Quotes from The Terror

Dan Simmons ·  769 pages

Rating: (26.9K votes)


“Luckily, even as a young man not yet become himself, John Bridgens had two things besides indecision that kept him from self-destruction - books and a sense of irony.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“We are all eaters of souls.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“Francis Crozier believes in nothing. Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. It has no plan, no point, no hidden mysteries that make up for the oh-so-obvious miseries and banalities. Nothing he has learned in the past six months has persuaded him otherwise.

Has it?”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“Men who read a lot have a more sensitive disposition, added Fowler. [...]

I did not know what to say to this.

Maybe reading is a sort of curse is all I mean, concluded Fowler. Maybe it's better for a man to stay inside his own mind.

Amen, I felt like saying, although I do not know why.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“The words sounded like a mournful incantation.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror



“All this natural misery,” Dr. Goodsir said suddenly. “Why do you men have to add to it? Why does our species always have to take our full measure of God-given misery and terror and mortality and then make it worse? Can you answer me that, Mr. Hickey?”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“The captain of HMS Terror often thought that he knew nothing about the future - other than that his ship and Erebus would never again steam or sail - but then he reminded himself of one certainty: when his store of whiskey was gone, Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier was going to blow his brains out.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“The Ice Master was too injured and too exhausted to crawl any farther. Let whatever was going to happen to him happen now and may a Sailor's God fuck to Hell this fucking thing that was going to eat him.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“He enjoyed the soft sound of night wind and the knowledge that he was the only boy — perhaps the only human being — out there in the dark on the windy, frozen-grass meadows on this night that smelled of coming snow, alienated from the lighted windows and the warm hearths, very aware that he was of the village but not part of it at that moment. It was a thrilling, almost erotic feeling — an illicit discovery of self separated from everyone and everything else in the cold and dark”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“Francis Crozier now understood that the most desirable and erotic thing a woman could wear were the many modest layers such as Sophia Cracroft wore to dinner in the governor's house, enough silken fabric to conceal the lines of her body, allowing a man to concentrate on the exciting loveliness of her wit”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror



“who, like Crozier, would rather have his kidney stones removed with a spoon than be forced to suffer sermons —”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“In his twenties, John Bridgens most identified with Hamlet. The strangely aging Prince of Denmark—Bridgens was quite sure that the boy Hamlet had magically aged over a few theatrical weeks to a man who was, at the very least, in his thirties by Act V—had been suspended between thought and deed, between motive and action, frozen by a consciousness so astute and unrelenting that it made him think about everything, even thought itself.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“Trust me. I’ve seen it in London and I’ve seen it with shipwreck. Death by scurvy is worse. It would be better if the Thing took us all tonight. And with that we went below to the flame-flickering Darkness of the lower deck and to a cold almost the equal of the Dante-esque Ninth Circle Arctic Night without.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“God is our refuge and strength, and ever-prethent help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountainth fall into the heart of the sea, though its waterth roar and foam and the mountains quake with their thurging.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“Чудовищное существо вдохнуло в себя душу Хикки. Но потом оно отшатнулось, потрясло огромной головой, раздраженно фыркнуло, словно отплевываясь от какой-то мерзости. Оно”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror



“guile was no match for the world and that hubris would always be punished by the gods.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“I was full of piss and vinegar in those days, not to mention too stupid to know better, in other words still in my twenties,”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“Жизнь дается лишь раз, и она несчастна, убога, отвратительна, жестока и коротка.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


“Когда имеешь дело с дураками, спустя какое-то время начинаешь понимать ход их мыслей.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Terror


About the author

Dan Simmons
Born place: in Peoria, Illinois, The United States
Born date April 4, 1948
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless.
The tale is the map that is the territory.
You must remember this.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from American Gods


“She asked where he lived.

Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.”
― J.M. Barrie, quote from Peter Pan


“People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.”
― Patrick Süskind, quote from Perfume: The Story of a Murderer


“Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declaration of war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs, can have it out on themselves. Whoever survives the country wins. That would be much simpler and more than just this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from All Quiet on the Western Front


“Did you mean it... that if Victor did tell...that you'd..." I couldn't finish. I couldn't bring myself to say the words have him killed.
"I don't have much influence in the upper levels of Moroi royalty, but I have plenty among the guardians who handle the dirty work in our world."
"You didn't answer the question. If you'd really do it."
"I'd do a lot of things to protect you, Roza.”
― Richelle Mead, quote from Shadow Kiss


Interesting books

Marcelo in the Real World
(16.5K)
Marcelo in the Real...
by Francisco X. Stork
As You Wish
(6.8K)
As You Wish
by Jackson Pearce
Dragon Wing
(23K)
Dragon Wing
by Margaret Weis
This Dark Endeavor
(10.3K)
This Dark Endeavor
by Kenneth Oppel
Proxy
(8.7K)
Proxy
by Alex London
The Complete Poems
(7.6K)
The Complete Poems
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.