Tad Williams: Doing

“As for monkeys, I would have five, and they would be named: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Do Pretty Much Whatever The Hell You Want, and Expensive Attorney.”

Tad Williams

Hell , Evil

“Sometimes doing the gods’ bidding required a hardened heart.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 4, “The Silent Child” (p. 145).

God , Heart

“We trolls say: “Make Philosophy your evening guest, but do not let her stay the night.””

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 17, “Binabik” (p. 260).

Night

“I’m your apprentice!” Simon protested. “When are you going to teach me something?”
“Idiot boy! What do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to teach you to read and to write. That’s the most important thing. What do you want to learn?”
“Magic!” Simon said immediately. Morgenes stared at him.
“And what about reading…?” the doctor asked ominously.
Simon was cross. As usual, people seemed determined to balk him at every turn. “I don’t know,” he said. What’s so important about reading and letters, anyway? Books are just stories about things. Why should I want to read books?”
Morgenes grinned, an old stoat finding a hole in the henyard fence. “Ah, boy, how can I be mad at you…what a wonderful, charming, perfectly stupid thing to say!” The doctor chuckled appreciatively, deep in his throat.
“What do you mean?” Simon’s eyebrows moved together as he frowned. “Why is it wonderful and stupid?”
“Wonderful because I have such a wonderful answer,” Morgenes laughed. Stupid because…because young people are made stupid, I suppose—as tortoises are made with shells, and wasps with stings—it is their protection against life’s unkindnesses.”
“Begging your pardon?” Simon was totally flummoxed now.
“Books,” Morgenes said grandly, leaning back on his precarious stool, “—books are magic. That is the simple answer. And books are traps as well.”
“Magic? Traps?”
“Books are a form of magic—” the doctor lifted the volume he had just laid on the stack, “—because they span time and distance more surely than any spell or charm. What did so-and-so think about such-and-such two hundred years agone? Can you fly back through the ages and ask him? No—or at least, probably not.
But, ah! If he wrote down his thoughts, if somewhere there exists a scroll, or a book of his logical discourses…he speaks to you! Across centuries! And if you wish to visit far Nascadu or lost Khandia, you have also but to open a book….”
“Yes, yes, I suppose I understand all that.” Simon did not try to hide his disappointment. This was not what he had meant by the word “magic.” “What about traps, then? Why ‘traps’?”

Tad Williams

Morgenes leaned forward, waggling the leather-bound volume under Simon’s nose. “A piece of writing is a trap,” he said cheerily, “and the best kind. A book, you see, is the only kind of trap that keeps its captive—which is knowledge—alive forever. The more books you have,” the doctor waved an all-encompassing hand about the room, “the more traps, then the better chance of capturing some particular, elusive, shining beast—one that might otherwise die unseen.”
Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 7, “The Conqueror Star” (pp. 92-93).

Life , People , Books , Age

“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

“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).

“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

“Binabik had taught him to do only what he could at any given time. “You cannot catch three fish with two hands,” the little man often said.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 24, “The Graylands” (p. 540).

Fish , Time

““Thank you, Duke,” the troll said seriously. “May your god be blessing us indeed. We go into unknown places.”
“As do all mortals,” Josua added. “Sooner or later.””

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 34, “Forgotten Swords” (p. 567).

God

““Do you get tired, singing?” she asked.
Gan Itai laughed quietly. “Does a mother grow tired raising her children? Of course, but it is what I do.””

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 23, “Deep Waters” (p. 591).

Children , Singing

“Are these things you all say magical charms to chase me away? If so, they do not seem to be working.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 20, “Travelers and Messengers” (p. 636).

“In my experience,” he said with more than a touch of bitterness, “the gods do not seem to care much what their servants deserve—or at least the rewards they give are too subtle for my understanding.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 25, “Living in Exile” (p. 569).

God , Understanding