Tim Powers: Trending quotes

“I’ve learned that having a lot of money is more fun than not having a lot of money, and that once you’ve got it, it tends to grow all by itself, like a fire.”

Tim Powers book The Anubis Gates

Source: The Anubis Gates (1983), Chapter 14 (p. 341)

Money , Learning

“He remembered his dismay at finding himself committed to a hand of cards without having honestly looked at the stakes, fourteen years ago. Had he been doing it again? But if the stakes were too frightening to consider, and the game was already lost, what value could there be in clear comprehension?”

Tim Powers book Declare

Source: Declare (2001), Chapter 17 (p. 496)

Game

“That’s me, that old guy, that old drunk guy! Who claimed he was my dad? Like, me from the future?”

Tim Powers book Three Days to Never

“One future, not the future. There isn’t any the future.”
Source: Three Days to Never (2006), Chapter 22 (p. 313)

Future , Guy

“Yeah, there's some unlikely beasts in the world, and it's best to stay near the ones that you've bought drinks for.”

Tim Powers On Stranger Tides

Source: On Stranger Tides

World , Drink

“He thought about crossing his fingers, but clasped her hand instead.”

Tim Powers book Last Call

Epilogue (p. 535)
Last Call (1992)

“The landlord crossed himself when they checked in, but an English ten-pound note for a week’s lodging overcame whatever superstitious misgivings the man may have had.”

Tim Powers book The Stress of Her Regard

Source: The Stress of Her Regard (1989), Chapter 17 (p. 285)

“After a few seconds, he said, “You’re devout, aren’t you? Some species of Christian, I imagine?”
She smiled faintly. “Yes.”
“I would say that was a mark against your intelligence, but since you’re both nice girls, I won’t say it. But you assume a sequel to this life, one in which noble sacrifices are rewarded, or at least noted. I’m convinced that no note is taken at all, and that, as far as any one of us is concerned, the universe comes to an end at the moment of his death.””

Tim Powers

Part 2, Chapter 2 (p. 264)
Hide Me Among the Graves (2012)

Life , Death , Smile , Imagination

“How old are you, Brian? You ought to know by now that something always breaks up love affairs unless both parties are willing to compromise themselves. And that compromising is harder to do the older and less flexible and more independent you are. It just isn’t in you, Brian. You could no more get married now than you could become a priest, or a sculptor, or a greengrocer.”
Duffy opened his mouth to voice angry denials, then one corner turned up and he closed it. “Damn you,” he said wryly. “Then why do I want to, half the time?”
Aurelianus shrugged. “It’s the nature of the species. There’s a part of a man’s mind that can only relax and go to sleep when he’s with a woman, and that part gets tired of always being tensely awake. It gives orders in so loud a voice that it often drowns out the other components. But when the loud one is asleep at last, the others regain control and chart a new course.” He grinned. “No equilibrium is possible. If you don’t want to put up with the constant seesawing, you must either starve the logical components or bind, gag and lock away in a cellar that one insistent one.”
Duffy grimaced and drank some more brandy. “I’m used to the rocking, and I was never one to get motion-sick,” he said. “I’ll stay on the seesaw.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Aurelianus bowed. “You have that option, sir.”
Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 18 (p. 247)

Love , Nature , Sleep , Time

“The wages of courage is death, lad, but it’s the wages of everything else, too.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 10 (p. 140)

Death , Courage

“It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn’t yet lost.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 6 (p. 86)

Night

“Gambling was the place where statistics and profound human consequences met most nakedly, after all, and cards, even more than dice or the numbers on a roulette wheel, seemed able to define and perhaps even dictate a player’s…luck.”

Tim Powers book Last Call

Source: Last Call (1992), Chapter 8 (p. 79)

“Say that again after you’ve been in the same spot and acted differently, old buddy. Maybe then I’ll be ashamed.”

Tim Powers book The Anubis Gates

Source: The Anubis Gates (1983), Chapter 7 (pp. 169-170)

““We’re going to have a séance. Oren, open the whisky, if you would, and pour each of us a full glass.”
“First sensible remark all night,” said Charlotte.”

Tim Powers book Three Days to Never

Source: Three Days to Never (2006), Chapter 24 (p. 339)

Night

“She’s probably only now beginning to be able to think for herself, he thought. And she’ll be hating it. Will she acknowledge the responsibilities that she can now clearly see, or will they be so appalling that she’ll just want to return to the selfless haze?”

Tim Powers book The Stress of Her Regard

Source: The Stress of Her Regard (1989), Chapter 24 (p. 372)

Hate , Thinking

“Solipsism,” said Felise. “I thought that too, for a while, but it was so obvious that my cat didn’t think so, didn’t think I was the only thing in the universe, that I decided it wasn’t true.”

Tim Powers

The Hour of Babel (p. 62)
Short fiction, The Bible Repairman and Other Stories (2011)

Cats , Thinking , Universe

“Let us quickly be finished with the business of dying, to save the trouble of making dinner.”

Tim Powers book Declare

Source: Declare (2001), Chapter 12 (p. 345)

Business

““Whats o’clock?”
It wants a quarter to twelve,
And to-morrow’s doomsday.”

Tim Powers On Stranger Tides

Source: On Stranger Tides (1987), Chapter 19 (p. 207, quoting T. L. Beddoes)

““William will marry eventually,” he said in a quieter tone. He’ll try to have children—he doesn’t believe any of this.”
“Not even in God,” said Maria sadly, shaking her head, “who is our only hope.”
“And an unhelpfully remote and theoretical hope, at that,” Gabriel snapped.”

Tim Powers

Part 1, Chapter 4 (p. 80)
Hide Me Among the Graves (2012)

God , Children , Hope

“He was dizzy, and it occurred to him that Newton must have been right when he’d said that light consisted of particles, for today he could feel them hitting him.”

Tim Powers book The Stress of Her Regard

Source: The Stress of Her Regard (1989), Chapter 3 (p. 51)

Feeling , Light

““She chose to reject me!”
That wasn’t a choice, lad—that was an empty gun saying click.””

Tim Powers

Part 1, Chapter 10 (p. 184)
Hide Me Among the Graves (2012)