Quotes from Lord Dunsany

A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders.

Bricks without straw are more easily made than imagination without memories.

Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large quantities.

Our lord is a magic lord as we all desired, and magical things have sought him from over there, and they all obey his hests. It is so, said all but Gazic. And Gazic rose up in a pause of their gladness. Many strange things, he said, have entered our village, coming from over there. And it may be that human folk are best, and the ways of the fields we know.

Her feet half rested half floated, upon the floor; Earth scarcely held her down, so fast was she becoming a thing of dreams. No love of hers for Earth, or of the children of Earth for her, had any longer power to hold her there. And

And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the house to lament the things that are cast away. And there he sitteth lamenting the broken things until the worlds be ended, or until someone cometh to mend the broken things. Or sometimes he sitteth by the river's edge to lament the forgotten things that drift upon it. A kindly god is Jabim, whose heart is sore if anything be lost.

They came as quietly as rain, and went away like mists drifting. There were jests about them and songs. And the songs outlasted the jests. At last they became a legend, which haunted those farms for ever: they were spoken of when men told of hopeless quests, and held up to laughter or glory, whichever men had to give. And

Come to Elfland,' the troll said. The child thought for a while. Other children had gone, and the elves always sent a changeling in their place, so that nobody quite missed them and nobody really knew. She thought awhile of the wonder and wildness of Elfland, and then of her own home. 'N-no,' said the child. 'Why not?' said the troll. 'Mother made a jam roll this morning,' said the child. And she walked on gravely home.

Those that know of... Paths of space... Have little time to waste on such things as magic... And those who know whence poetry is, and the need that man has for song, or know any one of the fifty branches of magic, have little time to waste on such things as science...

He approached the stranger and drew his sword. Señor, he said, we will now discuss music.

The fear of dogs is deep and universal amongst all that are less than Man.

Indeed if one had just seen him at the end of the evening with the dusk and the mist of the fenlands close behind him he might have believed that in the dusk and the mist was an army that followed this gay worn confident man. Had the army been there Niv was sane. Had the world accepted that an army was there, still he was sane. But the lonely fancy that had not fact to feed on, nor the fancy of any other for fellowship, was for its loneliness mad.

Into that charm and the gloom and the deep silence Oth moved gravely; and a solemness came on his face as he entered the wood; for to go on quiet feet through the wood was the work of his life, and he came to it as men come to their heart's desire.

For a while, O King, the gods had sought to solve the riddles of Time, for a while They made him Their slave, and Time smiled and obeyed his masters, for a while, O King, for a while. He that hath spared nothing hath not spared the gods, nor yet shall he spare thee.

They were like some popular cry, some vehement fancy, that comes down on a page of history for a day, and passes, leaving no other record at all except those lines on one page. And

Hooded, and veiled with their night-like tresses, The Fates shall bring what no prophet guesses. And

All sound arises out of Silence and dissolves into Silence. All thought arises out of Silence and dissolves into Silence. The universe arises out of Silence and dissolves into Silence. Suffering arises out of Silence and dissolves into Silence. The unbounded spaciousness of Silence, filled with the clear light of Awareness, dissolves the roots of pain and sorrow. Take refuge in Silence and know unshakable joy

There are many men like this; they can form a plausible theory and grasp its logical points, but take it away from them and destroy it utterly before their eyes, and they will not so easily lash their tired brains at once to build another theory in place of the one that is ruined.

And then he went in the evening up to the nursery and told the boy how his mother was gone for a while to Elfland, to her father's palace (which may only be told of in song). And, unheeding any words of Orion then, he held on with the brief tale that he had come to tell, and told how Elfland was gone. But that cannot be, said Orion, for I hear the horns of Elfland every day. You can hear them? Alveric said. And the boy replied, I hear them blowing at evening.

To the end of his life he remained convinced of the high calling of the genuine artist, and he knew that artists must sometimes toil in obscurity, and in the face of prevailing public opinion.

all the wild ways he had shown me, mosses and rushes and heather, the home of the curlew and snipe, and the grazing grounds of the geese, all those enchanted fields and the magical willows lying under the edge of the bog, all were to be spoiled, hidden, sold and disenchanted by that terrible force named Progress.

And beyond that circle whence so much was beaten back by the bright vehemence of the good man's curses, the will-o'-the-wisps rioted, and many a strangeness that poured in that night from Elfland, and goblins held high holiday.

But I called, as we came near, to one who stood beside the water's edge, asking him what men did in Astahahn and what their merchandise was, and with whom they traded. He said, Here we have fettered and manacled Time, who would otherwise slay the gods. I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said, All those gods whom Time has not yet slain. (from Idle Days on the River Yann)

On a waste place strewn with bricks in the outskirts of a town twilight was falling. A star or two appeared over the smoke, and distant windows lit mysterious lights. The stillness deepened and the loneliness. Then all the outcast things that are silent by day found voices.