Quotes from Abarat

Clive Barker ·  393 pages

Rating: (23.3K votes)


“Darkness always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It’s only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined, sometimes—if necessary—brought down for a time. Then it will rise again, as it must.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“Three is the number of those who do holy work;

Two is the number of those who do lover's work;

One is the number of those who do perfect evil

Or perfect good.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“O little one,
My little one,
Come with me,
Your life is done.

Forget the future,
Forget the past.
Life is over:
Breathe your last.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“Sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree

O woe is me,
O woe is me,
I used to have a hamster tree,
But it was eaten by a newt,
And now I have no cuddly fruit,
O woe is me,
O woe is me,
I used to have a hamster tree!”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“Believe me, when I say;
There are no two powers
That command the soul.
One is God
The other is the tide.
-Anon
From the novel Abarat”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat



“Perhaps a wiser eye than hers would be able to read tomorrow in tonight's stars, but where was the fun in that? It was better not to know. Better to be alive in the Here and the Now--in this bright, laughing moment--and let the Hours to come take care of themselves.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“You'll learn, honey. Love can be the best thing in life. And it can be the worst. The absolute worst.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“Mischief nodded. 'It's true,' he conceded. 'You're in the company of eight world-class thieves,' he said, not without a little touch of pride. 'Saints we are not.'
But then,' said Deaux-Deaux, 'who is?' he thought on this. 'Besides saints.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“She's...just a girl, you know. Like most girls: something and nothing.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“He[Tom] read from the Almenak."'The song that the Vigil Snake sings is in fact one immensely long word; the longest in the ancient language of the species. It is so long that an individual can sing it for a lifetime and never come to the end of it.'"
"That sounds like a Kleppism to me," Geneva said. "How would they ever learn it?"
"Good question," said Tom. "Maybe they're born with it, like a migration instinct?"'
"Born with a song,"said Geneva.
Tom smiled. "Yes. Don't you like that idea?"
"Liking it and having it be true aren't the same thing, Tom."
"Huh. Sometimes you need to let things strike your heart and not your head, Geneva.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat



“Journey to the end of day,
Come the fire-fly,
Come the moon;
Say a prayer for God's good grace
And sleep with lore upon your face.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“My feet are killing me."
"I knew somebody who had feet like that. They'd walk all over him. Archie Kashanian was his name. He used to wake up with footprints all over his chest, all over his face. It was the death of him, finally.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“Leavening the flat bread of what we know, with the yeast of what we dream may come to pass.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“We wouldn't eat an important person like you. Sometimes we'll take a sailor, but —" He shrugged. "— so would you if it was always fish.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“That's not fair!"
"Life's not fair, Kaspar. You know that. You had a slave for — how long?"
"Twelve years."
"Did you treat him 'fairly'? No, of course not. You beat him when you were in a bad mood, because it made you feel better, and when you felt better you beat him some more.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat



“No. No, I’m not.” Then she said: “I’m somebody else. I just don’t know who that somebody else is yet.” “Well that’s what journeys are for,” Diamanda Murkitt said.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“Three is the number of those who do holy work;
Two is the number of those who do lovers work;
One is the number of those who do perfect evil
Or perfect good.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


“La oscuridad también ha de desempeñar un papel. Sin ella, ¿cómo sabríamos que caminamos por la senda de la luz? Solamente cuando sus pretensiones se crecen debemos enfrentarnos a ella, domarla y a veces –llegado el caso- someterla durante un tiempo. Después se erguirá de nuevo, como debe ser.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat


About the author

Clive Barker
Born place: in Liverpool, The United Kingdom
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Popular quotes

“O me, you juggler, you canker-blossom, you thief of love!”
― William Shakespeare, quote from A Midsummer Night's Dream


“For this is the thing the priests do not know, with their One God and One Truth; that there is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will, and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you, and whether, at the end, you arrive at the Holy Isle of Eternity or among the priests with their bells and their death and their Satan and hell and damnation...but perhaps I am unjust even to them. Even the Lady of the Lake, who hated a priest's robe as she would have hated a poisonous viper, and with good cause too, chid me once for speaking evil of the God.

'For all the Gods are one god,' she said to me then, as she had said many times before, and as I have said to my own novices many times, and as every priestess who comes after me will say again, 'and all the Goddesses are one Goddess, and their is only one Initiator. And to every man his own truth, and the God within.'

And so, perhaps, the truth winds somewhere between the road to Glastonbury, Isle of the Priests, and the road to Avalon, lost forever in the mists of the Summer Sea.

But this is my truth, I who am Morgaine tell you these things, Morgaine who was in later days called Morgan le Fay.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, quote from The Mists of Avalon


“We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.”
― Joseph Conrad, quote from Heart of Darkness


“Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.”
― Amy Tan, quote from The Joy Luck Club


“Hell may have all the best composers, but heaven has all the best choreographers.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch


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