“Civilized man longs for the illusion of barbarism. Either his culture fulfills this need by adopting its outer trappings, or he will be seduced by his first contact with a culture that does.”
― C.S. Friedman, quote from In Conquest Born
“An uninspired ruler works to develop those relationships which will be most to his advantage. A great ruler determines the most desirable relationships and assumes them into being.”
― C.S. Friedman, quote from In Conquest Born
“Let me tell you the tale of a poet who hanged himself with promises. . . .”
― C.S. Friedman, quote from In Conquest Born
“I was aesthetically impressed but failed to understand the importance of it. Unfortunately, Braxaná do not express ignorance; therefore I couldn’t ask, “What is it?” as directly as I would have liked. After a moment I looked up at him, the elevation of one eyebrow indicating that I was intrigued enough to hear what he had come to say.”
― C.S. Friedman, quote from In Conquest Born
“To Kaimera Lord Zatar, Zarvati, son of Vinir and K’siva From the Elders of the Holding The Elders respectfully remind you that it is required of each purebred Braxaná male that he sire four registered purebred children during his lifetime. While we recognize that you are still young in age, your involvement in the War forces us to consider the possibility that you may not enjoy the full life expectancy of the Braxaná. Therefore we urge you to deal with your reproductive responsibility as soon as possible. Attached you will find a list of purebred Braxaná women who have not yet borne their quota. We hope you will consider this request in light of your military interests and do your part in maintaining the number and thus the power of our Race.”
― C.S. Friedman, quote from In Conquest Born
“Anzha was trapped in someone else’s dream. Such a thing didn’t happen often, but it happened. Intensity of emotion meant intensity of contact; in the close confines of the Institute, where hundreds of psychics lived, worked, and trained together, it was to be expected that occasionally two dreamers would come insync (as the Institute termed it) and share the same sleep-bound fantasies. The”
― C.S. Friedman, quote from In Conquest Born
“And there you have it...if I knew that I could only have a few nights in that man's arms or nothing, I would take those magic nights and use them to keep me warm for the rest of my life.”
― Karen Marie Moning, quote from To Tame a Highland Warrior
“Life is lousy with hurt but it also shimmers with beauty.”
― James O'Barr, quote from The Crow
“But monsters, I now know, come in all shapes and sizes, and only their appetite for human flesh defines them.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The Monstrumologist
“literature, in fact, had been concerned with virtues and vices of a perfectly healthy sort, the regular functioning of brains of a normal conformation, the practical reality of current ideas, with never a thought for morbid depravities and other-worldly aspirations; in short, the discoveries of these anaylists of human nature stopped short at the speculations good or bad, classified by the church; their efforts amounted to no more than the humdrum researches of a botanist who watches closely the expected development of ordinary flora planted in common or garden soil.”
― Joris-Karl Huysmans, quote from Against Nature
“The argument was this: a civilization shackled to the strictures of excessive control on its populace, from choice of religion through to the production of goods, will sap the will and the ingenuity of its people – for whom such qualities are no longer given sufficient incentive or reward. At face value, this is accurate enough. Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore, a kind of intransigence as fierce and nonsensical as its maternalistic counterpart. And so, in the clash of these two extreme systems, one is witness to brute stupidity and blood-splashed insensitivity; two belligerent faces glowering at each other across the unfathomed distance, and yet, in deed and in fanatic regard, they are but mirror reflections. This would be amusing if it weren’t so pathetically idiotic…”
― Steven Erikson, quote from Reaper's Gale
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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