c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Up and down," Meera would sigh sometimes as they walked, "then down and up. Then up and down again. I hate these stupid mountains of yours, Prince Bran.""Yesterday you said you loved them.""Oh, I do. My lord father told me about mountains, but I never saw one till now. I love them more than I can say."Bran made a face at her. "But you just said you hated them.""Why can't it be both?" Meera reached up to pinch his nose."Because they're different," he insisted. "Like night and day, or ice and fire.""If ice can burn," said Jojen in his solemn voice, "then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one.""One," his sister agreed, "but over wrinkled.
— George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
There wasn't a colloquial phrase, or curse, that went something like, "May your day be full of angry dragons" or, "May every dragon you meet today be pissed off." But, there should have been.
— Michelle Sagara West, Cast in Ruin
Never tease anything that wants to eat you." Reign of Blood
— Alexia Purdy, Reign of Blood
What is admirable about the fantastic is that there is no longer anything fantastic: there is only the real.
— André Breton
Every island to a child is a treasure island.
— P.D. James, The Lighthouse
Darkness, no matter how powerful it may seem, can be driven back by the tiniest spark.
— Brian Rathbone, The Dawning of Power
There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated.
— R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior Prophet
Surrealism, then, neither aims to subvert realism, as does the fantastic, nor does it try to transcend it. It looks for different means by which to explore reality itself.
— Michael Richardson, Dedalus Book of Surrealism 2: The Myth of the World
I would parade you in the hall of the monarchs of the ocean if you could breathe water.
— S.M. Wheeler, Sea Change
...What does the blessing of heaven mean? We know the kirin is just an animal, not a mythical creature."It has become a symbol now.... That is the way human beings deal with the world.
— Lian Hearn, The Harsh Cry of the Heron: The Last Tale of the Otori
Your soul sings to mine. My soul is yours, and it always will be, in any world.
— Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone
~:.*.:~~:.*.:~May the magic always brighten your world~:.*.:~~:.*.:~
— Sheri L. McGathy
It’s okay. I’m—”“Fine?” Joseph chimed in. “Obviously not. You need to be checked out by a doctor.” “I am a doctor.” I rolled my eyes at him, but that didn’t deter him from his train of thought. “Not that kind of doctor.”“What is ‘that kind of doctor’ going to say when they see my shimmering pink blood, Joseph?” I changed my voice to mimic one of a concerned doctor. “I’m sorry ma’am, you appear to be suffering from a mild case of Pretty Pretty Princess syndrome. Have you ingested any magical woodland faeries recently?
— Laura Kreitzer
The greatest help oft comes in harm's disguise, to those with trusting hearts and open eyes.
— William D. Burt
Maxine,” Grant said, but I barely heard him. I was lost in that vision, in those emotions—the pain, and hunger for pain, forming the root of so muchagonized rage.“ ‘Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate,’” I muttered.“Yoda, from Star Wars?”“ ‘Hate leads to suffering.’” I met his gaze. “Yoda knows his shit, man.”Grant’s mouth crooked in a gentle smile.
— Marjorie M. Liu, The Mortal Bone
Wow! It's like magic! she exclaimed.Simon shook his head. "It's God's love. That's stronger than any magic." - The Demon Trapper's Daughter
— Jana Oliver
Never practice magic when you're drunk.
— Assaph Mehr, Murder In-Absentia
Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread.The hunters are hunted, white water runs red.The Gnawers will strike to extinguish the rest.The hope of the hopeless resides in a quest.An Overland warrior, a son of the sun,May bring us back light, he may bring us back none.But gather your neighbors and follow his callOr rats will most surely devour us all.Two over, two under, of royal descent,Two flyers, two crawlers, two spinners assent.One gnawer beside and one lost up ahead.And eight will be left when we count up the dead.The last who will die must decide where he stands.The fate of the eight is contained in his hands.So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps,As life may be death and death life again reaps.
— Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander
One’s options in this world are as vast as the horizon, which is technically a circle and thus infinitely broad. Yet we must choose each step we take with utmost caution, for the footprints we leave behind are as important as the path we will follow. They’re part of the same journey — our story.
— Lori R. Lopez, Dance Of The Chupacabras
Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.
— Ursula K. Le Guin
The flowers like me back.
— John H. Carroll, Rojuun
Three Pines wasn’t on any tourist map, being too far off any main or even secondary road. Like Narnia, it was generally found unexpectedly and with a degree of surprise that such an elderly village should have been hiding in this valley all along. Anyone fortunate enough to find it once usually found their way back.
— Louise Penny, Still Life
Love is a madness. Love is Failer - Durzo Blint
— Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
Anyone who still wants to experience fairytales these days can’t afford to dither when it comes to using their brains.
— Robert Musil
The only magic that's left in the world right now is the magic that we make ourselves, deliberately. You're not going to stumble over enchantment by chance. You have to be open to it, looking for it, and when you first think you might have glimpsed it, you have to will it into your life with every machination available to you.
