Tad Williams Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

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.'

Tad Williams
Honor is the only really good disguise for an occasional act of dishonor.

Tad Williams
Dying men think of funny things-and that's what we all are here, aren't we? Dying men.

Tad Williams
Humans turn the places they live into great crowded piles of mud and stone, like the nests termites build--but what happens when in all the world there are termite hills left but no bush?

Tad Williams
I must make a choice every time I speak a sentence in English. I try to choose the happier way of saying things, so that my own words will not weigh me down like stones.

Tad Williams
The man who lives beside the water hole does not dream of thirst.

Tad Williams
Never trust people that like to call things by initials, that's my philosophy.

Tad Williams
I shall endeavor to turn dross to purest Metal Absolute: in short, to teach you something.

Tad Williams
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.

Tad Williams
The wisdom of our parents, grandparents, ancestors. In each individual life, it seems, we must first reject that wisdom, then later come to appreciate it.

Tad Williams
You have to go down before you can come out — that's how these things always work.

Tad Williams
Remember that each light between sunrise and sunset is worth dying for at least once.

Tad Williams
Sometimes you men are like lizards, sunning on the stones of a crumbled house, thinking: what a nice basking-spot someone built for me.

Tad Williams
Ambitious men never believe others aren't the same.

Tad Williams
Things are not always as old songs tell them to be—especially when it is concerning dragons.

Tad Williams
He wanted a home desperately. He was close to the point where he would take a mattress in Hell if the Devil would lend him a pillow.

Tad Williams
To fight a war, you must believe it can accomplish something. We fight this one to save John's kingdom, or perhaps even to save all of mankind... but isn't that what we always think? That all wars are useless—except the one we're fighting now?

Tad Williams
As he silently approached the last float, a latticework ball of reeds, he offered an unspoken prayer to He Who Always Steps on Sand that even now the little bottom-walkers were pushing and shoving their way into the cage below. Because of his unusual education, which included a year living on Perdruin—unheard of for a Wrannaman—Tiamak did not really believe in He Who Always Steps on Sand anymore, but he still held a fondness for him, such as might be felt for a senile grandfather who often tumbled down from the house, but once brought nuts and carved toys. Besides, it never hurt to pray, even if one did not believe in the object of prayer. It helped to compose the mind, and, at the very least, it impressed others.

Tad Williams
People in science fiction flicks always seemed to know useful things about the places time travel took them. But what if the time traveler had been only an average history student? What then?

Tad Williams
The manchildren, the mortals, have many ideas of what happens after they die, and wrangle about who is right and who is wrong. These disagreements often come to bloodshed, as if they wished to dispatch messengers who could discover the answer to their dispute. Such messengers, as far as I know of mortal philosophy, never return to give their brethren the taste of truth they yearn for.

Tad Williams
Is this being in love? he suddenly wondered? It was nothing like the ballads he had heard sung—this was more irritating than uplifting.

Tad Williams
Only the mercenaries were here by choice. To Simon, the minds of men who would come to this of their own will were suddenly as incomprehensible as the thoughts of spiders or lizards—less so, even, for the small creatures of the earth almost always fled from danger. These were madmen, Simon realized, and that was the direst problem of the world: that madmen should be strong and unafraid, so that they could force their will on the weak and peace-loving. If God allowed such madness to be, Simon could not help thinking, then He was an old God who had lost His grip.

Tad Williams
Thank you, Duke, the troll said seriously. May your god be blessing us indeed. We go into unknown places.
As do all mortals, Josua added. Sooner or later.

Tad Williams
If you have not noticed, we are preparing for war. I'm sorry if that inconveniences you.

Tad Williams
Do you get tired, singing? she asked.
Gan Itai laughed quietly. Does a mother grow tired raising her children? Of course, but it is what I do.

Tad Williams
Coca-Cola and fries, the wafer and wine of the Western religion of commerce.

Tad Williams
Everyone at the Hayholt had seemed obsessed with the empty ritual of power, something Miriamele had lived with for so long that it held no interest for her. It was like watching a confusing game played by bad-tempered children.

Tad Williams
She had little doubt that whatever happened to her on this drifting ship was of scant interest to a God who could allow her to reach this sorry state in the first place.

Tad Williams
I have not slept well since I first entered my brother's dungeons. While my comfort has improved since then, worry has taken the place of hanging in chains as a denier of rest.
There are many kinds of imprisonment, Jarnauga nodded.

Tad Williams
He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.

Tad Williams