Susan Cooper: Darkness

Susan Cooper is English fantasy writer. Explore interesting quotes on darkness.

Susan Cooper: 46 quotes0 likes

“Will saw the cruelty now as the fierce inevitability of nature. It was not from malice that the Light and the servants of the Light would ever hound the Dark, but from the nature of things.”

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), The Dark Is Rising (1973), Chapter 12 “The Hunt Rides” (pp. 224-225)

“No, he is not of the Dark. But he is very useful. A man so wrapped in his own ill-will is a gift to the Dark from the earth. It is so easy to give him suitable ideas…Very useful, indeed.”

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), The Grey King (1975), Chapter 9 “The Grey King” (p. 108)

“The Land is neither of the Dark nor the Light, nor ever was. Its enchantment was of a separate kind, the magic of the mind and the hand and the eye, that owes no allegiance because it is neither good nor bad. It has no more to do with the behaviour of men, or the great absolutes of the Light and the Dark, than does the blossom of a rose or the curving leap of a fish.”

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 12 “The Journey” (p. 164)

“Each wave of men in turn grew peaceful as it grew to know and love the land, so that the Light flourished again. But always the Dark was there, swelling and waning, gaining a new Lord of the Dark whenever a man deliberately chose to be changed into something more dread and powerful than his fellows. Such creatures were not born to their doom, like the Old Ones, but chose it.”

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), The Dark Is Rising (1973), Chapter 7 “Betrayal” (p. 107)

“At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else. You are like fanatics. Your masters, at any rate. Like the old Crusaders—oh, like certain groups in every belief, though this is not a matter of religion, of course. At the centre of the Light there is a cold white flame, just as at the centre of the Dark there is a great black pit bottomless as the Universe.”

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), The Grey King (1975), Chapter 10 “The Pleasant Lake” (p. 115)

“When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back,
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.”

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), The Dark Is Rising (1973), Chapter 3 “The Sign-Seeker” (p. 45)

“Bran said, “Why should some of the riders of the Dark be dressed all in white and the rest all in black?”
“Without color….” Will said reflectively. “I don’t know. Maybe because the Dark can only reach people at extremes—blinded by their own shining ideas, or locked up in the darkness of their own heads.””

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 10 “The Rose-Garden” (p. 146)

“The mindless ferocity of this man, and all those like him, their real loathing born of nothing more solid than insecurity and fear…It was a channel. Will knew that he had been gazing into the channel down which the powers of the Dark, if they gained their freedom, could ride in an instant to complete control of the earth.”

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 4 “Midsummer Day” (p. 54)