— Megan Lindholm, The Inheritance
The tales of Elfland do not stand or fall on their actuality but on their truthfulness, their speaking to the human condition, the longings we all have for the Faerie Other.
— Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood
She had learned to pay attention to the variations in Rokan's smiles. There was the sideways half-smile when he found something amusing; the slow, contented smile that appeared only rarely these days; and the wide, dazzling, unrestrained smile she had so far seen only twice, when he first came for her in the Mistwood and when they watched the hawk soar against the sky. And then there was this one, the reason for her watchfulness: the impish grin that meant he wanted to do something he knew was stupid and was going to do it anyhow.
— Leah Cypess, Mistwood
Death should take more care with his paperwork.
— A. Lee Martinez, A Nameless Witch
Regweld is really a fine wizard," he continued, patting the shoulder again. "And his ideas for crossbreeding a horse and a frog are not without merit; never mind the explosion! Alchemy shops can be replaced!
— R.A. Salvatore, Streams of Silver
She did not want to know what charmhe had used to make her love him so deeply. She did not want to know it wasn’t real.
— Penelope Marzec, The Fiend of White Buck Hall
The deer hovered by the trees beyond as the sounds of the ravening wolves came to them across the grass, their own senses almost frozen in impotent horror.
— David Clement-Davies
I'm out of tissues for toilet paper too. History notes just aren't....up to scratch
— Andrea K. Höst, Stray
Sylvie had an amazing life, but she didn't get to live it very often.
— Roderick Townley, The Great Good Thing
Small men command the letter of the law. Great men serve its spirit. For the spirit of the law is justice... and justice is the spirit of God.
— J.C. Marino, Dante's Journey
The girl burst out laughing
—  she knew she was nobody's meat.
Good, if you were not part Lycanthrope that blow would have killed you. Now, stop fighting your pain and embrace it.
— Lee Taylor, Bound
Humanity's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.
— Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad
Narcissistic personality disorder is named for Narcissus, from Greek mythology, who fell in love with his own reflection. Freud used the term to describe persons who were self-absorbed, and psychoanalysts have focused on the narcissist's need to bolster his or her self-esteem through grandiose fantasy, exaggerated ambition, exhibitionism, and feelings of entitlement.
— Donald W. Black, DSM-5 Guidebook: The Essential Companion to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
There are things that make no sense,that seem unreal,that can’t be grasped or understoodor explained,that maybe don’t even exist…And still, somehow, those wonderful things touch and change our lives.Isn’t it strange?
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Secrets of a Noble Key Keeper
He felt in his heart cruelty and cowardice, the things which made him brave and kind.
— T.H. White, The Once and Future King
He had never been interested in stories at any age, and had never quite understood the basic concept. He'd never read a work of fiction all the way through. He did remember, as a small boy, being really annoyed at the depiction of Hickory Dickory Dock in a rag book of nursery rhymes because the clock in the drawing was completely wrong for the period.
— Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
Some people fight fire with fire. I've found water to be more effective.
— Adrianne Ambrose, Confessions of a Virgin Sacrifice
... They paid some madman who thought he was a decorator a lot of money to make the place look hip and unique. May be it's my lack of fashion sense talking, but I thought they should have held out for one of those gorillas who has learned to paint. The results would have been of similar quality, and they could have paid in fresh produce.- Harry Dresden, Small Favor, Jim Butcher
— Jim Butcher, Small Favor
From DW:I got it. “Here's the thing,” I said. "I'm not going to be the government's bitch.
— Tamara Rose Blodgett, Death Whispers
You must try to have a positive attitude. It does not matter how small a person is. One can still change the future. Size is only a state of mind. You know – it is how you use your wits that counts. Nothing can stop us, if we put our hearts into it. Anything is achievable girls, anything at all!
— Nathalie M. Leblanc, Shrinking Forward
You asked why the rate hate Overlanders so deeply. It is because they know one will be the warrior of the prophecy," said Vikus."Oh, I see," said Gregor. "So, when's he coming?"Vikus fixed his eyes on Gregor. "I believe he is already here.
— Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander
Perfection is death,' Anastasia said. 'The world is imperfect, but if it weren't, who would love it?
— Michael Swanwick
I think the measure of advancement depends on where you are stood and from what distance you look. A thousand years ago, we farmed the fields, built towns and defended our land with swords and spears. It is little different now, save for the number of people we have to protect. We still kill with a sharp edge or point of metal, blood runs red still, sons ride off to war and parents grieve. If you look at the Empire in its whole, then it is peaceful. If you look closely, you will see the small wars, the bandits and rebellions. Look more closely still and you’ll see the petty crimes, the struggle to survive, the rich bleeding the poor. Even the soil can turn against its farmers, yielding few crops. Or the weather, a late frost killing the early crops. There is strife and conflict everywhere in the Empire. Everywhere you find men, you find conflict.
— G.R. Matthews
Consequences lost all purchase when they became mad. And desperation, when pressed beyond anguish, became narcotic.
