Quotes from The Anubis Gates

Tim Powers ·  387 pages

Rating: (12.5K votes)


“The Spoonsize Boys steal the dollhouse toys while the cat by the fire is curled. Then away they floats in their eggshell boats, down the drains to their underground world.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Anubis Gates


“Time,” he said solemnly, “is comparable to a river flowing under a layer of ice. It stretches us out like water weeds, from root to tip, from birth to death, curled around whatever rocks or snags happen to lie in our path; and no one can get out of the river because of the ice roof, and no one can turn back against the current for an instant.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Anubis Gates


“When they’d gone the old man turned around to watch the sun’s slow descent. The Boat of Millions of Years, he thought; the boat of the dying sungod Ra, tacking down the western sky to the source of the dark river that runs through the underworld from west to east, through the twelve hours of the night, at the far eastern end of which the boat will tomorrow reappear, bearing a once again youthful, newly reignited sun.

Or, he thought bitterly, removed from us by a distance the universe shouldn’t even be able to encompass, it’s a vast motionless globe of burning gas, around which this little ball of a planet rolls like a pellet of dung propelled by a kephera beetle.

Take your pick, he told himself as he started slowly down the hill…But be willing to die for your choice.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Anubis Gates


“His heartbeat seemed to be shaking him apart, like the impacts of a wrecking ball on an old building.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Anubis Gates


“Jacky, who had read and admired Mary Wollstonecraft, and despised the fashion of fluttery helplessness in women, felt, to her own annoyance, close to fainting.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Anubis Gates



“What’s a pandemonium?” whispered one of the men in the rear.
“It’s like a calliope,” answered a companion. “I heard one played at the Harmony Fair last summer, when I went there to see my sister’s boy play his organ.”
“His what?”
“His organ.”
“Lord. People pay money to see things like that?”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Anubis Gates


About the author

Tim Powers
Born place: in Buffalo, New York, The United States
Born date February 29, 1952
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Sandry: "There has to be something we can do."
Lark: "We're mages. We do what we can, but some problems are too big to fix."
Sandry: "Then I wish I weren't a mage. What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Daja's Book


“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world-its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That's all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in "to love" or "to learn," it does not have value. - Zurvan”
― Anne Rice, quote from Servant of the Bones


“Before I took to the road, a friend tried to get me to go to a department store with him. He said it was to improve the place where I lived. He said," I want to know you are reading beneath this lamp. " This fellow was dying. He knew it and I did not. I think he was tucking me in. He was making sure all of his friends had the right lamps, the comfiest pillows, the softest sheets. He was tucking us all in for the night.”
― Amy Hempel, quote from The Collected Stories


“Girl. Woman. So much more vulnerable. Strong and yet weak. A heart that knew no armor.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from Reckless


“We'll stick close together, but make no sign we are acquainted. The girls should go ahead so that they get through first. We'll follow close behind to be there for any trouble."

"Don't worry, my dears," said the professor gallantly, "I'll rescue you from any difficulties."

Yelena laughed and kissed the old man on the cheek. "Of course you will. I don't know why we bother with these other men, do you, Tashi?"

"But they are decorative, aren't they?" the Princess replied archly. It was fun to have a girl with whom she could gang up against the boys--she'd never had a friend like that before. "They give us something to look at on the boring stretches of the road." She let her eyes linger on Ramil, who appeared very warm all of a sudden.

Yelena swung herself into the saddle. "My, my, Princess, I didn't know you could flirt."

"I'm learning from a master--or should I say mistress--of that art," Tashi said with a bow.”
― Julia Golding, quote from Dragonfly


Interesting books

Selected Poems
(5.4K)
Selected Poems
by Marina Tsvetaeva
Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel
(119)
Lois & Clark: A Supe...
by C.J. Cherryh
Wasteland
(3.4K)
Wasteland
by Francesca Lia Block
Sacrificial Magic
(6K)
Sacrificial Magic
by Stacia Kane
Letters to a Young Artist
(505)
Letters to a Young A...
by Anna Deavere Smith
The Wrinkle in Time Quintet - Digest Size Boxed Set
(2.5K)
The Wrinkle in Time...
by Madeleine L'Engle

About BookQuoters

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.