c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
I well knew the rules to follow with our training Dogs: Speak when you're spoken to. Keep out of the way. Obey all orders. Get killed on your own time.
— Tamora Pierce, Terrier
You must let what happens happen. Everything must be equal in your eyes, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, foolish and wise.
— Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
Percy," my father said, "what exactly do you mean?" "Kronos couldn't have risen if it hadn't been for a lot of demigods who felt abandoned by their parents," I said. "They felt angry, resentful, and unloved, and they had a good reason.
— Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian
His rage passes description - the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Or, There And Back Again
The great joy and honour of my life has been to know you. To call you my family. And I am grateful - more than I can possibly say - that I was given this time with you all
— Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin
Books are keys that open many doors.
— James Rollins
Carlin often said that history was everything, for it was in man’s nature to make the same mistakes over and over.
— Erika Johansen, The Queen of the Tearling
Words were another sword for the man who wielded them well.
— Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
Violators cannot live with the truth: survivors cannot live without it. There are those who still, once again, are poised to invalidate and deny us. If we don't assert our truth, it may again be relegated to fantasy. But the truth won't go away. It will keep surfacing until it is recognized. Truth will outlast any campaigns mounted against it, no matter how mighty, clever, or long. It is invincible. It's only a matter of which generation is willing to face it and, in so doing, protect future generations from ritual abuse.
— Chrystine Oksana, Safe Passage to Healing: A Guide for Survivors of Ritual Abuse
You couldn't hide from bad things and pretend they didn't exist–that left you with a dream world, and dream worlds eventually crumbled. You had to face the truth. And then decide what you wanted.
— Sarah Cross, Kill Me Softly
this is a book about something
— C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew
V settled back against the pillows and measured the hard line of her chin."Take off your coat.""Excuse me?""Take it off.""No.""I want it off.""Then I suggest you hold your breath. Won't affect me in the slightest, but at least the suffocation will help pass the time for you.
— J.R. Ward, Lover Unbound
Ronan Lynch lived with every sort of secret.
— Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves
Fairy tales since the beginning of recorded time, and perhaps earlier, have been “a means to conquer the terrors of mankind through metaphor.
— Jack D. Zipes
We're living in momentous times, Garion. The events of a thousand years and more have all focused on these very days. The world, I'm told, is like that. Centuries pass when nothing happens, and then in a few short years events of such tremendous importance take place that the world is never the same again." I think that if I had my choice, I'd prefer one of those quiet centuries," Garion said glumly. Oh, no," Silk said, his lips drawing back in a ferretlike grin. "Now's the time to be alive - to see it all happen, to be a part of it. That makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure.
— David Eddings, Pawn of Prophecy
And that's how you go on. You lay laughter over the dark parts. The more dark parts, the more you have to laugh. With defiance, with abandon, with hysteria, any way you can.
— Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
— Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World
She imagined herself both queen and slave, dominatrix and victim. In her imagination she was making love with men of all skin colors--white, black, yellow--with homosexuals and beggars. She was anyone's, and anyone could do anything to her. She had one, two, three orgasms, one after another. She imagined everything she had never imagined before, and she gave herself to all that was most base and most pure.
— Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die
Eternity ended ten years ago.
— Brandon Sanderson
You need to know where to go,' Sanya said.'Yes,''And you are going to consult four large pizzas for guidance.''Yes,' I said....'There is, I think, humour here which does not translate well from English into sanity.''That's pretty rich coming from the agnostic Knight of the Cross with a holy Sword who takes his orders from an archangel.' I said.- Harry Dresden & Sanya, Changes, Jim Butcher
— Jim Butcher, Changes
His dad said even the cavemen had geniuses among them. Somebody had thought up the wheel.
— Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander
I know where you sleep, Bard." She smirked. "Then you know I sleep with knives.
— V.E. Schwab, A Gathering of Shadows
You or I might think that at least one would show courage and put up a fight. But neither you nor I have suffered as they, and even we have born witness in silence to lesser ills under less dire threat. Yet, in the face of evil, to sit silent is an even greater evil. Complacency is ever the enabler of darkest deeds;
— Robert Fanney
Oh, that's just great. I come all the way back here, risking major brain cell burnout, and you don't even believe me? I'm basically guaranteeing myself a lifetime of heartbreak, and all you have to say is that you think I'm not right in the head?
— Meg Cabot, Twilight
She was the most painful, most glorious dance of his life
— Anne Bishop, Heir to the Shadows
When we are no longer children we are already dead
— Constantin Brancusi
Iron. Ice.A Love Doomed From the Start
— Julie Kagawa, The Iron King
Lovers and madmen have such seething brainsSuch shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Classic fairy tales do not deny the existence of heartache and sorrow, but they do deny universal defeat.
— Greenhaven
Assassination is an art, milord. And I am the city's most accomplished artist.
— Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
Maybe if I act well enough, I'll come to believe it myself.
— Garth Nix, Abhorsen
I glanced at Derek. The boy wonder didn't melt into a pile of goo, although his gaze was glued to Rowena's chest. Avoiding eye contact. Good strategy.
— Ilona Andrews, Magic Bites
The passion I feel for you is more than you’re prepared for. - Eric
— Kailin Gow, The Phantom Diaries
Science fiction deals with improbable possibilities, fantasy with plausible impossibilities.
— Miriam Allen de Ford
Fantasy was always only a reality waiting to be switched on.
— Joe Hill, NOS4A2
It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children.
— J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
When did you suddenly become Mister Maturity?
— Michael Buckley, Once Upon a Crime
In every journey comes a moment... one like no other. And in that moment, you must decide between who you are... and who you want to be.
— J.C. Marino, Dante's Journey
Fantasy is one of the soul's brighter porcelains.
— Pat Conroy, Beach Music
It's a dirty way to fight, but I'm late for lunch."- Valek to Yelena
— Maria V. Snyder, Poison Study
How can I judge?" she said at last. "To me, he is a hero. To the world a monster." She let her head fall into her arms and started crying quietly. "I miss him! Curse him! I miss him!"Mithorden put a hand on her shoulder and let her cry for a few minutes. A sad smile slowly spread across his face. "I'm glad you can forgive him," he said at last.Luthiel lifted her head. "How do you know?"Because you miss him.
— Robert Fanney
He was walking into Faerie, in search of a fallen star, with no idea how he would find the star, nor how to keep himself safe and whole as he tried. He looked back and fancied that he could see the lights of Wall behind him, wavering and glimmering as if in a heat-haze, but still inviting.
— Neil Gaiman, Stardust
Waiting for the right people isn't going to get us where we want; we need to go out and find..." She groped for the right word. A mission? A project? A job?"Trouble?" Sicarius sugg
— Lindsay Buroker
Why did you wear heels? How are you supposed to fight a gargoyle in what you're wearing?
— Priya Ardis, My Boyfriend Merlin
Beware a kiss, he told her. Kisses are powerful things. You expose part of your soul.
— Ruth Frances Long, The Treachery of Beautiful Things
Shut up," Daniel said, but he said it softly and so tenderly that Luce suprised both of them by obeying. "I don't think you're stupid." He closed his eyes "I think you're the smartest person I know. And the kindest. And..." he swallowed, opening his eyes to look directly at her - "the most beautiful.
— Lauren Kate, Fallen
The ability to "fantasize" is the ability to survive. It's wonderful to speak about this subject because there have been so many wrong-headed people dealing with it.... The so-called realists are trying to drive us insane, and I refuse to be driven insane.... We survive by fantasizing. Take that away from us and the whole damned human race goes down the drain.
— Ray Bradbury
The thing to remember when you're writing is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader.
— Charles de Lint, The Blue Girl
A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labour, and in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man's distant forefathers had obtained their building material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal under the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: 'This tower is most interesting.' But they also said (after pushing it over): 'What a muddle it is in!' And even the man's own descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: 'He is such an odd fellow! Imagine using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why did not he restore the old house? he had no sense of proportion.' But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf and the Critics
You were dancing with Yuki and I looked at you. And you turned away and held her closer. Why did you do that? If you didn't want to hurt me, then why?"He looked away, as though he'd been slapped, but he didn't look guilty. He looked pained. "I closed my eyes," he said, his voice so low and strangled she could hardly hear him."What?" she asked, not understanding."Tamani held up a hand and Laurel realized he hadn't finished-he was having trouble speaking at all. "I closed my eyes," he repeated after a few shallow breaths, "and imagined she was you."He looked at her, his face open, his eyes honest, his voice a song of anguish.
— Aprilynne Pike, Illusions
Maybe i would become a mermaid... i would live in the swirling blue-green currents, doing exotic underwater dances for the fish, kissed by sea anemones, caressed by seaweed shawls. I would have a doliphin friend. He would have merry eyes and thick flesh of a god. My fingernails would be tiny shells and my skin would be like jade with light shining through it I would never have to come back up
— Francesca Lia Block
As for you, Private, if you mention a word of this to anyone, I'll feed you to the cat thing here. Understand?""Yum," said Mogget."Yes, sir!" mumbled the telephone operator, his hands shaking as he tried to smother the burning wreckage of his switchboard with a fire blanket.
— Garth Nix, Abhorsen
I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.
— Holly Black, White Cat
The question is always the answer, provided you want the answer badly enough.
— Barbara Hambly, The Time of the Dark
We are not meant to know the time or the nature of our deaths (for all of us secretly hope that we may be immortal).