— R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior Prophet
It is practically an axiom in psychiatry that precocious intellect combined with physical weakness can give rise to many unpleasant character traits - avarice, delusions of grandeur , and obsessive masturbation, to name just a few. 
— Sam Savage, Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife
I will not wear a tulle-tailed dunce cap for anyone or for any reason.
— Chautona Havig, Princess Paisley
The fantastic breaks the crust of appearance … something grabs us by the shoulders to throw us outside ourselves. I have always known that the big surprises await us where we have learned to be surprised by nothing, that is, where we are not shocked by ruptures in the order.
— Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds
Who upholds the gorsedd if not You? Who counts the ages of the world if not You? Who commands the Wheel of Heaven if not You? Who quickens life in the womb if not You? Therefore, God of All Virtue and Power, sain us and shield us with Your Swift Sure Hand.
— Stephen R. Lawhead
The last book I picked up had a picture of the Stranger on the front cover. Although his eyes were not nearly as beautiful in my dream state, they still took my breath away. I opened it up curiously and there was one word written in a large, bolded font: FATE.
— Markelle Grabo, The Elf Girl
I sleep with the lights on now. Not because I’m afraid of the dark, but because I like to keep the night as far away as I can.
— Keith Kekic, Nightwalkers
I didn't want him to think I was giving up - I wasn't. I simply couldn't put myself together just yet.
— Markelle Grabo, The Spell Master
Toads are to dragons what carrots are to unicorns.
— Ness Kingsley, The Curse of Cackling Meadows
I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun; and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a Shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.
— Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins
Some people are just sad when there aren't talking squirrels.” —Lily Winter
— Richard Due, The Moon Coin
The Rainbow is a promise
— Mary Clark Dalton
What had survived - maybe all that had survived of Trism - was Liir's sense of him. A catalog of impressions that arose from time to time, unbidden and often upsetting. From the sandy smell of his sandy hair to the locked grip of his muscles as they had wrestled in sensuous aggression - unwelcome nostalgia. Trism lived in Liir's heart like a full suit of clothes in a wardrobe, dress habillards maybe, hollow and real at once. The involuntary memory of the best of Trism's glinting virtues sometimes kicked up unquietable spasms of longing.
— Gregory Maguire, Out of Oz
This life is but a brief tenure, one of many perspectives a spirit must experience in the quest for eternity.
— Brian Rathbone, Call of the Herald
It felt like he’d been dragged through the nine circles of hell — by his testicles.
— Kay Berrisford, Bound for the Forest
Foolishness pours out of an open mouth....but wisdom sneaks in through the ears....
— Gail Z. Martin, The Dread
Why are so many of us enspelled by myths and folk stories in this modern age? Why do we continue to tell the same old tales, over and over again? I think it's because these stories are not just fantasy. They're about real life. We've all encountered wicked wolves, found fairy godmothers, and faced trial by fire. We've all set off into unknown woods at one point in life or another. We've all had to learn to tell friend from foe and to be kind to crones by the side of the road. . . .
— Terri Windling
The young man shivered. He rolled the stock themes of fantasy over in his mind: cars and stockbrokers and commuters, housewives and police, agony columns and commercials for soap, income tax and cheap restaurants, magazines and credit cards and streetlights and computers... 'It is escapism, true,' he said, aloud. 'But is not the highest impulse in mankind the urge toward freedom, the drive to escape?
— Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
The most awesome powers are those not wielded.
— Brian Rathbone, Call of the Herald
Mothers are like dungeons. Some really stink and you'll do anything to avoid them. And some are lush sanctuaries filled with gold, jewels, and butterscotch schnapps-spiked Nestle Nesquik.
— Shelly Mazzanoble, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons - One Woman's Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf-Help
The story of Terisa and Geraden began very much like a fable. She was a princess in a high tower. He was a hero come to rescue her. She was the only daughter of wealth and power. He was the seventh son of the lord of the seventh Care. She was beautiful from the auburn hair that crowned her head to the tips of her white toes. He was handsome and courageous. She was held prisoner by enchantment. He was a fearless breaker of enchantments.As in all the fables, they were made for each other.
— Stephen R. Donaldson, The Mirror of Her Dreams
I know you may feel so far that circumstances have directed your path, but right now I want you to know that you do have a choice.
— Larry Itejere, The Silver Arrow
Lights and darks. And suddenly i was here, where everything seems strange. And I don't know why. Like the Fox and the Crow, I don't know the whole story yet. But that's a good reason to go on, don't you think?" "Go where?" said the Scarecrow. "Go forward," said the girl. "See something. Learn something. Figure it out. We won't ever get the whole thing, I bet, but we'll get something. And then we'll have something to tell when we're old about what happened to us when we were young." "Now?" said the Scarecrow. "Can you tell it now?" "After," said the girl. "We have to have the BEFORE first, and that's life" "And what's life?" said the scarecrow. "Moving," said the girl. "Moving on. Shall we move on? Will you come with me?
