Quotes from The Gospel of Loki

Joanne Harris ·  302 pages

Rating: (6.8K votes)


“After all, words are what remain when all the deeds have been done. Words can shatter faith; start a war; change the course of history. A story can make your heart beat faster; topple walls; scale mountains - hey, a story can even raise the dead. And that's why the King of Stories ended up being the King of the gods; because writing history and making history are only the breadth of a page apart.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Well, that's history for you, folks. Unfair, untrue and for the most part written by folk who weren't even there.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Change isn't always comfortable, but it is a fact of life.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“A demon, if you prefer the term; although to be honest, the difference between god and a demon is really only a matter of perspective.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Work. Like pain, I sensed that this was an experience I would want to avoid as often as possible.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki



“Loki, that's me. Loki, the Light-Bringer, the misunderstood, the elusive, the handsome and modest hero of this particular tissue of lies.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“They tell you revenge isn't worth it. I say there's nothing finer.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
No one's immune to bribery.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Sticks and stones may break my bones’, as they say in the Middle Worlds, but with the right words you can build a world and make yourself the king of it.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Always look on the bright side. And if there is no bright side?
Look away.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki



“There were a few compensations to having corporeal Aspect. Food (jam tarts were my favourites); drink (mostly wine and mead); setting things on fire; sex (although I was still extremely confused by all the taboos surrounding this - no animals, no siblings, no men, no married women, no demons - frankly, it was amazing to me that anyone had sex at all, with so many rules against it).”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“From this I think we can all conclude that the cow was the primary instigator of everything that followed - war, Tribulation, the End of the Worlds. Lesson One: never trust a rumiant.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Most problems can be solved through cake.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Better a king in the gutter,' he said, 'than a slave in an emperor's place”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“There's good news and slightly less good news.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki



“And Odin should have known from the first that perfect Order does not bend; it simply stands until it breaks, which is why it rarely survives for any meaningful length of time.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Clever folk aren’t popular, by and large. They arouse suspicion. They don’t fit in.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“I don’t pretend to know much about love, but that’s how great love comes to an end, not in the flames of passion, but in the silence of regret.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Well, that’s history for you, folks. Unfair, untrue, and for the most part written by folk who weren’t even there.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“I'm sorry. You went too far.'
Lovely. What an epitaph.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki



“I'm only keeping in touch with you for the sake of the children. Way to look after our son, by the way. I let you have him for the weekend and before I know it he's chained underground, awaiting Last Times and stinking of mead.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Even the damned can dream - infact, it's part of their torment. To escape, even for a second or two, to forget reality and drift, only to be yanked back into the waking world like a fish caught on a line... Yes. In some ways that's even worse than to have no relief at all. That second of two, on awakening, when anything still seems possible”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“All words have power, of course, but names are the most potent of all, which is why the gods had so many.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Not that a promise means much to a demon - or a god.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“And when you fall from that parapet,the sound you'll be hearing as you go down will be me,laughing my head off.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki



“When the going gets tough, choose your cliché.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“Thor had always been popular. Big and strong and good-natured and about as bright as your average Labrador,”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“a man often meets his destiny running to avoid it,”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“That's how religions and histories make their way into the world, not through battles and conquests, but through poems and kennings and songs, passed through generations and written down by scholars and scribes. . . .

After all, words are what remain when all the deeds have been done. Words can shatter faith, start a war, change the course of history. A story can make your heart beat faster, topple walls, scale mountains--Hey, a story can even raise the dead. And that's why the King of Stories ended up being King of the gods, because writing history and making history are only the breadth of a page apart.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


About the author

Joanne Harris
Born place: in Barnsley, The United Kingdom
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Even before she hit puberty, for Christ's sake.

And they had left her only half alive. A pale, colorless, vague, and passionless copy of the Diana she was meant to be.

Christ, no wonder she looked out on the world with wary, suspicious eyes. Finally off all the mind-numbing medications, Diana was clearheaded for the first time since childhood. Truly aware for the first time of the world around her. And not just aware, but painfully alert, with the raw-nerved sensitivity of most psychics.

She knew, now. No matter what she was willing to admit aloud or even consciously, she knew now that she had been kept half alive, less than that. Knew that those she had trusted most had betrayed that trust, even if they had done it in the name of love and concern and with all good intentions. They hadn't kept her safe, they had kept her doped up and compliant. They had sought to hammer away all the sharp, unique edges that made her Diana.

So she could be healthy. Like everybody else.

It had been in her voice when she'd told him, a haunted awareness of all she'd lost.

"I'm thirty-three now. You do the math."

He thought it must have been like waking from a coma or a hazy dream to find that everything that had gone before had not been real. The world had turned, time had moved on... and Diana had lost years.

Years.”
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“Are we going to unload these things?" she asked, a trace of nervousness creeping into her voice. "They're starting to gross me out."

"They're just souls."

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