— John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things
It's a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you've been to all the places you don't need to be.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, Tales from Earthsea
I am going to go into this world, and I don't care if you and your narrow mind cannot be a part of it.
— Elise Kova, Air Awakens
We're free Narnians, Hwin and I, and I suppose, if you're running away to Narnia you want to be one too. In that case Hwin isn't your horse any longer. One might just as well say you're her human.
— C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
Any time there's something so ridiculously dangerous that no rational human being would try it, they send for me.' --Garion
— David Eddings, King of the Murgos
Can I be blamed for wanting a real body, to put my arms around? Without it I too am disembodied. I can listen to my own heartbeat against the bedsprings...but there’s something dead about it, something deserted.
— Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
It takes real planning to organize this kind of chaos.
— Mel Odom, The Destruction of the Books
Now I am their sword. And I do not forgive. I do not forget. So let him lead me onto his shuttle. Let him think he owns me. Let him welcome into his house, so I might burn it down. But then his daughter takes my hand, and I feel all the lies fall heavy on my shoulders. They say a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. They made no mention of the heart.
— Pierce Brown, Golden Son
Let'sss just kill him," said the shorter Ra'zac. "He has caused us much grief." The taller one ran his finger down his sword. "A good plan. But remember, the king's instructions were to keep them alive."-from Eragon, Chapter Title: The Ra'zac's Revenge.
— Christopher Paolini
I guess I had always sort of fantasized that a guy would see me and get past the ponytail and the glasses and the giant sweatshirt to discover how insanely awesome I am, then come and whisk me off into that magical teenager fairytale where everyone else gets to prance around.
— Jeff Sampson, Vesper
In a calm, clear voice, she suggested that the wyrsa in question could do several highly improbable, athletically difficult and possibly biologically impractical things involving its own mother, a few household implements, and a dead fish.
— Mercedes Lackey, The Silver Gryphon
Well, can you tell her that?"He looked down at his feet. "I will. I will."Guy-speak for, "I plan to keep avoiding her until she gives up.
— Priya Ardis, My Merlin Awakening
If I were to lock you up in a dungeon, I guarantee you would not be bored.
— Priya Ardis, My Merlin Awakening
Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren't ever going to happen. Except when one of them does, at which point you feel way too vindicated.- Harry Dresden, Changes, Jim Butcher
— Jim Butcher, Changes
. . .from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.
— Maurice Sendak
Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?
— Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using Escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. just so a Party-spokesman might have labeled departure from the misery of the Fuhrer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery .... Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the "quisling" to the resistance of the patriot.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien on Fairy-stories
Do you mean to say," asked Caspian, "that you three come from a round world (round like a ball) and you've never told me! It's really too bad for you. Because we have fairy-tales in which there are round worlds and I have always loved them … Have you ever been to the parts where people walk about upside-down?" Edmund shook his head. "And it isn't like that," he added. "There's nothing particularly exciting about a round world when you're there.
— C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Reality is shaped by the forces that destroy it.
— D. Harlan Wilson, The Kyoto Man
Shivers heaved out a sigh. “Just trying to make tomorrow that bit better than today is all. I’m one of those … you’ve got a word for it, don’t you?”“Idiots?”He looked sideways at her. “It was a different one I had in mind.”“Optimists.”“That’s the one. I’m an optimist.”“How’s it working out for you?”“Not great, but I keep hoping.”“That’s optimists. You bastards never learn.
— Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold
I will never hurt you.
— Cayla Kluver
So I am death" Charlie said then turned to his daughter while buttering his toast."This is death toast sweety.
— Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job
I really like Septimus Heap. he is my favorite guy in the story. I should make you all read it.
— Angie Sage
I'll never forget the first time Davram took me by the scruff of my neck and showed me he was the stronger of us. It was magnificent! If a woman is stronger than her husband, she comes to despise him. She has the choice of either tyrannizing him or else making herself less in order not to make him less. If the husband is strong enough, though, she can be as strong as she is, as strong as she can grow to be.
— Robert Jordan
We cannot know the future. All we can do is face it bravely. We should take heed of those we love and respect. But in the end, we make every decision alone.
— Juliet Marillier, Seer of Sevenwaters
Are you familiar with that play?In fact, we're almost living it!
— Michael Buckley, Once Upon a Crime
There are things that are more important than the news and what’s happening today. There are these archetypes which are part of the human imagination since humans were presumably imaginative. And I think that’s what [people] find touching, these eternal ideas. It’s one of the things that makes fantasy something that tends to stand the test of time because we’re reading, 50 years later, The Lord of the Rings.
— Clive Barker
The last unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.
— Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
You'll get fired if anyone finds out about us!""So many rules in this century," Vane muttered.
— Priya Ardis, My Merlin Awakening
No hard feelings about that time in the Crucible when you mixed my salts and I was nearly blind for a day. No. No, really, drink up!