— Bruce Coville, Half-Human
Where's the victory without opposition?--Joel
— Rachael Wade, Amaranth
I didn’t ask for your help,” I muttered, too exhausted to properly argue. “So fuck you.”An alarm bell went off in my head and I bit back a sigh. I swore I sensed the mischievous grin that inevitably crossed his lips.“I already did you.”It was going to be a long drive.
— Natasha McNeely, A Glimpse of The Dark
I came to the sobering realization that I was not making it out of here alive, no matter what. I was bruised and bloodied in mind and body, surrounded by the most literal interpretation of monsters, and a final nail in the coffin--I was in love with one of them. The love and loss alone would kill me, if not for the mythical creatures standing in front of me, ready to beat love and loss to the punch.-- Camille
— Rachael Wade, Amaranth
Nice shack
— Anna Banks
Walking out into the night with a water fey was all kinds of stupid. Heck, Kelpies eat people. They may not play with their food as creatively as the Each Uisge, but dead is dead.
— E.J. Stevens, Shadow Sight
None of us could choose our birth, but we could still chose our family, and only those who love you are your true family.
— Meg Xuemei X, The Fourth Eye
Only death can finish the fight, everything else only interrupts the fighting.
— Andrzej Sapkowski
She had never known that ice could take on so many shades of blue: sharp lines of indigo like the deepest sea, aquamarine shadows, even the glint of blue-green where the sun struck just so.
— Malinda Lo, Huntress
Hence the uneasiness which they arouse in those who, for whatever reason, wish to keep us wholly imprisoned in the immediate conflict. That perhaps is why people are so ready with the charge of "escape." I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, "What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?" and gave the obvious answer: jailers.
— C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature
We see what we want to see. We idealize each other with our own fantasies.
— Eric Jerome Dickey, Genevieve
I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever God may happen to be looking on. Disappear - and never return. That's my fantasy.
— Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotation mark on the lead. He laughed.
— Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool—not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others—a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive.
— C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew
To light a candle is to cast a shadow
— Kate Forsyth, The Witches of Eileanan
Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you. If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego.
— David Brin
Not long ago-incredible though it may seem-I heard a clerk of Oxford declare that he 'welcomed' the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive traffic, because it brought his university into 'contact with real life.' He may have meant that the way men were living and working in the twentieth century was increasing in barbarity at an alarming rate, and that the loud demonstration of this in the streets of Oxford might serve as a warning that it is not possible to preserve for long an oasis of sanity in a desert of unreason by mere fences, without actual offensive action (practical and intellectual). I fear he did not. In any case the expression 'real life' in this context seems to fall short of academic standards. The notion that motor-cars are more 'alive' than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are more 'real' than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm tree: poor obsolete thing, insubstantial dream of an escapist!
— J.R.R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf: Includes Mythopoeia and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
I know California isn't a real destination. You can't get there from New Jersey, not simply by following a line drawn on a map. The process of arrival is more subtle and complex. It involves acts of contrition. You must appease the gods. You must find novel forms of penance. You must tattoo your children and look at the wonder. It's about conjuring and awakening and intuitions you wish you never had.
— Kate Braverman, Wonders of the West
The fantastic cannot exist independently of that 'real' world which it seems to find frustratingly finite.
— Rosemary Jackson, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion
Alright. You hate me, I'm not too fond of you. It's mutual..." he muttered, walking hesitantly toward the stallion, hand outstretched, "I know you want to bite my hand off, but I swear I have no carrots, so you have no excuse. You want to throw me when I get on you...but if you even try, I will stab you.
— Shanda Sharlow, The Psyonic
Long are the lives of elves' he said.Short are the tempers of dwarfs,'Gotrek muttered, just loud enough to be heard.
— William King, Giantslayer
Man leave the past in the past. That's where it belongs. The trouble with addicts is that they carry bad memories around with them - like old luggage. And in that luggage that's where they carry their blueprint for living. You got to decide what's worth keeping, and then set the rest of it on the curb for the garbage.-Joseph
— Valjeanne Jeffers, Immortal
It was the forest’s fault. Those two handsome woodcutters. An evil place, the forest, everyone knew it, full of temptations and imps...
— Tanith Lee
We are *all* we are, and all in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all just what the old boy said – it's only the impossible that's credible; whatever credible may mean...
— Walter de la Mare, The Return
Even apocalypse looks less dire when viewed over a plate of bacon.
— Stephanie Stamm, A Gift of Wings
Something ... made him feel small, not in the way of orphans or beggars or children, but in a good way. In the way of souls.
— R. Scott Bakker, The Thousandfold Thought
An uncomfortable marriage can not bear the strain of the death of a beloved donkey.
— Merrie Haskell, Unplugged: The Web's Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 2008 Download
Birds know themselves not to be at the center of anything, but at the margins of everything. The end of the map. We only live where someone's horizon sweeps someone else's. We are only noticed on the edge of things; but on the edge of things, we notice much.
