Fritz Leiber Quotes

With a happy roaring shout only he could hear, blood rushed through the Mouser’s arteries toward his center, reviving his limp manhood in a mere moment, as a magically summoned genie offhandedly builds a tower.

He knew that sooner or later, in spite of all protecting charms and precautions, Death would creep silently on him or spring suddenly from some unguarded moment. This very night his horoscope might signal Death’s instant escapeless approach; and though men lived by lies, treating truth’s very self as lie to be exploited, the stars remained the stars.

Let never the gems of business be mixed with the jewels of pleasure.

The worst thing about mountain climbing is that the easy parts go so quickly.

Knowledge takes precedence over death.

He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows.

Eventually the tale came to an end, suddenly and seemingly in the middle, like a piece of foreign music.

They are in their fashion fearless, irreligiously considering themselves the coequals of destiny and having only contempt for the Demigoddess of Chance, the Imp of Luck, and the Demon of Improbability.

It was more a patriotic than religious matter with Fafhrd. He believed in Odin only during moments of sentimental weakness.

That is as far from the truth as I am from the Secret of the Sphinx.

It was the laughter of the Elder Gods observing their creature man and noting their omissions, miscalculations and mistakes.

Know it or not, man treads between abysses a tightrope that has neither beginning nor end.

I can see now that if I’d stayed I’d have gone the way of Pulg and all such Great Men—fat, power-racked, lieutenant-plagued, smothered with false-hearted dancing girls, and finally falling into the arms of religion. At least I’m saved that last chronic ailment, which is worse than the dropsy.

There would have been no insurmountable problem at all, of course, if Bwadres had only had that touch of realism about money matters that, when a true crisis arises, is almost invariably shown by even the fattest, greediest priest or the skinniest, most unworldly holy man.

Pulg, alongside his pink streak of sentimentality, had recently taken to sporting a gray one of superstition.