Quotes from Dave Duncan

It was a long time since he'd been one of a group. He had friends again.

Max made the sort of "?" noise a bear would make on being kicked awake in midwinter.

Trapped! He was one of them now. He'd shaken hands. He had given his word.

They say," Ogi remarked, " that happiness is pretending you always wanted what you're getting.

Emshandar's problems were his fault. He who wakes the dog must bear the bite, his mother had always said.

Sober, for Gods' sake? Fight sober? Jotnar think that's unmanly. That's worse cheating than using far-sight!

Preparing for war, as was well known in other lands but perhaps not then in that one, is usually a self-fulfilling precaution.

The world had changed since place names were invented.

What's first-best time to negotiate?" he asked. "When you're certain to lose. Then you may salvage something, right?

We live in hard times. Trouble should become easier to handle as we are older, but by then we know that the world is not cruel, only indifferent, and that hurts even more.

L'intervention des deux hommes avait peut-être été superflue, mais tout le monde savait que les dieux aidaient ceux qui se prenaient en main. Il

It was thinner than a portrait painter in Constantinople...

A griffon crouched upon the hilt In silver white and sapphire blue, With ruby eye and talons gilt And blade of steel of starlight hue. The seventh sword he wrought at last, And all the others it surpassed.

il valait mieux prévenir que guérir.

I want justice for Bernie!

Her father did look tired, almost as if he were sitting in shadow when everyone around him was in sunshine.

Aren't you frightened?" "No." The sailor pondered for a moment and then added, "If I warn't just a dumb jotunn I might be, I s'pose." This sudden insight seemed to worry him more than the dragons themselves.

La vérité est comme un joyau taillé, monsieur Smith. Elle a des millions de facettes. Si je t'en montre une, tu seras satisfait, mais n'oublie pas qu'il en existe bien d'autres. —

It had been Shole and Mearn who had come to the Leéb Place and abducted Thaïle and stolen— Her baby! She screamed to see the full extent of the College's treachery. Not only her goodman! Her baby, too! With a howl of pain and fury, she gathered her powers for vengeance.

I don't like it, but as they say you can't make chickens without breaking eggs." The

Vous savez que l'amour et le vice sont le meilleur et le pire moteur de l'humanité – bien qu'ils soient souvent indissociables.

Now he seemed to be stranded for the rest of his life on a world unknown, more exotic than anywhere Haggard ever Rode or Rudyard ever Kipled.

The people learned that they could grumble without being disloyal, because the ministers were not beloved kings above reproach, but only rather stupid people like themselves, probably even more stupid. The ministers discovered that office had undoubted advantages, but they knew they would not be reelected unless they governed well, so mostly they tried their best. Each kept watch that none of the others got away with more than he did, and this kept corruption within limits.

No one would ever find time to read such a collection, but libraries like that are not intended to be read, only envied.