— Gregory Maguire, Out of Oz
And then the turbines generate electricity that goes into the whole town.""You mean they aren't powered by giant hamsters on wheels? I was misinformed.
— Michael  Grant
Where do you get dreams like this?
— Stephen R. Donaldson, Lord Foul's Bane
The only rules he wanted to remember were "never kiss a girl whose brothers have knife scars" and "never gamble without knowning a back way out
— Robert Jordan
It was her favorite story, that she remembers, but she would be hard-pressed to retell it now, faithfully, as it had been told to her. All she could recall were frayed, sleep-watered images of a forgotten castle in the middle of a wild forest, stone statues, crimson roses, and a dark, animal presence never seen, but which stained her memory of the tale, even past its edges to the daylight after.
— Ava Zavora, Belle Noir: Tales of Love and Magic
Through the darkness of night, Light will lead the way.
— C.L. Parker, Cataclysm
This is for everyone who has ever looked at the stars, or gazed from atop a hill, or across the sea and wondered...
— Tim Perkins, Worlds End: The Riders On The Storm
What's a horse doing on a spaceship" "What's pre-revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Mickey, get a little perspective!"Dr. Who "The Girl In The Fireplace
— Stephen Moffat
You need to have faith and trust, Moira.""And a little bit of pixie dust?
— Allison Brennan, Original Sin
From the beginning, I did not intend to create a typical classic fantasy. I wanted an organic, harmonious world where my story could evolve. If this world needed gnomes, I put them in there. As for drevalyankas, pikshas, bolugs and other totally original creatures, they appeared there somehow by themselves in the course of events, and then just began "to get under the feet of the main heroes"...
— Irina Lopatina
Some curses fade and leave nothing but the faintest mark, a tea stain on watered silk. There are those that are so malevolent that, upon defeat, explode in a fiery burst of sulfurous flames, burning everything they touch as they die. Others dissolve like morning mist in the brightness of the midday sun. Some cannot be defeated at all, but feed upon the energy spent trying to vanquish it, growing more and more potent with each failed attempt. And then there are those ancient curses with deceptively simple antidotes that shatter like jagged shards of a vast mirror. These curses may be broken, but never completely destroyed, sharp slivers of light distorted.
— Ava Zavora, Belle Noir: Tales of Love and Magic
Help me out,” I pleaded. “You’ve left me alone to deal with this situation, and now we’re being dealt the consequences.”I swore I heard Tom growl. I actually pulled the phone from my ear to stare at it to make sure it hadn’t turned into a tiny lion.
— Laura Kreitzer, Keepers
My Manager forced me to put my beetle in my own ear, a clear waste and an act that gave me nightmares: of a burning city through which giant carnivorous lizards prowled, eating survivors off of balconies. In one particularly vivid moment, I stood on a ledge as the jaws closed in, heat-swept, and tinged with the smell of rotting flesh. Beetles intended for the tough, tight minds of children should not be used by adults. We still remember a kinder, gentler world.
— Jeff VanderMeer, The Third Bear
His father was an ass and he is an ass. I imagine sooner than I should like I shall be playing uncle to a litter of asses.
— T.A. Miles, Raventide
Nothing is more important to me than keeping you safe." - Nathan
— Markelle Grabo, The Spell Master
How ya doing?” Gabby’s face came into view, and she grinned down at me. She’d stopped doing her healing thing, and the pain rushed in.“I’m just peachy,” I quipped, throat scratchy. “Only hurts when I breathe or blink or exist, if I’m being honest.
— Laura Kreitzer, Keepers
Ah yes, now you’re beginning to feel it. It’s so satisfying to see my best efforts coming to fruition. Undoubtedly one of the most gratifying rewards of my profession. It would warm my heart—if I had one.
— Jaye Frances, The Beach
I love him, and I love us together more than I love myself. I will do what you ask, but if," Kara swallowed hard, "...if I lose him, I'll join him in death." Vena resisted the urge to stroke the fine mass of dark curls away from the heart-shaped face that gazed at her so fiercely. The woman who faced her, proudly announcing her ability to choose, was no longer the winsome, pliable girl of the garden.
