Tad Williams Quotes

There was nothing he could do unless he accepted what was real.

Are these things you all say magical charms to chase me away? If so, they do not seem to be working.

I gave up the love of learning for the love of oblivion—the two cannot live together.

There are three kinds of people—the living, the dead, and those at sea.

The last thing a drunkard loses, you see, is his cunning: it outlasts his soul by a long season.

Damn everyone to Hell. And damn the bloody forest. And God, too, for that matter.
He looked up fearfully from his chill handful of water, but his silent blasphemy went unpunished.

Part of manhood, I am thinking, is to ponder one’s words before opening one’s mouth.

It would please me your not being obsequious. That is a trait of marketplace people who are selling shoddy goods. I am sure to prefer endless, stupid questions to that."
"Ob...obseek...?"
"Obsequious. Flattering with oiliness. It is not liked by me. In Yiqanuc we say: 'Send the man with the oily tongue to go and lick the snowshoes.'

“There is nothing like the ocean to remind you of what is important,” she said quietly, and smiled. Cadrach’s returned smile was weak.
“Ah, by the Good Lord, that’s true,” he groaned. “I am reminded that life is sweet, that the sea is treacherous, and that I am a fool.”
Miriamele nodded solemnly, staring up at the bellying sails. “Those are good things to remember,” she said.

Simple answers to life’s questioning. That would be a magic beyond any I have ever been seeing.

“Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess,” he said quietly. “Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their conscience with the gift of survival.”
Miriamele thought about the obvious truth of what Cadrach had said as they walked on, but could not understand why it made her so unutterably sad.

In times of badness, gold is being worth more than beauty.

It was easy to hate if he did not think, Simon discovered.

Not being stupid is important.

A king’s son has nothing but inferiors, each one a potential assassin.