Quotes from Stephen R. Donaldson

In accepting the Gift you Honor the Giver

I respect my limitations, but I don't use them as an excuse.

Futility is the defining characteristic of life.

Stone and sea are deep in life Two unalterable symbols of the world Permanence at rest And permanence in motion Participants in the power that remains

I had no intention of pursuing either the characters or the setting further.

Attempts must be made, even when there can be no hope. The alternative is despair.

These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives: for all the scents of green things growing, each breath is but an exhalation of the grave. Bodies jerk like puppet corpses, and hell walks laughing— Laughing

That is Lord Foul's way in all things—to force his foes to become that which they most hate, and to destroy that which they most love.

But there's something about sitting at someone else's desk that makes you feel like looking in the drawers. I resisted the impulse briefly. Then I decided what the hell. I was a private investigator. Poking my nose in where it didn't belong came with the territory.

For convenience, history is often viewed as a conflict between the instinct for order and the impulse toward chaos. Both are necessary: both are manifestations of the need to survive. Without order, nothing exists: without chaos, nothing grows. And yet the struggle between them sheds more blood than any other war.

It was the responsibility of the living to make meaningful the sacrifices of the dead.

Melenkurion abatha! Binas mill Bana Nihoram khabaal! Melenkurion abatha! Abatha Nimoram!

Mortal lives are not stones. They are not seas. For impermanence to judge itself by the standards of permanence is folly. Or it is arrogance. Life merely is what it is, neither more nor less. To deem it less because it is not more is to heed the counsels of the Despiser.

He lay in darkness, like a sacrifice; he could hear the teeth of his leprosy devouring his flesh. There was a smell of contempt around him, insisting on his impotence. But his lips were bowed in a placid smile, a look of fondness, as if he had come at last to approve his disintegration.

Perfection cannot endure in an imperfect world.

On the whole, she reflected with a loopy clarity while pain clanged back and forth in her head and the guard held her upright, she liked being rescued. It was better than not being rescued. Definitely.

for all contempt turns upon the contemptuous, as it must.

His gaze turned cold as he faced her. 'Sure, she's attractive. A stone wall would be attractive if it looked like that. It's her attitude I don't like. There's more to love than just getting your itches scratched.

What good are friends who treat you just like your enemies do?

life is risk. All who inhabit the Earth inhale peril with each breath.

But he could not call the doctors at the leprosarium. They would return him to Louisiana. They would treat him and train him and counsel him. They would put him back into life as if his illness were all that mattered, as if wisdom were only skin deep, as if grief and remorse and horror were nothing but illusions, tricks done with mirrors, irrelevant to chrome and porcelain and clean, white, stiff hospital sheets and fluorescent lights.

But then a bubbling tenor voice said kindly, Do not fear. It is a dream. The reassurance spread over him like a blanket. But he could not feel it with his hands, and the ambulance kept on moving. Needing the blanket, he clenched at the empty air until his knuckles were white with loneliness.

Misliking the Harrow as I do, I would find no small joy in thwarting him. Have I not admitted that I, too, am prone to greed? But here I personify the united will of the Insequent. Any deviation from that resolve will breach the sacred prohibition which enables the Insequent to endure and prosper. Answering you, I will bring down my own destruction and accomplish only sorrow.

But we will trust you nonetheless. You are bitter, and bitterness is a sign of concern. I trust that.