— Anna LaForge, The Marcella Fragment
...while epic fantasy is based on the fairy tale of the just war, that’s not one you’ll find in Grimm or Disney, and most will never recognize the shape of it. I think the fantasy genre pitches its tent in the medieval campground for the very reason that we even bother to write stories about things that never happened in the first place: because it says something subtle and true about our own world, something it is difficult to say straight out, with a straight face. Something you need tools to say, you need cheat codes for the human brain--a candy princess or a sugar-coated unicorn to wash down the sour taste of how bad things can really get.See, I think our culture has a slash running through the middle of it, too. Past/Future, Conservative/Liberal, Online/Offline. Virgin/Whore. And yes: Classical/Medieval. I think we’re torn between the Classical Narrative of Self and the Medieval Narrative of Self, between the choice of Achilles and Keep Calm and Carry On.The Classical internal monologue goes like this: do anything, anything, only don’t be forgotten. Yes, this one sacrificed his daughter on a slab at Aulis, that one married his mother and tore out his eyes, and oh that guy ate his kids in a pie. But you remember their names, don’t you? So it’s all good in the end. Give a Greek soul a choice between a short life full of glory and a name echoing down the halls of time and a long, gentle life full of children and a quiet sort of virtue, and he’ll always go down in flames. That’s what the Iliad is all about, and the Odyssey too. When you get to Hades, you gotta have a story to tell, because the rest of eternity is just forgetting and hoping some mortal shows up on a quest and lets you drink blood from a bowl so you can remember who you were for one hour.And every bit of cultural narrative in America says that we are all Odysseus, we are all Agamemnon, all Atreus, all Achilles. That we as a nation made that choice and chose glory and personal valor, and woe betide any inconvenient “other people” who get in our way. We tell the tales around the campfire of men who came from nothing to run dotcom empires, of a million dollars made overnight, of an actress marrying a prince from Monaco, of athletes and stars and artists and cowboys and gangsters and bootleggers and talk show hosts who hitched up their bootstraps and bent the world to their will. Whose names you all know. And we say: that can be each and every one of us and if it isn’t, it’s your fault. You didn’t have the excellence for it. You didn’t work hard enough. The story wasn’t about you, and the only good stories are the kind that have big, unignorable, undeniable heroes.
— Catherynne M. Valente
Respect is a really powerful magic too, you know.
— Jefferson Smith, Strange Places
It is a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you.
— Roger Zelazny, Trumps of Doom
speak hard, steal the air.
— Anne McCaffrey
The Witcher had a knife to his throat. He was wallowing in a wooden tub, brimfull with soapsuds, his head thrown agains the slippery rim. The bitter taste of soap lingered in his mouth as the knife, blunt as a doorknob, scraped his Adam's apple painfully and moved towards his chin with a grating sound.
— Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish
Take the word for it of a man who has made his way inch by inch, and does not believe that we'll wake up to find our work done because we've lain all night a-dreaming of it; anything worth doing is devilish hard to do!
— Henry James, Roderick Hudson
You desire me. I can scent it on the wind.” He drew in a breath and licked his lips. “I have been waiting for your courage to bring you to me, but I have grown tired of our little game.
— Stella Berkley, For Now and Always
I don't ever dream about you and meI don't ever make up stuff about usThat would be considered insanityI don't ever drive by your houseTo see if you're inI don't even have an opinionOn that tramp that you are still seeingI don't know your timetableI don't know your face off by heartBut I must admit that there's still a part of meThat thinks we might get on
— Kate Nash
Rupert: "... At this rate, somebody is bound to upset the Warlock once too often, and we'll end up with a Court full of bemused looking toads.""He wouldn't dare use his magic here," said the Champion."Don't bet on it," said Rupert. "The High Warlock has all the practicality and self-preservation instincts of a depressed lemming.
— Simon R. Green, Blue Moon Rising
Odd names: Winter, Autumn—they almost sound as if someone just made them up.” —Dubb
— Richard Due, The Moon Coin
The Boy looked at him for a long time before responding. “Well, as long as you’re my friend, I’ll never ignore you,” he said with conviction. “I know what it’s like to be invisible to other people.
— Mike Resnick
Tavin cupped his hands to his mouth. “Here, dragon-dragon-dragon!” he yelled.Lily stared in amazement. Well, that was bold, she thought, and stupid.
— Richard Due, The Moon Coin
On my seventh birthday, my father swore, for the first of many times, that I would die facedown in a cesspool. On that same occasion, my mother, with all the accompanying mystery and elevated language appropriate for a prominent diviner, turned her cards, screamed delicately, and proclaimed that my doom was written in water and blood and ice. As for me, from about that time and for twenty years since, I had spat on my middle finger and slapped the rump of every aingerou I noticed, murmuring the sincerest, devoutest prayer that I might prove my parents' predictions wrong. Not so much that I feared the doom itself - doom is just the hind end of living, after all - but to see the two who birthed me confounded.
— Carol Berg, Flesh and Spirit
Psychic change, as Todorov has recognized, subverted the genre in another way, by revoking the cultural taboos, the social censorship, that had prohibited the overt treatment of psychosexual themes, which then found covert expression in the supernatural tale. 'There is no need today to resort to the devil [or to posthumous reverie] in order to speak of excessive sexual desire, and none to resort to vampires in order to designate the attraction exerted by corpses: psychoanalysis, and the literature which is directly or indirectly inspired by it, deal with these matters in undisguised terms. The themes of fantastic literature have become, literally, the very themes of the psychological investigations of the last fifty years.
— Howard Kerr, The Haunted Dusk
Dragonsbane, they called him.Slayer of dragons.Or a dragon, anyway. And, he'd later found out, not such a very big one at that.
