“you were both hunter and hunted; the shadow of your thoughts was the beast which killed you.”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“All things are known, Tallis, but most things are forgotten.”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“if you don't first accept the gift as it is—if you change what you hear, or change what you learn—doesn't that make it weak somehow?" "Why should it?" Mr. Williams asked softly. "As I believe I've said to you before, the gift is not what you hear, or learn… the gift is being able to hear and learn. These things are yours from the moment they come and you can shape the tune, or the clay, or the painting, or whatever it is, because it belongs to you. It's what I've always done with my music.”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“I really didn't mean to steal it." Mr. Williams shook his head. He scratched at his chin nervously. "Why not? That's what they're there for. Tunes belong to everybody. So do stories.”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“So are you telling me…" he composed his thoughts. "Are you telling me that if you told the last story again, and changed the young woman to a young man, then somewhere in history that same young woman would suddenly grow a beard?" Tallis laughed at the image. "I don't know," she said. "I suppose so.”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“But stories are fragile. Like people's lives. It only takes a word out of place to change them forever. If you hear a lovely tune, and then you change it, the new tune might be lovely too, but you've lost the first one." "But if I stick to the first tune, then I've lost the second." "But someone else might discover it. It's still there to be born." "And the first tune isn't?" "No," Tallis insisted, although she was confused now. "It has already come into your mind. It's lost forever." "Nothing is lost forever," Mr. Williams said quietly. "Everything I've known I still know, only sometimes I don't know that I know it." All things are known, but most things are forgotten. It takes a special magic to remember them. "My grandfather said something like that to me," Tallis whispered. "Well there you are. Wise Old Men, one and all…”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“Have I told you about Christ?" "Ghost-born-man-walking-on-water-telling-stories-dead-on-tree.”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“A hundred years ago they'd have burned you as a witch…" "But I'm not a witch." "I don't suppose any of them were.”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“Minden mese és dallam varázslatból születik”
― Robert Holdstock, quote from Lavondyss
“I told him some of my best stories: the one about the sewer and the train tracks and the neighbor's dogs. Weylyn seemed unimpressed.
"What? You got something better?"
Weylyn smiled, "I was young once, too.”
― Ruth Emmie Lang, quote from Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
“She kept him on his toes every time they met, so it was only fair he got to do the same. Never mind how much he was growing to like their games.”
― Lisa Maxwell, quote from The Last Magician
“Greek philosophers looked upon the past and the future as the primary evils weighing upon human life, and as the source of all the anxieties which blight the present. The present moment is the only dimension of existence worth inhabiting, because it is the only one available to us. The past is no longer and the future has yet to come, they liked to remind us; yet we live virtually all of our lives somewhere between memories and aspirations, nostalgia and expectation. We imagine we would be much happier with new shoes, a faster computer, a bigger house, more exotic holidays, different friends … But by regretting the past or guessing the future, we end up missing the only life worth living: the one which proceeds from the here and now and deserves to be savoured.”
― Luc Ferry, quote from A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living
“A political system devoted to decline instinctively does much to speed up that process. —Jean-Paul Sartre”
― quote from Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany
“Só com um jeito do corpo
Feito sem dares por isso
Fazes mais mal que o demônio
Em dias de grande enguiço.”
― Fernando Pessoa, quote from Poems of Fernando Pessoa
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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