, to accept a fact!”

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 422)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Indeed, to be a hero, forever at war, is to be in some ways always a child. The true challenge comes in making sense of one’s life, of imbuing it with purpose based on one’s own principles.”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 17 (p. 408)

“We are all guilty,” he said. “We are all innocent. Only when we accept responsibility for our own actions do we become free. And only when every one of us accepts their share of responsibility will the world become safe for us all.”

Epilogue (p. 687)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

“I realized I was fulfilling mankind’s greatest dream—to fly like a bird, as naturally and as joyously as if the air were our familiar habitat.”

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 422)
Oswald Bastable, The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Socialists are always quarreling amongst themselves, because of the strong element of messianism in their creeds.”

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 419)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Because I had sought to challenge Destiny, Destiny had taken vengeance.”

Book 2, Chapter 2 “Back in Service” (p. 353)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Michael Moorcock book Phoenix in Obsidian

Book 3 “Visions and Revelations” Chapter 5 “The Waking of the Sword” (p. 421)
Phoenix in Obsidian (1970)

“Man is a rationalizing beast, if not a rational one.”

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 14 (p. 142)

“I watched him while he moved about in the nearby spinney below, bending and straightening, shaking snow from the sticks he found, and for some reason was reminded of the parable of Abraham and his son. Why should one serve a God who demanded such insane loyalty, who demanded that one deny the very humanity He was said to have created?”

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 8 (p. 92)

“But now the Mob’s passing whim had become the only law, as Robespierre himself would soon discover. I felt cruelly betrayed: by the Revolution, by men I had embraced as brothers, by Circumstance, and, as always, by God.”

““For years my lady made her plans. And when the time came to put them into action, how wonderfully she was able to achieve her ambitions.”
“Only because few rational people can ever begin to understand such a lust for power,” said von Bek feelingly. “There is nothing more puerile than the mind of a tyrant.””

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 1 (p. 177)