Quotes from The Book of the Dun Cow

Walter Wangerin Jr. ·  256 pages

Rating: (3.1K votes)


“Sorrow spoken lends a little courage to the speaker.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“Her ballad did nothing to make the serpants lovely. Her ballad hid nothing of their dread. But the music itself spoke of faith and certainty; the melody announced the presence of God.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“A grudge may be strong. But a grudge isn't strength!”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“How many battles make a war?”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“He went wordless, and wordless he sat beside her. He knew the size of her sorrow.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow



“Aye. He wills that I work his work in this place. Indeed. I am left behind to labor. Right
'And one day he may show his face beneath his damnable clouds to tell me what that work might be; what's worth so many tears; what's so important in his sight that is needs to be done this way...
'O my sons!'Chauntecleer suddenly wailed at the top of his lungs, a light flaring before it goes out: 'How much I want you with me!”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“But a good novel is first of all an event; as distinguished from the continuous rush of many sensations and the messy overlapping experiences of our daily lives, it is a composed experience in which all sensations are tightly related, for which there is a beginning and an ending, within which the reader’s perceivings and interpretations are shaped for a while by the internal integrity of all the elements of the narrative.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“WELL, THEN SHAG IT, YOU SUITCASE! GET OVER HERE!”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“: “Behold the Rooster who suffers much more than he must. Ah, Chauntecleer, Chauntecleer. Why do you suffer today and tomorrow?” oozed the compassionate voice. “Curse God. Curse him, and all will be done. Or, lest you forget the truth of things, remember: I am Wyrm. And I am here.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“How can the meek of the earth save themselves against the damnable evil which feeds on them?”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow



“Almost as evil as the stench was the silence. Senex, however poorly he had ended his rule, had always remembered the canonical crows. He sang them, to be sure, in a disoriented manner; but he did sing them, keeping his animals that way, banding them, unifying them.

But Cockatrice never crowed the canon. So under him the day lost its meaning and its direction, and the animals lost any sense of time or purpose. Their land became strange to them. A terrible feeling of danger entered their souls, of things undone, of treasures unprotected. They were tired all the day long, and at night they did not sleep. And it was a most pitiful sight to see, how they all went about with hunched shoulders, heads tucked in, limping here and there as if they were forever walking into an ill wind, and flinching at every sound as if the wind carried arrows.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


“Her eyes were liquid with compassion—deep, deep, as the earth is deep. Her brow knew his suffering and knew, besides that, worlds more. But the goodness was that, though this wide brow knew so much, yet it bent over his pain alone and creased with it.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow


About the author

Walter Wangerin Jr.
Born place: in Portland, Oregon, The United States
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"I cannot make speeches, Emma," he soon resumed; and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing. "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it. Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover. But you understand me. Yes, you see, you understand my feelings and will return them if you can. At present, I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.”
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“Once you best a man, never gloat. Be generous and find something in his actions to praise. He won't enjoy being bested but he'll make a good face about it. Show him you appreciate it. Praise can win you a friend. Gloating will only ever make enemies.”
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“Death isn't empty like you say it is. Emptiness is life without freedom, Darrow. Emptiness is living chained by fear, fear of loss, of death. I say we break those chains. Break the chains of fear and you break the chains that bind us to the Golds, to the Society. Could you imagine it? Mars could be ours. It could belong to the colonists who slaved here, died here." Her face is easier to see as the night fades through the clear roof. It is alive, on fire. "If you led the others to freedom. The things you could do, Darrow. The things you could make happen." She pauses and I see her eyes are glistening. "It chills me. You have been given so, so much, but you set your sights so low."
"You repeat the same damn points," I say bitterly. "You think a dream is worth dying for. I say it isn't. You say it's better to die on your feet. I say it's better to live on our knees."
"You're not even listening!" she snaps. "We are machine men with machine minds, machine lives …"
"And machine hearts?" I ask. "That's what I am?"
"Darrow …"
"What do you live for?" I ask her suddenly. "Is it for me? Is it for family and love? Or is it just for some dream?"
"It's not just some dream, Darrow. I live for the dream that my children will be born free. That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them."
"I live for you," I say sadly.
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