— Barbara Hambly, Dragonsbane
So what did you do, drug me, stuff me in the trunk, then dump me like a sacrificial offering into that vampire’s coffin? - Shella
— Krista Alasti, Taming Shadows
Carla had realised there wasn’t just one destined adventure in life, there were thousands of them.
— Claire Chilton, Whatever Became of the Squishies?
Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible.
— Rod Serling
And yet many of us do it without families," Nynaeve said. "Without love, without passion beyond our own particular interests. So even while we try to guide the world, we separate ourselves from it.We risk arrogance, Egwene. We always assume we know best, but risk making ourselves unable to fathom the people we claim to serve.
— Robert Jordan
The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse.
— Charles Williams, War in Heaven
Egnaro is a secret known to everyone but yourself.It is a country or a city to which you have never been; it is an unknown language. At the same time it is like being cuckolded, or plotted against. It is part of the universe of events which will never wholly reveal itself to you: a conspiracy the barest outline of which, once visible, will gall you forever.
— M. John Harrison, Things That Never Happen
for he had acquired, as time went on, the firm conviction that any thought, even the most audacious, that any fiction, even the most insane, can one day materialize and see its fulfillment in space and time.
— Stefan Grabiński
All right," said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
The incalculable winds of fantasy and music and poetry, the mere face of a girl, the song of a bird, or the sight of a horizon, are always blowing evil’s whole structure away.
— C.S. Lewis
Faey lived, for those who knew how to find her, within Ombria's past. Parts of the city's past lay within time's reach, beneath the streets in great old limestone tunnels: the hovels and mansions and sunken river that Ombria shrugged off like a forgotten skin, and buried beneath itself through the centuries.
— Patricia A. McKillip, Ombria in Shadow
But if it so happens ... a work ... under pain of otherwise becoming shameful or false, requires fantasy ... [and that] certain limbs or elements of a figure are altered by borrowing from other species, for example transforming into a dolphin the hinder end of a griffon or a stag ... these alterations will be excellent and the substitution, however unreal it may seem, deserves to be declared a fine invention in the genre of the monstrous.When a painter introduces into this kind of work of art chimerae and other imaginary beings in order to divert and entertain the senses and also to captivate the eyes of mortals who long to see unclassified and impossible things, he shows himself more respectful of reason than if he produced the usual figures of men or of animals.
— Michelangelo Buonarroti
Have a little faith in your sons. This journey will be the making of them.
— C.J. Milbrandt, On Your Marks: The Adventure Begins
Let your boys test their wings. They may not be eagles, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't soar free.
— C.J. Milbrandt, On Your Marks: The Adventure Begins
Lend me your wings, bird. I'll spread them and fly on the thermals.
— Stephen King
I've stolen books. They're the only thing worth taking that don't belong to you.
— Sully Tarnish, The Dragon and the Apprentice: A Wizard's Wager
I felt something inside me rush up from tailbone to fingertips and explode in a fierce, joyful tide: that berserk rage that had nowhere to go until now.
— Heather Gladney, Teot's War
That was a day that taught me the meaning of abject failure.
— Walter Moers
None of this was what held Yeva's gaze. Because in the bottom of the valley, straddling the river nestled in the foothills, was a castle.
— Meagan Spooner, Hunted
I would be a wedge-tailed eagle. I would only live for the joy of flight. I would soar at great heights, on top of the wind. I would be above everything, over the little towns clinging to the highway. I would be a part of everything.
— Karen Foxlee, The Anatomy of Wings
Fancies were all very well for a change, but must be only occasional guests in a world devoted to reality.
— Walter de la Mare, The Return
The best thought any writer ever come up with is of having a world with Dragons.
— Viraj J. Mahajan, A Young Admirer
When a Dragon, an Elf, and a Human walk into a bar, the Human is always going to be the punch line.
— Bryan Fields, Dragon's Luck: The Dragonbound Chronicles
But of bliss and glad life there is little to be said, before it ends; as works fair and wonderful, while they still endure for eyes to see, are ever their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
The king is dead. Long live the queen.
— Marie Lu, The Young Elites
It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale - they are well-equipped to deal with these
— Neil Gaiman, M Is for Magic
The Dreaming is always; forever... it's always happening, and us mob, we're part of it, all the time, everywhere, and every-when too.
— Kate Constable, Crow Country
Most people create a destiny of minutiae, of the mundane. They create their own limitations. When the moment comes for them to stretch and leap, they find themselves boxed in, locked down by their own fears.
— Bill Blais, No Good Deed
Ariel: “Eric!”Eric: “Do not sing me back to shore! Not until you are standing on two feet!
— Khalia Hades, Ariel's Demise
So rest a while, we can talk in the cool of the evening. Or the cool of the morning. There 's seldom as much hurry as I used to think there was." -HawkWho had been ArchmageThe Other Wind
— Ursula K. Le Guin
But see, that's the thing about movies. Nothing is left to the imagination. You read a book, and you see a picture of the characters and the scenes in your mind. You don't have that with a movie. It's all either up there on the screen laid out for you, or it isn't there at all.
