Tad Williams: Quotes about thinking

“We tell lies when we are afraid… afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger.”

Tad Williams

Lie , Fear , Thinking , Time

“To fight a war, you must believe it can accomplish something. We fight this one to save John’s kingdom, or perhaps even to save all of mankind…but isn’t that what we always think? That all wars are useless—except the one we’re fighting now?”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 13, “The Fallen Sun” (p. 314).

War , Thinking , Fight

“When you stopped to think about it, he reflected, there weren’t many things in life one truly needed. To want too much was worse than greed: it was stupidity—a waste of precious time and effort.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 42, “Beneath the Uduntree” (p. 724).

Life , Stupidity , Thinking , Effort

“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

“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

“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

“Only the mercenaries were here by choice. To Simon, the minds of men who would come to this of their own will were suddenly as incomprehensible as the thoughts of spiders or lizards—less so, even, for the small creatures of the earth almost always fled from danger. These were madmen, Simon realized, and that was the direst problem of the world: that madmen should be strong and unafraid, so that they could force their will on the weak and peace-loving. If God allowed such madness to be, Simon could not help thinking, then He was an old God who had lost His grip.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 12, “Raven’s Dance” (pp. 392-393).

Love , Men , God , World

“Part of manhood, I am thinking, is to ponder one’s words before opening one’s mouth.”

Tad Williams

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 12, “Birdsflight” (p. 297).

Thinking , Parting