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
We are as ignorant of the meaning of the dragon as we are of the meaning of the universe.
— Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings
In the City Market is the Meet Café. Followers of obsolete, unthinkable trades doodling in Etruscan, addicts of drugs not yet synthesized, pushers of souped-up harmine, junk reduced to pure habit offering precarious vegetable serenity, liquids to induce Latah, Tithonian longevity serums, black marketeers of World War III, excusers of telepathic sensitivity, osteopaths of the spirit, investigators of infractions denounced by bland paranoid chess players, servers of fragmentary warrants taken down in hebephrenic shorthand charging unspeakable mutilations of the spirit, bureaucrats of spectral departments, officials of unconstituted police states, a Lesbian dwarf who has perfected operation Bang-utot, the lung erection that strangles a sleeping enemy, sellers of orgone tanks and relaxing machines, brokers of exquisite dreams and memories tested on the sensitized cells of junk sickness and bartered for raw materials of the will, doctors skilled in the treatment of diseases dormant in the black dust of ruined cities, gathering virulence in the white blood of eyeless worms feeling slowly to the surface and the human host, maladies of the ocean floor and the stratosphere, maladies of the laboratory and atomic war... A place where the unknown past and the emergent future meet in a vibrating soundless hum... Larval entities waiting for a Live One...
— William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
Plus, I happened to be a history nerd. Why else would I be interested in a guy born in the year 519?
— Priya Ardis, My Merlin Awakening
I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world.
— Kate Forsyth
Relationships are ropes. Love is a noose. - Durzo Blint
— Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars, not if you care for such things.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
A man’s greatest treasures are his illusions - Durzo Blint
— Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
My name's Jean Tannen, and I'm the ambush.
— Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
Horses are of a breed unique to Fantasyland. They are capable of galloping full-tilt all day without a rest. Sometimes they do not require food or water. They never cast shoes, go lame or put their hooves down holes, except when the Management deems it necessary, as when the forces of the Dark Lord are only half an hour behind. They never otherwise stumble. Nor do they ever make life difficult for Tourists by biting or kicking their riders or one another. They never resist being mounted or blow out so that their girths slip, or do any of the other things that make horses so chancy in this world. For instance, they never shy and seldom whinny or demand sugar at inopportune moments. But for some reason you cannot hold a conversation while riding them. If you want to say anything to another Tourist (or vice versa), both of you will have to rein to a stop and stand staring out over a valley while you talk. Apart from this inexplicable quirk, horses can be used just like bicycles, and usually are. Much research into how these exemplary animals come to exist has resulted in the following: no mare ever comes into season on the Tour and no stallion ever shows an interest in a mare; and few horses are described as geldings. It therefore seems probable that they breed by pollination. This theory seems to account for everything, since it is clear that the creatures do behave more like vegetables than mammals. Nomads appears to have a monopoly on horse-breeding. They alone possess the secret of how to pollinate them.
— Diana Wynne Jones, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
If you keep pretending you're in that book, it will make you not want to live in the life you're in.
— Cornelia Funke, Inkspell
Beauty is harsh.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
Then he was there, turned half toward her with a guarded expression etched across his face. She didn't stop or even slow her step. When she reached him, she grabbed the front of his shirt in both fists, pulling him to her, pushing her mouth up into his. Heat swirled through her as she pulled his face even closer, tighter. His arms wound around her and their bodies melded with a rightness she didn't bother to question. Her lips filled with the sweetness of his mouth and Tamani held her against him as if he could somehow pull her inside him, make her part of him.And for a moment, she did feel like a part of him. As if their kiss bridged the gap between the two worlds, even if only for that one brief, sparkling moment.A sigh that held the weight of years shuddered out of Tamani as their faces drew apart. "Thank you," Tamani whispered, almost too quiet to be heard.
— Aprilynne Pike, Wings
Let the spirits guide you, but never let them take you.
— E.J. Stevens, Spirit Storm
I'll tell you something. Once I was very fond of a poem by Emily Dickinson or somebody. I only remember one line of it, but it goes, 'The soul selects her own society.' I used to tell it to everybody. Once I quoted it to a friend of mine, and he said, 'Maybe, but the body gets thrown into bed with the goddamnedest people.
— Peter S. Beagle, A Fine and Private Place
He had only heard of dragons, and although he had never seen one, he was sure they existed.
— Dee Marie, Sons of Avalon: Merlin's Prophecy
...The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the morgue.This, all by itself, is enough to really ruin your day.I was lying on the examining table, and Butters, complete with his surgical gown and his tray of autopsy instruments, stood over me.'I'm not dead!' I sputtered. 'I'm not dead!'- Harry Dresden, Death Masks, Jim Butcher
— Jim Butcher, Death Masks
As Hagrid had said, what would come would come and he would have to meet it when it did.
