Quotes from Abhorsen

“Maybe if I act well enough, I'll come to believe it myself.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“As for you, Private, if you mention a word of this to anyone, I'll feed you to the cat thing here. Understand?"
"Yum," said Mogget.
"Yes, sir!" mumbled the telephone operator, his hands shaking as he tried to smother the burning wreckage of his switchboard with a fire blanket.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Why, Yrael?” it said, as the last of the dark gave way to silver, and the shining sphere of metal sank slowly to the ground. “Why?”

“Life,” said Yrael, who was more Mogget than it ever knew. “Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“So I'll do that, and I'll do my best and if my best isn't good enough, at least I will have done everything I could, everything that is in me. I don't have to try to be someone else, someone I could never be.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“For everyone and everything, there is a time to die. Some do not know it, or would delay it, but its truth cannot be denied. Not when you look into the stars of the ninth gate.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Sam picked up his pack, but before he could put it on, Mogget leaped onto it and slid under the top flap. All that could be seen of him were his green eyes and one white-furred ear.
"Remember I advised against this way," he instructed. "Wake me when whatever terrible thing is a about to happen happens, or if it appears I might get wet.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn't surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“I have never known what to tell anybody. Except that it is better to do something than nothing, even if the cost is great.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Time plays tricks between here and home," said Mogget sepulchrally, frightening the life out of the telephone operator.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“But think of how much worse it would be to sit here, not knowing. Until the Dead choke the Ratterlin and Hedge walks across the dry bed of the river to batter down the door.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Just like the Perimeter! It never rains but it pours," declared the Major.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Please, Mogget,” whispered Lirael, too soft to be heard by anyone at all. But the white shape did hear. It stopped and turned inwards, to face Orannis, changing from a pillar of fire to a more human shape, but one with skin as bright as a burning star. “I am Yrael,” it said, casting a hand out to throw a line of silver fire into the breaking spell-ring, its voice crackling with force. “I also stand against you.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“This? It's a feather-coin. I made it.'
'What is it for?'
'It isn't for anything. It's a toy.'
'It's for annoying people,' said Mogget from Sam's pack. 'If you don't put it away, I shall eat it.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Together, the bells and Dog sang a song that was more than sound and power. It was the song of the earth, the moon, the stars, the sea, and the sky, of Life and Death and all that was and would be. It was the song of the Charter, the song that had bound Orannis in the long ago, the song that sought to bind the Destroyer once again.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“I won't let you go! I love you, Dog!'
'There will be other dogs and friends, and loves' whispered the Dog. 'You have found your family, your heritage, and you have earned a high place in the world. I love you too, but my time with you has passed.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“...I've been thinking that it's as if my ancestors are saying it's all right to make things. That's what I'm meant to do. Make things, and help the Abhorsen and the King. So I'll do that, and I'll do my best, and if my best isn't good enough, at least I will have done everything I could, everything that is in me. I don't have to try to be someone else, someone I could never be.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Mogget’s voice. Sam whirled around. “Mogget? Is that you? Where are you?” “Here, and regretting it as per usual,” replied Mogget, and a small white cat sauntered out from behind a fern tree.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“they might refuse the evidence of their own eyes and continue blindly on over the ridge, driven by optimism and hope that finally they would find somewhere to call home.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Nick was watching her, too, she realized, as those thoughts clamored in her mind. But not with puzzlement or enmity. He was just looking, tilting his head on the side, with one eye partly closed. “Pardon me,” he said. “I was wondering how you knew Sam. Are you a . . . um . . . a princess? Only, if you’re his fiancée or something, I thought I should know. To . . . ah . . . offer my congratulations, as it were. And I don’t even know your name.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Lirael almost apologized, but she held it back. She did feel sorry for Nick. It wasn’t his fault he had been chosen by an ancient spirit of evil to be its avatar. She even felt sort of maternal to him. He needed to be tucked in bed and fed willow-bark tea. That thought led to the idle speculation of what he might look like if he were well. He could be quite handsome, Lirael thought, and then instantly banished the notion. He might be an unwitting enemy, but he was still an enemy.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“I lied,” said the Dog cheerily. “That’s one of the reasons I’m the Disreputable Dog. Besides,”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“If she had been in a pointing competition, she would have lost points.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

“Lirael didn’t answer either question. She just looked at him, waiting for him to talk. He met her gaze at first, then faltered and looked away. There was something unnerving about her eyes. A toughness he had never seen in the young women he knew from the debutante parties in Corvere. It was partly this that made him talk, and partly a desire to impress her with his knowledge and intelligence.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen

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“To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose. Of course, this insight does not make social and political freedom any less important. The freedom to do what one intends, and not to do otherwise, is no less valuable than it ever was. Having a gun to your head is still a problem worth rectifying, wherever intentions come from. But the idea that we, as conscious beings, are deeply responsible for the character of our mental lives and subsequent behavior is simply impossible to map onto reality. Consider what it would take to actually have free will. You would need to be aware of all the factors that determine your thoughts and actions, and you would need to have complete control over those factors. But there is a paradox here that vitiates the very notion of freedom—for what would influence the influences? More influences? None of these adventitious mental states are the real you. You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.”
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