Quotes from Tad Williams

He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." More

Kind of like I suspect things are at night in the It's A Small World ride, when all the little figures come to life and whisper about how they'd like to torture and murder all those screaming children and grinning grown-ups in the boats.

The manchildren, the mortals, have many ideas of what happens after they die, and wrangle about who is right and who is wrong. These disagreements often come to bloodshed, as if they wished to dispatch messengers who could discover the answer to their dispute. Such messengers, as far as I know of mortal philosophy, never return to give their brethren the taste of truth they yearn for.

Listen. We have always had Sacrifices and they have always done their duty without question. But in the days and years ahead, we need something different. We need Builders

God shapes us with a hammer of pain on an anvil of duty. I cannot imagine what shape we will be when He is finished.

Never make your home in a place," the old man had said, too lazy in the spring warmth to do more than wag a finger. "Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things." Morgenes had grinned. "That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You'll never lack for a home—unless you lose your head, of course . .

Perhaps a heart was indeed like a piece of dry birchwood, and could only take fire and burn brightly once—that any fire that came after would be only an ember, smaller and cooler.

I'm pretty much a cat that way. Scratch my stomach, and I'll purr at you, but I'll want to gut you with my claws even more than if you'd ignored me.

And what about lovers, like in the stories? Do they get married?" "Oh, yes. And sometimes they stay in love, but sometimes they don't. I would say it's one of the more untrustworthy reasons for marriage.

You dream too much, child. Our kind, we make our way with strong backs and closed mouths.

John the Presbyter, Lord of Erkynland and High King of all Osten Ard; scourge of the Sithi and defender of the true faith, wielder of the sword Bright-Nail, bane of the dragon Shurakai . . . Prester John was sitting once more upon his chair made of dragon's bones. He was very, very old, and had been crying.

Now, ten or more years later, far away from her home or even any thought of having a home, she again touched the feeling from that long ago day, being alone but not lonely, of being solitary yet sufficient.

His virtual home showed none of the ostentation of others in the Brotherhood, no Gothic-fortress-perched-on-impossible-cliffs or Caligulean excesses of decor (usually accompanied by an equally Caligulean want of decorum.)

Briony's ladies-in-waiting kept their distance, as though their mistress had some illness which might spread—and indeed she did, Briony thought, because unhappiness was ambitious.

There's sense, he told himself. You build something and then you stay there. That's the way it's meant to be. Not this running here, running there, never see your blood-family or your home roofs for a year at a time.

Were all these castle folk in their ornate finery no more than confused souls hiding inside costumes, as the hard shells of snails protected the helpless, naked things that lived within them?

As he slipped away he heard his own cradled heartbeat, muffled though it was in the tickling wool of exhaustion.

No better sauce there is being than hunger.

We call darkness our friend, but when the elders tell us stories of the Garden, they talk of the holy, unending light that was there. How did shadows become our only dwelling?

He led them around the base of a great fallen tree whose exposed roots resembled more than anything else a huge broom - a broom that would have fired the imagination of Rachel the Dragon toward heroic, legendary feats of sweeping.

You dog!" she said, so loud that half the crowded tavern turned to watch. "A few days past the walls of the inner keep and you think your pizzle has turned to solid silver? At least when Nevin Hewney falls asleep on top of a girl, drooling and farting and limp as custard, he doesn't pretend he's done her a favor.

I asked that goddess for help, and all we got were these stupid monkeys.

It was strange how the future seemed tied inseparably to the past, so that both revolved through the present, like a great wheel...

and everywhere books, books, books