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Hey!" I turned, crossing my arms and glaring. "I was talking to him!"Tybalt eyed me with amusement, which just made me glare harder. "No, you were inciting him to stab you with a toothpick. Again, the difference is small, but I think it matters.
— Seanan McGuire, A Local Habitation
Cery: So, Hem, tell me why I shouldn't see how many holes I need to make before you start leaking money?
— Trudi Canavan, The High Lord
Sarcasm, as it turned out--even when it was instinctive and quick--cut into the time one had to manufacture one's escape.
— Mel Odom, The Destruction of the Books
The last declaration he'd made to me hung between us. The L word. The one that had nothing to do with like.
— Priya Ardis, My Merlin Awakening
Wishes of one's old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to remember to catch the world in it's changing and change with it.
— Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Right,' Thomas said. 'Where are we headed?''To where they treat me like royalty,' I said.'We're going to Burger King?'I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead and spelled fratricide in a subvocal mutter, but I had to spell out temporary insanity and justifiable homicide, too, before I calmed down enough to speak politely. 'Just take a left and drive. Please.''Well,' Thomas said, grinning, 'since you said 'please'- Thomas Raith & Harry Dresden, Small Favor, Jim Butcher
— Jim Butcher, Small Favor
Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up there by themselves. He could go so much faster than they that he would suddenly shoot out of sight, to have some adventure in which they had no share. He would come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had been saying to a star, but he had already forgotten what it was, or he would come up with mermaid scales still sticking to him, and yet not be able to to say for certain what had been happening. It was really rather irritating to children who had never seen a mermaid.
— J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Because a sound tree doesn't have bad roots, Amara. No enterprise of greatnessbegins with treachery, with lying to the people who trust and love you
— Jim Butcher, Furies of Calderon
I can see time," whispered Mogget, so softly that his words were lost.
— Garth Nix, Sabriel
Laurel look up at him in question, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. She always wished she had more time to draw secrets from him. "I'll wear it always," she said."And think of me?" His eyes held her captive, and she knew there was only one answer."Yes.""Good."She started to turn, but before she could step away, Tamani grabbed her hand. Without breaking eye contact, he raised her hand to his face and brushed his lips over her knuckles. For just a second, his eyes were unguarded. A spark went through Laurel at what she saw there: raw, unbridled desire.Before she could look any closer, he smiled, and the flash was gone.
— Aprilynne Pike, Wings
The stuff you bring back from dreams is free.
— Neil Gaiman, Brief Lives
My laboratory,' I said, experimentally, drawing out each syllable. 'Why is it that saying it like that always makes me want to follow it with 'mwoo-hah-hah-hahhhhh'? ''You were overexposed to Hammer Films as a child?' - Harry Dresden & Bob the Skull, Changes, Jim Butcher
— Jim Butcher, Changes
Aren't we all a bunch of weirdos?
— Kaori Naruse, Pretear
Err, sorry Father Abbot. I tripped y'see. Trod on my Abbot, Father Habit. Oh dear, I mean....
— Brian Jacques, Redwall
Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.
— Patricia A. McKillip
He didn't say anything more, just waited for me to tell him what I'd been thinking. It was pure speculation, and I was opening myself up to ridicule by saying anything at all. I sat on the stool and realized that I had my loyalties, too.
— Patricia Briggs
All was shattered, and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World. And him they named Dragon.
— Robert Jordan
Jimmy: When you die, I dieSora: Wow, that's some serious relationship!
— Shiro Amano, Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, Vol. 2
I only want to catch you,” Michael explained. “I won’t hurt you.” “No! No!” the star crackled desperately. “That’s wrong! I’m supposed to die!” “But I could save you if you’d let me catch you,” Michael told it gently.“No!” cried the star. “I’d rather die!
— Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle
Rain was coming down in sheets. I could hear it, on the concrete outside and on the old building above me. It creaked and swayed in the spring thunderstorm and the wind, timbers gently flexing, wise enough with age to give a little, rather than put up stubborn resistance until they broke. I could probably stand to learn something from that.
— Jim Butcher
And that's what I don't like about magic, Captain. 'cos it's *magic*. You can't ask questions, it's magic. It doesn't explain anything, it's magic. You don't know where it comes from, it's magic! That's what I don't like about magic, it does everything by magic!
— Terry Pratchett
Rise, Luthiel, in the name of love you came and in the name of love I crown you!
