Tad Williams: Trending quotes (page 2)

“It was impossible to see warfare as anything other than what Morgenes had once termed it: a kind of hell on earth that impatient mankind had arranged so it would not have to wait for the afterlife.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 12, “Raven’s Dance” (p. 392).

Hell , Waiting

“There are no promises in life, Sludig, but it seems to me smarter to take fewer chances.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 25, “Petals in a Wind Storm” (p. 640).

Life , Chance

“She knew that life was but a long struggle against disorder, and that disorder was the inevitable winner.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 9, “Cold and Curses” (p. 211).

Life

“The spider hung motionless, like a dull brown gem in an intricate necklace. The web was complete, now, the last strands laid delicately in place; it stretched from one side of the ceiling corner to the other, quivering gently in the rising air as though strummed by invisible hands.
For a moment Isgrimnur lost the thread of talk, important talk though it was. His eyes had drifted from the worried faces huddled near the fireplace in the great hall, roving up to the darkened corner, and to the tiny builder at rest.
There’s sense, he told himself. You build something and then you stay there. That’s the way it’s meant to be. Not this running here, running there, never see your blood-family or your home roofs for a year at a time.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 37, “Jiriki’s Hunt” (p. 619).

Family , Way , Home , Sense

“Light, with its handmaiden color, was everywhere.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 37, “Jiriki’s Hunt” (p. 629).

Color , Light

“He wanted a home desperately. He was close to the point where he would take a mattress in Hell if the Devil would lend him a pillow.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 14, “A Crown of Fire” (p. 342).

Home , Hell

“It was easy to hate if he did not think, Simon discovered.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 15, “Lake of Glass” (p. 469).

Hate , Thinking

“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.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 17, “Bonfire Night” (p. 540).

Girl

“A king’s son has nothing but inferiors, each one a potential assassin.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 1, “The Grasshopper and the King” (p. 12).

“Sometimes you men are like lizards, sunning on the stones of a crumbled house, thinking: “what a nice basking-spot someone built for me.””

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 9, “Cold and Curses” (p. 207).

Men , Thinking , Sun , Housing

““Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess,” he said quietly. “Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their conscience with the gift of survival.”
Miriamele thought about the obvious truth of what Cadrach had said as they walked on, but could not understand why it made her so unutterably sad.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 2, “Masks and Shadows” (p. 37).

Truth , Sadness , Understanding , Princess

““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.’””

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 18, “A Net of Stars” (p. 262).

People , Stupidity , Question

“Perhaps it is fortunate that most heroes who die for their people cannot come back to see what the people do with that hard-bought life and freedom.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 20, “Travelers and Messengers” (p. 639).

Life , People , Freedom

“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…”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 6, “The Circle Narrows” (p. 150).

Hope

“There was nothing he could do unless he accepted what was real.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 24, “The Graylands” (p. 544).

“Perhaps he was a bumpkin; at least he was an honest bumpkin.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 32, “Northern Tidings” (p. 516).

“Simple answers to life’s questioning. That would be a magic beyond any I have ever been seeing.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 8, “On Sikkihoq’s Back” (p. 188).

Life , Question

“Simon, there are more things you don’t know than there are things that I do know. I despair of the imbalance.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 12, “Six Silver Sparrows” (p. 177).

Despair

“Miriamele was dismayed by her own willful ignorance. How could she, with all her native good fortune, be so consumed with the few inconveniences that God or fate had put in her way? It was shameful.
She tried to tell Duke Isgrimnur something of her thoughts, but he would not let her slide too far into self-loathing.
“Each one of us has our own sorrows, Princess,” he said. “It’s no shame to take them to heart. The only sin is to forget that other folk have theirs, too—or to let pity for yourself slow your hand when someone needs help.””

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 21, “Answered Prayers” (p. 649).

God , Fate , Way , Help

“Things are not always as old songs tell them to be—especially when it is concerning dragons.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 8, “On Sikkihoq’s Back” (p. 176).