Quotes by British Authors - Page 578

The God-War is coming.
John Gwynne
Come! our world is done:For all the witchery of the world is fled,And lost all wanton wisdom long since won.
Lionel Pigot Johnson
There's no point in fighting for the throne if you're not going to make a difference.
Rhiannon Thomas
You can have a failed quest, but you can't have an achieved quest and no reward.
Sara Maitland
I believe there is an explanation for everything - although we shall never know the explanation for everything. Not everything in this world can be understood by us, nor should it be. It is not necessary.
Steve Augarde
The strangest experiences in life are apt to lose their effect if dwelt upon long enough. ("Furze Hollow")
A.M. Burrage
First of all, you're dead. Secondly, I cut off your head. Thirdly... yes, I know that rhymed, you really don't have to tell me.
Gayle Ramage
Imagination shrinks from the consequences.
Jude Morgan
Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.
Joseph Conrad
You know what killed off the dinosaurs, Whateley? We did. In one barbecue.
Neil Gaiman
Roads go ever ever on,Over rock and under tree,By caves where never sun has shone,By streams that never find the sea;Over snow by winter sown,And through the merry flowers of June,Over grass and over stone,And under mountains of the moon.Roads go ever ever onUnder cloud and under star,Yet feet that wandering have goneTurn at last to home afar.Eyes that fire and sword have seenAnd horror in the halls of stoneLook at last on meadows greenAnd trees and hills they long have known
J.R.R. Tolkien
But in the name of all that is holy, Mosca, of all the people you could have taken up with, why Eponymous Clent?" murmured Kohlrabi.Because I'd been hording words for years, buying them from peddlers and carving them secretly on bits of bark so I wouldn't forget them, and then he turned up using words like "epiphany" and "amaranth." Because I heard him talking in the marketplace, laying out sentences like a merchant rolling out rich silks. Because he made words and ideas dance like flames and something that was damp and dying came alive in my mind, the way it hadn't since they burned my father's books. Because he walked into Chough with stories from exciting places tangled around him like maypole streamers..."Mosca shrugged."He's got a way with words.
Frances Hardinge
Back in the "leather and lace" eighties, I was the fantasy editor for a publishing company in New York City. It was a great time to be young and footloose on the streets of Manhattan—punk rock and folk music were everywhere; Blondie, the Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and Prince were all strutting their stuff on the newly created MTV; and the eighties' sense of style meant I could wear my scruffy black leather into the office without turning too many heads. The fantasy field was growing by leaps and bounds, and I was right in the middle of it, working with authors I'd worshiped as a teen, and finding new ones to encourage and publish.
Terri Windling
What is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons?
Terry Pratchett
The world rides through space on the back of a turtle. This is one of the great ancient world myths, found wherever men and turtles were gathered together; the four elephants were an Indo-European sophistication. The idea has been lying in the lumber rooms of legend for centuries. All I had to do was grab it and run away before the alarms went off.There are no maps. You can't map a sense of humour. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we know There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and forked tongues, but they Be Here all right, grinning and jostling and trying to sell you souvenirs.
Terry Pratchett
...and said grace in Welsh. It was all rolling, thundering language.
Diana Wynne Jones
Close your senses and the imagination comes alive. It's inside us al, dulled by endless television reruns and by a society that reins in fantasy as something not to be trusted, something to be purged. But it's in there, deep inside, a spark waiting to set a touch-paper alight.
Tahir Shah
Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried: 'Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!' Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive...
J.R.R. Tolkien
For nothing is evil in the beginning.
J.R.R. Tolkien
There came a time near dawn on the eve of spring, and Luthien danced upon a green hill; and suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world; and the song of Luthien released the bonds of winter, and the frozen waters spoke, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where he feet had passed. Then the spell of silence fell from Beren, and he called to her, crying Tinuviel; and the woods echoed the name.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Poor Uther. He believed that virtues are handed down through a man's loins! What nonsense! A child is like a calf; if the thing is born crippled you knock it smartly on the skull and serve the cow again. That's why the Gods made it such a pleasure to engender children, because so many of the little brutes have to be replaced. There's not much pleasure in the process for women, of course, but someone has to suffer andthank the Gods it's them and not us.