— Robert Fanney
I am as you say a "skeleton" and i have been for quite a while
— SkullDuggery Pleasant
Unhappy people needs your smile more than Happy people do
— Vianka Van Bokkem, My Handsome Vampire: Falling in Love
Then, slowly, my feet settled to the ground. Before I had taken six steps I sagged like a sail when the wind fades. As I walked back through the town, past sleeping houses and dark inns, my mood swung from elation to doubt in the space of three brief breaths.I had ruined everything. All the things I had said, things that seemed so clever at the time, were in fact the worst things a fool could say. Even now she was inside, breathing a sigh of relief to finally be rid of me.But she had smiled. Had laughed.She hadn't remembered our first meeting on the road from Tarbean. I couldn't have made that much of an impression on her.'Steal me,' she had said.I should have been bolder and kissed her at the end. I should have been more cautious. I had talked too much. I had said too little.
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things.
— Maurice Sendak
The world is not beautiful. Therefore it is.
— Keiichi Sigsawa, Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World
Aren't we forever?
— Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire
Slender Youth. A tour companion who may be either a lost prince or a girl/princess in disguise. In the latter case it is tactful to pretend you think she is a boy. She/he will be ignorant, hasty and shy, and will need hauling out of trouble quite a lot. But she/he will grow up in the course of the Tour. In fact she/he will be the only Companion who will change in any way. Quite often, she/he will soon exhibit a very useful talent for magic and end up by hauling everyone else out of trouble. But this will not be until midway through your second brochure.
— Diana Wynne Jones, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
The worth is in the act. Your worth halts when you surrender your will to change and experience life. But options are before you
—  choose one and dedicate yourself to it. The deeds will give you a new hope and purpose.
Your Majesty,” Durzo said gravely. “A man of your stature’s cursing vocabulary ought to extend beyond a tedious reiteration of the excreta that fills the void between his ears.” - Durzo Blint
— Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
She moves like beauty, she whispers to us of wind and forest—and she tells us stories, such stories that we wake in the night, dreaming dreams of a life long past. she reminds us of what we used to be.She reminds us of what we could be.
— Meagan Spooner, Hunted
Fantasy is storytelling with the beguiling power to transform the impossible into the imaginable, and to reveal our own “real” world in a fresh and truth-bearing light.
— Leonard S. Marcus, The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy
There are a number of paths that lead to this place. I have been avoiding them for some small time, now.
— Neil Gaiman, Brief Lives
My father always said that government is like watching another man piss in your boot. Someone feels better but it certainly isn't you.
— Orson Scott Card, Heartfire
Just my luck, if I believed in luck. I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is.
— Gregory Maguire, A Lion Among Men
Aye, you're neither one thing nor yet quite t'other. Pity, but there 'tis.
— Eloise Jarvis McGraw, The Moorchild
Well, come back and have tea with us," saidMoon-Face. "Silky's got some Pop Biscuits -andI've made some Google Buns. I don't often makethem-and I tell you they're a treat!
— Enid Blyton, The Enchanted Wood
If the president and the Vice President dies who becomes President" "Thats easy Arnold Swartzanager
— Dan Gutman
The combination of razor-sharp wit (completely real) and his credentials (completely fake) had won them over in the end.
— Priya Ardis, My Merlin Awakening
Handsome vampires are addictive
— Vianka Van Bokkem
I bow to no beast.
— Keisha Keenleyside, The Demons Fib
You were dropped as a child, weren't you?" Varen asked her."Maybe once or twice," Gwen said, "but at least I wasn't raised by highly literate vampires who, every night just before bed, fed me a steady diet of dark sarcasm and gothic horror fiction.""Every morning before bed," Varen corrected. Stepping forward, he moved toward the headstone. "We slept during the day.
— Kelly Creagh, Oblivion
Verily, for nine hundred years have I lost. Everyone I knew is dead, the empire gone, and who knows in what state the world is left. Should what thy sister reports prove true, much hath changed in the w
— Michael J. Sullivan, Theft of Swords
I think given the choice between loving Mare - betrayal included - and never knowing her, I'd chose love. I risked, and I lost, but the risk was still worth it.
— Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire
Anyone who claimed that old age had brought them patience was either lying or senile.
— Robert Jordan
Write me a creature that thinks as well as a man or better than a man, but not like a man.
— John W. Campbell Jr.
Jesus. Low-Key Lyesmith," said Shadow. and then he heard what he was saying and he understood. "Loki," he said. "Loki Lie-smith.""You're slow," said Loki, "but you get there in the end." And his lips twisted into a scarred smile and the embers danced in the shadows of his eyes.
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
If you're brave enough to try, you might be able to catch a train from UnLondon to Parisn't, or No York, or Helsunki, or Lost Angeles, or Sans Francisco, or Hong Gone, or Romeless.
— China Miéville, Un Lun Dun
Do you really think you can win?''Yeah. Hell, Ortega is only the third or fourth most disturbing thing I've tangled with today.''But even if you do win, what does it change?''Me getting kiilled now. That way, I get to be killed later tonight instead.'- Susan Rodriguez & Harry Dresden, Death Masks, Jim Butcher
— Jim Butcher, Death Masks
That we can never know," answered the wolf angrily. "That's for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe to the present. Here and now, and nowhere else. For nothing else exists, except in our minds. What we owe to ourselves, and to those we're bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything.
