Quotes from book
The Drawing of the Dark

The Drawing of the Dark
Tim Powers

The Drawing of the Dark is a historical fantasy novel by Tim Powers published in 1979 by Del Rey Books.

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“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)

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“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)

Tim Powers photo

“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)

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“You’re still Brian Duffy. As much as you ever were. But you’re Arthur, too, and that kind of outshines everything else. Brandy and water tastes more like brandy than water, after all.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 13 (p. 178)

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“He felt as if someone far away below in the darkness was chipping away at the pillars of his mind, and the steady crack…crack…crack of it was the only sound in the universe.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 9 (p. 129)

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“Trusting Merlin is like giving a migrant scorpion a lift inside your hat.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 14 (p. 183)

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