“Yours is a race of pawns,” Tzadkiel told me. “You move forward only, unless we move you back to begin the game again. But not all the pieces on the board are pawns.”

— Gene Wolfe

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 24, "The Captain" (p. 176)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Yours is a race of pawns,” Tzadkiel told me. “You move forward only, unless we move you back to begin the game again. B…" by Gene Wolfe?

Gene Wolfe102

American science fiction and fantasy writer 1931–2019

Related quotes

“We will never be a pawn in someone else's game. We will always be Afghanistan.”

Ahmad Shah Massoud (1953–2001) Afghan military leader

Attributed in Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (2005) by Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo.

“But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)

“Use art, be creative. No more war. No more children dying. A pawn that does not move in chess upsets the game. I know there is love in the world still and that is what I wish to surround myself with. Sacrifice your time and energy into something positive instead of the negative and you will see that change around you.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Speaking at the Get Shamrocked Irish Festival (19 September 2014).

“Fancy what a game at chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, in disgust at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. You might be the longest-headed of deducted reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt.
Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with the game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for his instruments. He thinks himself sagacious, perhaps, because he trusts no bond except that of self-interest; but the only self-interest he can safely rely on is what seems to be such to the mind he would use or govern. Can he ever be sure of knowing this?”

George Eliot book Felix Holt, the Radical

Start of Chapter 29 (at page 237)
Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)

“When you can't go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment.
We're still the pawns in their game.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

“Don't be a pawn in somebody's game. Find the attitude which gives you the maximum strength and the maximum dignity, no matter what else is going on”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

“I have a weakness for any piece in excess of my opponent's numbers - from pawn to queen.”

Tigran Petrosian (1929–1984) Soviet Georgian Armenian chess player and chess writer

Quoted in Vik L Vasilev, "Tigran Petrosian His Life and Games" (Batsford, London, 1974) p. 166.

“Well Im back in your good graces again
Remember when you told me that I was your only friend?”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"Me and You".
Volume Two (2010)

“Suddenly, I don’t know how to explain it, the chess pieces seemed to come alive for me. It was like I could now see the chess pieces moving on the board on their own. I started beating everybody. I, the slowest of the slow, had now gone something like a hundred games without losing. I could do no wrong. It was magical how the pieces spoke to me, showing me where to move.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

“Yours is a race of pawns,” Tzadkiel told me. “You move forward only, unless we move you back to begin the game again. But not all the pieces on the board are pawns.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Gene Wolfe102

Related quotes

Related topics