— David Clement-Davies
I won't lie to you. There is always a cost. All I can gurantee is that it will be the right thing.""It's insane," he says, but without vehemence."It's faith," I say.
— Rae Carson, The Crown of Embers
Emma was doing something nice for Simon? Hell must be enjoying the snow day.
— E.J. Stevens, Spirit Storm
Even now, she wished she could write a note, push it across the table, and go away to her room. But she was no longer a Second Assistant Librarian of the Great Library of the Clayr. Those days were gone, vanished with everything else that had defined her previous existence and identity.
— Garth Nix, Lirael
You can’t has,' he whispered softly, 'not yours.
— Wil Wheaton, Clash of the Geeks
You know the Prince song where the girl's phone rings but she tells him, "whoever's calling couldn't be as cute as you?" I long to live out this moment in real life.
— Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape
Small Man can be a very funny or a very tiresome Tour Companion, depending on how this kind of thing grabs you. He gambles, he drinks too much and he always runs away. Since the Rules allow him to make Jokes, he will excuse his behaviour in a variety of comical ways. Physically he is stunted and not at all handsome, although he usually dresses flamboyantly. He tends to wear hats with feathers in. You will discover he is very vain. But, if you can avoid smacking him, you will come to tolerate if not love him. He will contrive, in some cowardly way, to play a major part in saving the world.
— Diana Wynne Jones, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
Faris turned on him. "Why choose to wear black today, of all days? I know why I'm in black. Why are you? Mourning?He looked startled. "One does not wear mourning for a servant."You still don't understand, do you? He was not my servant."He regarded her anger, aghast. "What then? What else could he be?Her empty hands shook as she held them out to him. Her voice shook as she replied, "Glove to my hand." Slowly she closed her fists. "Everything.
— Caroline Stevermer, A College of Magics
The Worst thing that Good could do to Evil was ignore it...
— Michael K. Bialys, The Novus
Right and wrong matters little when survival matters most.
— Kevin James Breaux, Blood Divided
Leave the dead to the Earth. They are not for us.
— Christopher Paolini
No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpork. Well technically they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops.
— Terry Pratchett, Eric
Oh, what a lovely owl!" Cried the Wart.But when he went up to it and held out his hand, the owl grew half as tall again, stood up as stiff as a poker, closed its eyes so that there was only the smallest slit to peep through - as you are in the habit of doing when told to shut your eyes at hide-and-seek - and said in a doubtful voice"There is no owl."Then it shut its eyes entirely and looked the other way."It is only a boy," said Merlyn."There is no boy," said the owl hopefully, without turning round.
— T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Beware the autumn people
— Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
Don't be a fool for the Devil, darling.
— Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
Men of passion and vision are often seen as mad.
— Robin Hobb, Royal Assassin
Once bitten twice shy? Sure, but... why not get a bigger dog and bite them back?
— A.A. Bell, Hindsight
Many readers simply can't stomach fantasy. They immediately picture elves with broadswords or mighty-thewed barbarians with battle axes, seeking the bejeweled Coronet of Obeisance ... (But) the best fantasies pull aside the velvet curtain of mere appearance. ... In most instances, fantasy ultimately returns us to our own now re-enchanted world, reminding us that it is neither prosaic nor meaningless, and that how we live and what we do truly matters.
— Michael Dirda
Female Mercenary. This will be a companion on your Tour. She is usually tall, thin and wiry, silent, and neurotic. Sex scares her. This is because she either came from a nunnery or was raped as a child. Or both. Somehow this inspired her to become a mercenary and she is very good at her job. You can rely on her absolutely in a fight. She can usually kill two people at once while guarding your back in between. The rest of the time, she will irritate you with lots of punctilious weapons cleaning and a perpetual insistence that a proper watch be kept. Mostly, she will have no magic talents, but sometimes, in an emergency, she will come up with a gift or vision. You will end up grudgingly admiring her.
— Diana Wynne Jones, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
He was dirty, his hair unkempt, his clothes stained with blood. Heroes in stories somehow managed to rescue maidens while looking like court dandies. Next time he went adventuring he'd remember to bring a comb.
— J.V. Jones, The Book of Words
reading is awsome
— Christopher Paolini, Eragon
I have never learned to hate. Don't let my first lesson come from you.
— Susan Carroll
In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.
— Arthur Rimbaud
We may say that the characters in fairytales are ‘good to think with’…[and that] the job of the fairytale is to show that Why? questions cannot be answered except in one way: by telling the stories. The story does not contain the answer, it is the answer.
— Brian Wicker
Fablehaven's awesome!!so is the candy shop war!