— Laurie Viera Rigler, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
He felt that he had always been there, among the apple trees, watching for the woman in the tower to come to her window. Seasons may have passed, years may have grown green on the bough, then withered and fallen, but he would stand there and wait for a chance to keep a promise he had made.
— Ava Zavora, Belle Noir: Tales of Love and Magic
An endless scream pierced the frigid night air and shook the world with its rage and sorrow. The aged stone and brick that had withstood the great quake over a hundred years ago now trembled before its pain, and even the austere grimace of the lonely grotesque, its only witness, softened in pity.
— Ava Zavora, Belle Noir: Tales of Love and Magic
If the only tool in Willem's arsenal was a silent supplication to an absent almighty, then I might as well be sitting next to a raving radical ready to die for the promise of seventy-two virgins and a couple of camels.
— Lisa C. Temple
All that we know, soon shall we abandon. As time will lend itself. Eyes know only what they see. But brave hearts beat on with belief.
— Nathalie M. Leblanc, Shrinking Forward
How dare the embodiment of her worst nightmare come packaged as her hottest fantasy?
— Karen Marie Moning, The Immortal Highlander
Fantasy - the ability to envisage the world in many different ways - is one of the skills that makes us human.
— Terry Pratchett
So why isn't the world overrun with evil spirits?"Moira stared at her, a half-smile on her face. "Who says it isn't?
— Allison Brennan, Original Sin
But I don't think Art's an Einstein - he likes tugging ears, biting people and burping too much to be a genius.
— Darren Shan, Demon Thief
You don't believe in miracles.""Sure I do. I just haven't seen any lately.
— Allison Brennan, Original Sin
Arrogance and Conceit are the mother and father of a closed mind.Charles Jennings, "Journey of the Chosen".
— Richard Nance
I would rather never make a penny on book sales and know that many had derived some fair pleasure from my writing, than to know that very few had ever taken a chance on my work. I certainly won't last forever, but I'd love to think that my imagination will continue to surface in the minds of others.
— Eric Diehl
Nil Sine Magno Labore ("Nothing without great effort") --Motto of Brooklyn College
— Tony-Paul de Vissage
I had this guy’s file pulled this morning, along with the rest of your neighbors. His name is Desperado.”Pause. A few seconds passed. He was waiting for my reaction.“Did you say Desperado?” I couldn’t stop the snort of laughter that bubbled to the surface. “Yeah,” the Director confirmed. “He changed his name when he turned eighteen. It was Melvin.”I was still laughing. “’Cause Desperado is so much better than Melvin.
— Laura Kreitzer, Keepers
I tapped around on my new Miracle Phone—a gift from Joseph—as I listened to the discussion about our next move. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but I’d recently become addicted to this one game on my Miracle Phone. Really, I was listening. I could multitask like no other. Trust me, there’s an app for that.
— Laura Kreitzer, Fallen Legion
At the sound of her name, Lucia’s blue eyes honed in on me. She cocked her head to the side as if puzzled. “Why me?” she wondered.“Lucia, you exploded with power after Ehno was killed.” I shot Ehno an apologetic look. “I felt your sorrow before I even knew something was wrong. It hit me like a freight train of boulders. You made the sky rain fireballs with red lightning. Need I say more?
— Laura Kreitzer, Fallen Legion
Jules lips quivered, and I feared she was about to cry. Then she asked, “He bit off more than he could chew, didn’t he?” She made a motion as if she was biting into a tough piece of steak.Gabriella’s lips sealed shut as she tried to hide her grin, though she failed at it when Andrew asked, “Was he eating?” He turned desperately to Gabriella, confused.Jules wasn’t about to cry, she was trying not to laugh! She giggled then, the sound tinkling and odd in the outlandish setting.Andrew straightened and shook his head at Gabriella. “Did you see him eat?
— Laura Kreitzer, Keepers
Joseph, you’re out of clean towels.” Lucia poked her head into the living room, the rest of her hidden behind the wall. Her red hair dripped water onto my wooden floors.“She’s in the buff.” Jenna guffawed. Gabriella rolled her eyes, beaming.I rose. “Go back to the bathroom. I’ll bring you a towel,” I ordered Lucia. She disappeared down the hall.“You have naked angels running around your house,” Jenna continued through her laughter. Gabby laughed louder.
— Laura Kreitzer, Keepers
Well, the only reason we’re friends is because you can rock a tweed suit,” she informed, tone mock serious. “So if you want to keep me around, I expect more tweed.
— Laura Kreitzer, Keepers
Shut the front door!” Jenna exclaimed.Andrew disappeared into the foyer, and when he returned, his eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. “The door is shut?
— Laura Kreitzer, Keepers
Awe! Leaving so soon?” Gabby said sweetly, holding the door open. “I was just about to pull out the gun for you to play single-player Russian Roulette.
— Laura Kreitzer, Keepers
Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars.
— Robert E. Howard, The Complete Chronicles of Conan