Bernard Cornwell
A set of huge marble busts stared smugly down from on high: great merchants and financiers of Styrian history, by the look of them. Criminals made heroes by colossal success.
Joe Abercrombie
Are you entirely sure of that knot?' asked Morveer. 'There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop'.'Twenty-eight strides', said Friendly.'What?''The drop'.A brief pause, 'That is not helpful'.
Joe Abercrombie
We have just begun to navigate a strange region; we must expect to encounter strange adventures, strange perils.
Arthur Machen
RIDE A WHITE SWAN""Ride it on out like a bird in the skyway,Ride it on out like you were a bird,Fly it all out like an eagle in a sunbeam,Ride it all out like you were a bird.Wear a tall hat like the druid in the old daysWear a tall hat and a Tattooed gownRide a white swan like the people of the Beltane,Wear your hair long,babe,you can't go wrong.Catch a bright star and place it on your forehead,Say a few spells and baby,there you go,Take a black cat and sit it on your shoulder,And in the morning you'll know all you know.Wear a tall hat like the druid in the old daysWear a tall hat and a Tattooed gownRide a white swan like the people of the Beltane,Wear your hair long, babe ,you can't go wrong.Da di di da, da di di da
Marc Bolan
Men may act as cruelly as dragons, but dragons will never act as men do.
Steven Poore
Lift your head to me...’ His is the kiss of a timorous lover. Feel his inhuman lips on the throat, the heat of it. The bite, when it comes, is cold. Begin to sink as the blood flows into his mouth; it is almost soothing. No pain. No pain at all. His teeth grind into the muscles; ecstasy and torment. Life, the very being, is flowing out. Unholy nourishment. Holy nourishment. Drained slowly.The trauma of it feels like being torn, but it is no more than suddenly having the ability to experience reality in a different way. Waiting for the end... for what? Cannot foretell. No longer flesh, no longer blood. Soul. Free.
Storm Constantine
It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale - they are well-equipped to deal with these
Neil Gaiman
Fantasy - the ability to envisage the world in many different ways - is one of the skills that makes us human.
Terry Pratchett
But I don't think Art's an Einstein - he likes tugging ears, biting people and burping too much to be a genius.
Darren Shan
The incalculable winds of fantasy and music and poetry, the mere face of a girl, the song of a bird, or the sight of a horizon, are always blowing evil’s whole structure away.
C.S. Lewis
But of bliss and glad life there is little to be said, before it ends; as works fair and wonderful, while they still endure for eyes to see, are ever their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song.
J.R.R. Tolkien
The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse.
Charles Williams
All right," said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
Lewis Carroll
Fancies were all very well for a change, but must be only occasional guests in a world devoted to reality.
Walter de la Mare
Egnaro is a secret known to everyone but yourself.It is a country or a city to which you have never been; it is an unknown language. At the same time it is like being cuckolded, or plotted against. It is part of the universe of events which will never wholly reveal itself to you: a conspiracy the barest outline of which, once visible, will gall you forever.
M. John Harrison
Carla had realised there wasn’t just one destined adventure in life, there were thousands of them.
Claire Chilton
I don't ever dream about you and meI don't ever make up stuff about usThat would be considered insanityI don't ever drive by your houseTo see if you're inI don't even have an opinionOn that tramp that you are still seeingI don't know your timetableI don't know your face off by heartBut I must admit that there's still a part of meThat thinks we might get on
Kate Nash
Rupert: "... At this rate, somebody is bound to upset the Warlock once too often, and we'll end up with a Court full of bemused looking toads.""He wouldn't dare use his magic here," said the Champion."Don't bet on it," said Rupert. "The High Warlock has all the practicality and self-preservation instincts of a depressed lemming.
Simon R. Green
Take the word for it of a man who has made his way inch by inch, and does not believe that we'll wake up to find our work done because we've lain all night a-dreaming of it; anything worth doing is devilish hard to do!
Henry James
And then the turbines generate electricity that goes into the whole town.""You mean they aren't powered by giant hamsters on wheels? I was misinformed.