— Brandon Mull
You will find yourself, as he did. But that will not mean it is easy. There are few things easy in life that are worth the doing.
— Mette Ivie Harrison, The Princess and the Hound
Sometimes what we don't want is actually what we need.
— Nikolas Lee, The Iron-Jawed Boy
I cannot pretend that I regard this with favor, but the purpose of life is not what we want but what needs to be done.
— Christopher Paolini
I dug through my purse for the Glock. There is was, and I realized I'd never set the safety. I decided to consider this a great example of forethought rather than my being the stupidest gun handler on the planet.
— Gini Koch
We share a bond. We do everything together. We have a piece of strong, invisible thread connecting us. It’s indestructible – it can never be broken. The thread is the key item that links us together. We understand each other.
— Erica Sehyun Song
Pam. Listen.''The phone is pressed to my ear. Speak.''Appius Livius Ocella just dropped in.''Fuck a zombie!'- Sookie & Pam, Dead in the Family, Charlaine Harris
— Charlaine Harris, Dead in the Family
Once upon a time there was a young lady who lived in a marsh, and her name was Poison.
— Chris Wooding, Poison
All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children....
— Robertson Davies, The Manticore
Bright star of Eanna, forgive me the manner of this, but you are the harbor of my soul’s journeying.
— Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana
This is, in part, why there is less magic in the world today. Magic is secret and secrets are magic, after all, and years upon years of teaching and sharing magic and worse. Writing it down in fancy books that get all dusty with age has lessened it, removed its power bit by bit.
— Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
What is your name?"Why?"So I can mark your grave...
— David Gemmell, Wolf in Shadow
Love and fantasy, go hand in hand.
— Marc Chagall
I like big books and I cannot lie.You other readers can’t denyThat when a kid walks in with The Name of the WindLike a hardbound brick of win.Story bling.Wanna swipe that thingCause you see that boy is speedingRight through the book he’s reading.I’m hooked and I can’t stop pleading.Wanna curl up with that for ages,All thousand pages.Reviewers tried to warn me.But with that plot you hookedMe like Bradley.Ooh, crack that fat spine.You know I wanna make you mine.This book is stella ’cause it ain’t some quick novella.
— Jim C. Hines
None could guess my confusion, my host of deluded illusions and elusive delusions! A mantle of marble hiding a crumbling core of sandstone. See how they stare at me, wondering, all wondering, at my secret wellspring of wisdom...' Let's kill him,' Crokus muttered, 'if only to put him out of our misery.
— Steven Erikson
Assassination is an art, milord, and I am the city’s most accomplished artist - Durzo Blint
— Brent Weeks
You are blessed with a knack for sucking the wonder out of the extraordinary.
— Daniel McHugh, The Merchant and the Menace
Into the air, over the valleys, under the stars, above a river, a pond, a road, flew Cecy. Invisible as new spring winds, fresh as the breath of clover rising from twilight fields, she flew.
— Ray Bradbury
But leave us some magic in the world. Leave us some mystery to enjoy.
— Stuart Hill, The Cry of the Icemark
Language is something you inherit, it's never just you doing the talking, which helps when you're pretending.
— Cees Nooteboom
I understand the gist of your speculation,' said Rhialto. 'It is most likely nuncupatory.
— Jack Vance, Rhialto the Marvellous
Children seem to need, then, a delicate balance between the realistic and the fantastic in their art; enough of the realistic to know that the story matters, enough of the fantastic to make what matters wonderful
— Eric S. Rabkin, Fantastic Worlds: Myths, Tales, and Stories
Who needs sports stardom when you can shoot fireballs from your fingertips?
— Ethan Gilsdorf
I had evolved a year too soon, and it nearly broke me
— Carlyle Labuschagne, The Broken Destiny
With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,We sailed for the Hesperides,The land where golden apples grow;But that, ah! that was long ago.How far, since then, the ocean streamsHave swept us from that land of dreams,That land of fiction and of truth,The lost Atlantis of our youth!Whither, ah, whither? Are not theseThe tempest-haunted Orcades,Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!Here in thy harbors for a whileWe lower our sails; a while we restFrom the unending, endless quest.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Struck by lightning! Struck by lightning!
— J.R.R. Tolkien
Do you get the same peace of mind that I do when you're causing random damage? Especially random, senseless, mindless damage that serves no real purpose. That's my favorite kind, you know! That's the best!
— Robin Wayne Bailey, Dragonkin, Book 3: Undersky
Although now long estranged,Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Lightthrough whom is splintered from a single Whiteto many hues, and endlessly combinedin living shapes that move from mind to mind.Though all the crannies of the world we filledwith Elves and Goblins, though we dared to buildGods and their houses out of dark and light,and sowed the seed of dragons- 'twas our right(used or misused). That right has not decayed:we make still by the law in which we're made.Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien on Fairy-stories