Quotes from Ellen Kushner

Now, I'm not the sort to find fault in myself just because others do;

What's your name?" I ask. I'm expecting something different from what we usually get down here in Soho, newbie runaways styling themselves Shadesong or Spartacus or whatever. But

Look you not throw your music after pride: it's a rude servant, but a cruel master.

You know how it is when someone wants to complain; all the good counsel in the world is nothing to one drop of their precious misery, and everything you suggest is somehow impossible.

Let the fairy tale begin on a winter's morning, then, with one drop of blood newly-fallen on the ivory snow: a drop as bright as a clear-cut ruby, red as a single spot of claret on the lace cuff.

Not being the sort to throw a book, she pounded her fist on her cushion.

There's the road to heaven, and there's the road to hell, and there? That's the road to Faerie.

He said, 'They're only whores,' as though their very availability rendered them worthless.

Richard knew he was fighting for his life, and he was terribly happy.

Across the troubled maelstrom of time, people always need a beer.

although he was at core a rotten being, no one could fault him for style.

But I saw the pair of them, along with everyone else. Hard to miss. Him towering like a raggedy scarecrow in that flapping black scholar's gown, and the sword always quiet next to him, sweet as honey, and poison with it.

What was it about scholarship and learning, he wondered, that seemed to wither the hearts of University men, leaving them incapable of loving anything as imperfect and fallible as an actual human being?

The time of testing, and of playing, was over. This was the final duel for one of them. Now they were fighting for their lives--for the one life that would emerge from this elegant battle. . . . For the moment the two of them were evenly matched, arm against arm. Michael prayed that it would never stop, that there would always be this moment of utter mastery, beautiful and rare, and no conclusion ever be reached.

I let the insults go by. A good swordsman doesn't pay attention to words in a fight.

Maybe someone would write a play just for me, one where a real woman could fight with her sword, and had many fine adventures and changes of costume.

Have you seen Marcus?" he asked his ugly friend. "Yes, he was stoping some people in the Violet Room from climbing the curtains." "What for?" "They were not professionals." "Oh.

In the sleepless dark, all things are possible, the worst most likely, all darkness visible. There he lay, as near as comfort, as far as the other side of death, silent and far away in sleep.

I wonder if you men have any idea of how insulting it is to women when you assume that all we can offer is our bodies?

Every man lives at swordspoint.

He had nothing against debauchery in the abstract, but he was particular about the details.

It was strange to see that no matter what color the clothing first appeared—and they were all hues, from earthy copper and garnet to the blue of sky and shadow—in different light all turned to some shade of green, as if there were a third plane to the cloth's weaving beyond the warp and weft.

Los duelos sólo son a muerte cuando lo que hay en juego es una de estas dos cosas: poder o dinero. —¿Qué hay del honor? —¿Qué se puede comprar con el honor? —preguntó cínicamente la duquesa.

Ellos tienen las espadas. —Lord Halliday sonrió mirándose las manos—. Nosotros tenemos todos los demás. Las cosas se igualan, no obstante, con una punta de acero en la garganta. —Todo el mundo vive a punta de espada —entonó Ferris.