Roger Zelazny · 192 pages
Rating: (3.4K votes)
“If you ever loved anything in your life, try to remember it. If you ever betrayed anything, pretend for a moment that you have been forgiven. If you ever feared anything, pretend for an instant that those days are gone and will never return. Buy the lie and hold to it for as long as you can. Press your familiar, whatever its name, to your breast and stroke it till it purrs.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
“Between you and me,
the words,
like mortar,
separating, holding together
those pieces of the structure ourselves.
To say them,
to cast their shadows on the page,
is the act of binding mutual passions,
is cognizance, yourself/myself,
of our sameness under skin;
it rears possible cathedrals
indicating infinity with steeply-high styli.
For when tomorrow comes it is today,
and if it is not the drop
that is eternity
glistening at the pen’s point,
then the ink of our voices
surrounds like an always night,
and mortar marks the limit of our cells.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
“You are a deviant from the social norm!"
"Is that an insult or a diagnosis?”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
“Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
“Wheels turning, the motorcycle’s roar grows steady, which, too, is a form of silence.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
“Trouble can be purchased cheaply, though the refund may be more than you can bear.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
“It would be an act of wisdom to depart immediately… but wisdom is itself the product of knowledge; and knowledge, unfortunately, is generally the product of foolish doings. So, to add to my own knowledge and to enhance my wisdom I shall remain another day, to see what occurs.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
“What difference does it make whether you slay him or Horus slays him? He will be just as dead either way."
Wakim pauses, apparently considering the matter, as if for the first time.
"This thing is my mission, not his." he says at length.
"He will be just as dead, either way," Vramin repeats.
"But not by my hand."
"True. But I fail to see the distinction."
"So do I, for that matter. But it is I who have been charged with the task."
"Perhaps Horus has also."
"But not by my master."
"Why should you have a master, Wakim? Why are you not your own man?"
Wakim rubs his forehead.
"I—do not—really know…. But I must do as I am told.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
“What we have to do now, then, Sir, is to lay your request before the daughters of educated men and to ask them to help you to prevent war, not by advising their brothers how they shall protect culture and intellectual liberty, but simply by reading and writing their own tongue in such a way as to protect those rather abstract goddesses themselves.”
― Virginia Woolf, quote from Three Guineas
“It was years ago now, on a warm summer night,
When the boy came out of the sea.
His skin was blue and his hair was white,
And he was in love with me.
He was wild and true, and right then I knew
That he was in love with me.
In our ship we sailed for years on the ocean,
Unfettered and totally free.
And he gave all his days to his endless devotion,
For he was in love with me.
I called it a phase and made endless delays,
Though he was in love with me.
One day the waves swept him right off the ship
And dropped him into the blue.
As his skin turned to water, his hair into fish,
He asked if I loved him too.
Too late I called through the wind and the water,
'I was always in love with you.'
I was always in love with you.”
― Traci Chee, quote from The Reader
“Garrett has been the best friend a girl could want, so how could I be so stupid as to think about shutting him out for good? I've been so busy thinking about my unrequited love, I haven't even stopped to consider the other, more important part of our relationship.
Friendship.
Ignoring him now would make him think I don't care, that I don't want to be friends. I want to get over him, not lose him for good! How must he feel, with me not replying to his texts and e-mails like this? What kind of friend am I?”
― Abby McDonald, quote from Getting Over Garrett Delaney
“Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.”
― Richard Brinsley Sheridan, quote from The School for Scandal
“Everybody is unique and different. Nobody is the same as anyone else. there is no 'normal' - it is a lie taught to us by a system so flawed that it is threatened by the awesome diversity of nature.”
― Christina Engela, quote from Demonspawn
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