Quotes from Tad Williams

Besides, there was always hope, wasn't there?

To want too much was worse than greed: it was stupidity—a waste of precious time and effort.

A couple I once knew from my university days told me, when they had their first child, that they had given a hostage to Fate and would never be comfortable again. I understand now. It hurts to love. It hurts to care.

Lead the way. Just remember that I'm not a very good climber. Not very good? Beetledown laughed. Like a dog with one leg, to put truth to it.

The prince's weary features looked like parchment pulled over bone;

You show her respect. That is a good thing," he said. "Too often it is that men think those who serve are doing it from inferiorness or weakness.

If you pull a single thread away it is just that—a single thread. I defy any man to read a tapestry from a solitary strand.

And just like that, it all goes. You think it will never change but that's a lie. Things can change in a day.

Oh, the Ocean is a question But the River is an answer With her rollicking and frolicking As fine as any dancer

One of our oracles tells us, 'Rain falls, dew rises. Between is mist. Between is all that is.' Let that be your answer, manchild. Do not brood too much over what went before or worry too much over what is to come. Between those two is everything that matters—all that is.

One should treasure those humdrum tasks that keep the body occupied but leave the mind and heart unfettered

And that is why we do it, he decided. Because we hope it will bring us peace. But it never, never does.... Sludig

You took your shot. It didn't work out. Now you get to do laundry. That's what life is shaped like.

They had come to her slowly at first, the children—their lives separate and precious, each one a miracle as individual as a snowflake caught on a mittened palm.

but no other friend would feel a lie as a sort of physical corruption; she could not imagine anyone else in her life despairing because he could not hear the sun's voice.

It started in mud, as many things do.

Everyone was mad already, my lady," Cadrach said with a strange, sorrowful smile. "It is merely that the times have brought it out in them.

Never make your home in a place. 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. That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You'll never lack for a home--unless you lose your head, of course...

My mother was mad, as I suppose I too am now mad. What else can people be who have their entire lives snatched away from them, and for no greater crime than being what they are? The choking, stifling unfairness of it is a permanent sore -- one that can be lived with but never forgotten.

The solitary mind probes at an ugly thought as a wound, constantly seeing if the pain is less, and in doing so keeps it alive beyond is time.

A piece of writing is a trap and the best kind. A book, you see, is the only kind of trap that keeps its captive—which is knowledge—alive forever.

Summer's End Cruel orb, my foe, the sun, Glaring upon things I never want to see again The proud, lightning-limbed oaks Of Hekhasor The shimmering blue waters of Silverhome's lake And the endless, endless sky Go away, foul sun! You make me sad.

We go into unknown places." "As do all mortals

Honor is a wonderful thing, but it is a means, not an end. A man who starves with honor does not help his family, a king who falls on his sword with honor does not save his kingdom.