Tim Powers: Want

Tim Powers is American writer. Explore interesting quotes on want.

Tim Powers: 126 quotes3 likes

“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)

“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)

““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)

“Every ruler wants to maintain the status quo.”

Tim Powers book The Stress of Her Regard

Interlude “Summer, 1818” (p. 170)
The Stress of Her Regard (1989)

“Which perspective is true? he thought. Which do I want to be true?”

Tim Powers book Declare

Source: Declare (2001), Chapter 10 (p. 285)

“Under what circumstances do you think you might want to…return to the real world?”

The real world and I never did get along, she thought.
“I can’t imagine,” she said.
Epilogue, “I Have No Idea” (p. 287; closing words)
Stolen Skies (2022)