“We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can’t even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176]”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“He wanted to achieve something of surpassing beauty that would last. A creation that would mean that he--the mosaic worker Caius Crispus of Varena--had been born, and lived a life, and had come to understand a portion of the nature of the world, of what ran through and beneath the deeds of women and men in their souls and in the beauty and the pain of their short living beneath the sun.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“Thunderstorms were common in Sarantium on midsummer nights, sufficiently so to make plausible the oft-repeated tale that the Emperor Apius passed to the god in the midst of a towering storm, with lightning flashing and rolls of thunder besieging the Holy City. Even Pertennius of Eubulus, writing only twenty years after, told the story this way, adding a statue of the Emperor toppling before the bronze gates to the Imperial Precinct and an oak tree split asunder just outside the landward walls. Writers of history often seek the dramatic over the truth. It is a failing of the profession.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“He had a sense—honed by experience—that what he’d contrived might achieve something of the effect he wanted. That, Martinius had always said, was the best any man in this fallible world could expect. [p. 67]”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“If this was the world as the god-or gods-had made it, then mortal man, this mortal man, could acknowledge that and honour the power and infinite majesty that lay within it, but he would not say it was right, or bow down as if he were only dust or a brittle leaf blown from and autumn tree, helpless in the wind.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“Amazing, when you thought about it: how quickly-made decisions became the life you lived.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“But what did one own if life, if love, could be taken away to darkness? Was it all not just ... a loan, a leasehold, transitory as candles?”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“Small things change a life. Change lives.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“In all the lands ruled by that City, with its domes and its bronze and golden doors, its palaces and gardens and statues, forums and theatres and colonnades, bathhouses and shops and guildhalls, taverns and whorehouses and sanctuaries and the great Hippodrome, its triple landward walls that had never yet been breached, and its deep, sheltered harbour and the guarded and guarding seas, there was a timeworn phrase that had the same meaning in every tongue and every dialect.
To say of a man that he was sailing to Sarantium was to say that his life was on the cusp of change: poised for emergent greatness, brilliance, fortune – or else at the very precipice of a final and absolute fall as he met something to vast for his capacity.
Valerius the Trakesian had become an Emperor.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
“heresies are not like clothing styles or beards, my lord, to go in and out of fashion by the season or the year.” Alixana”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Sailing to Sarantium
Guy Gavriel Kay
Born place: in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada
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“Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, there’s no pushing it back in.”
― John Locke, quote from Promise You Won't Tell?
“My manners have always been the first thing to go when I get upset, and some people say that they stopped coming back a long time ago.”
― Seanan McGuire, quote from Rosemary and Rue
“It does not teach you to live gracefully, it teaches you how to exploit others for your own purposes. And we think that the people who are clever are the ones who succeed.”
― Osho, quote from Intelligence: The Creative Response to Now
“Hear ye Hear ye.... ah, fuck it. We're here today for bullshit and we all know it. So let's dispense with the usual formality and get on with this witch hunt before I lose what little grip I still have on my patience. So, Dare Kattalakis state your case and demands to the council. And do it fast, with as few words as possible." Savitar
"First, I want to restate what a travesty it is that my family's seat is taken by--"
"Wah, wah, wah ... quit crying at the tit. Your brother Vane is the head of the Arcadians and Fury leads the Katagaria. Seek a therapist who gives a shit, or if you'd like to challenge either of them for their position, we can do with some entertainment. Hell, I'll make popcorn for the show. Otherwise, Bitch, get on with it." Savitar”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Dragonbane
“Expertise helps you notice unexpected events, but only when the event happens in the context of your expertise.”
― quote from The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us
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Spilling Open: The A...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.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