Michael Grant
What's a horse doing on a spaceship" "What's pre-revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Mickey, get a little perspective!"Dr. Who "The Girl In The Fireplace
Stephen Moffat
We are *all* we are, and all in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all just what the old boy said – it's only the impossible that's credible; whatever credible may mean...
Walter de la Mare
Hence the uneasiness which they arouse in those who, for whatever reason, wish to keep us wholly imprisoned in the immediate conflict. That perhaps is why people are so ready with the charge of "escape." I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, "What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?" and gave the obvious answer: jailers.
C.S. Lewis
As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool—not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others—a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive.
C.S. Lewis
Not long ago-incredible though it may seem-I heard a clerk of Oxford declare that he 'welcomed' the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive traffic, because it brought his university into 'contact with real life.' He may have meant that the way men were living and working in the twentieth century was increasing in barbarity at an alarming rate, and that the loud demonstration of this in the streets of Oxford might serve as a warning that it is not possible to preserve for long an oasis of sanity in a desert of unreason by mere fences, without actual offensive action (practical and intellectual). I fear he did not. In any case the expression 'real life' in this context seems to fall short of academic standards. The notion that motor-cars are more 'alive' than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are more 'real' than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm tree: poor obsolete thing, insubstantial dream of an escapist!
J.R.R. Tolkien
He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotation mark on the lead. He laughed.
Philip Pullman
The fantastic cannot exist independently of that 'real' world which it seems to find frustratingly finite.
Rosemary Jackson
It was the forest’s fault. Those two handsome woodcutters. An evil place, the forest, everyone knew it, full of temptations and imps...
Tanith Lee
The young man shivered. He rolled the stock themes of fantasy over in his mind: cars and stockbrokers and commuters, housewives and police, agony columns and commercials for soap, income tax and cheap restaurants, magazines and credit cards and streetlights and computers... 'It is escapism, true,' he said, aloud. 'But is not the highest impulse in mankind the urge toward freedom, the drive to escape?
Neil Gaiman
I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun; and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a Shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.
J.R.R. Tolkien
It felt like he’d been dragged through the nine circles of hell — by his testicles.
Kay Berrisford
Toads are to dragons what carrots are to unicorns.
Ness Kingsley
Why are so many of us enspelled by myths and folk stories in this modern age? Why do we continue to tell the same old tales, over and over again? I think it's because these stories are not just fantasy. They're about real life. We've all encountered wicked wolves, found fairy godmothers, and faced trial by fire. We've all set off into unknown woods at one point in life or another. We've all had to learn to tell friend from foe and to be kind to crones by the side of the road. . . .
Terri Windling
Humanity's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.
Terry Pratchett
He had never been interested in stories at any age, and had never quite understood the basic concept. He'd never read a work of fiction all the way through. He did remember, as a small boy, being really annoyed at the depiction of Hickory Dickory Dock in a rag book of nursery rhymes because the clock in the drawing was completely wrong for the period.
Terry Pratchett
He felt in his heart cruelty and cowardice, the things which made him brave and kind.
T.H. White
I think the measure of advancement depends on where you are stood and from what distance you look. A thousand years ago, we farmed the fields, built towns and defended our land with swords and spears. It is little different now, save for the number of people we have to protect. We still kill with a sharp edge or point of metal, blood runs red still, sons ride off to war and parents grieve. If you look at the Empire in its whole, then it is peaceful. If you look closely, you will see the small wars, the bandits and rebellions. Look more closely still and you’ll see the petty crimes, the struggle to survive, the rich bleeding the poor. Even the soil can turn against its farmers, yielding few crops. Or the weather, a late frost killing the early crops. There is strife and conflict everywhere in the Empire. Everywhere you find men, you find conflict.
G.R. Matthews
Who upholds the gorsedd if not You? Who counts the ages of the world if not You? Who commands the Wheel of Heaven if not You? Who quickens life in the womb if not You? Therefore, God of All Virtue and Power, sain us and shield us with Your Swift Sure Hand.
Stephen R. Lawhead
The deer hovered by the trees beyond as the sounds of the ravening wolves came to them across the grass, their own senses almost frozen in impotent horror.
David Clement-Davies