Tad Williams Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

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
Sleep. To lie down and shut out the noise, the fear, the unceasing misery.

Tad Williams
Empires were like seawalls, he thought sadly, even those which embodied the best of hopes. The tide of chaos beat at them, and as soon as no one was shoring up the stones any more...

Tad Williams
The world was all mud and wire. The war in the heavens was only a faint imitation of the horror men had learned to make.

Tad Williams
She had to find her own story, and she could make it whatever shape she thought best.

Tad Williams
You show me what someone listens to, I'll tell you everything you want to know about his soul. (For instance, a bunch of Nickelback albums would have indicated he never had a soul in the first place.)

Tad Williams
In my experience, he said with more than a touch of bitterness, the gods do not seem to care much what their servants deserve—or at least the rewards they give are too subtle for my understanding.

Tad Williams
There are no promises in life, Sludig, but it seems to me smarter to take fewer chances.

Tad Williams
We trolls say: Make Philosophy your evening guest, but do not let her stay the night.

Tad Williams
You have something that might be more use to me than either gold or power—something that in fact brings both in its train.
And what is that?
The count leaned forward. Knowledge.

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

Tad Williams
If the strong can bully the weak without shame, then how are we different from the beasts of forest and field?

Tad Williams
She knew that life was but a long struggle against disorder, and that disorder was the inevitable winner.

Tad Williams
Tiamak closed his eyes to make a short prayer of thanks, hoping that the gods, like children, could be confirmed in good behavior by praise.

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

Tad Williams
You can never tell when princes will get squinty on you. You can never tell when they might suddenly feel their blood and go all royal.

Tad Williams
We are none of us promised anything but the last breath we take.

Tad Williams
She didn't know which she liked less, having people tell lies about her or having people know the truth.

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

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

Tad Williams
Never make your home in a place, the old man had said, too lazy in the spring warmth to do more than wag a finger. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. Morgenes had grinned. That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You'll never lack for a home—unless you lose your head, of course...

Tad Williams
As with all dwellings, she said, of mortals and immortals both, it is the living that makes a house—not the doors, not the walls.

Tad Williams
Perhaps it is fortunate that most heroes who die for their people cannot come back to see what the people do with that hard-bought life and freedom.

Tad Williams
Now, boy, now... he said bewilderedly, what is all this talk of glory? Have you caught the sickness, too? Curse me for a blind beggar, I should have seen. This fever has cankered even your simple heart, hasn't it, Simon? I'm sorry. It takes a strong will or practiced eye to see through the glitter to the rotten core.

Tad Williams
Has everyone gone mad? Everyone was mad already, my lady, Cadrach said with a strange, sorrowful smile. It is merely that the times have brought it out in them.

Tad Williams
Ah? A small aversion to menial labor?" The doctor cocked an eyebrow. "Understandable, but misplaced. One should treasure those hum-drum tasks that keep the body occupied but leave the mind and heart unfettered.

Tad Williams
Sometimes doing the gods' bidding required a hardened heart.

Tad Williams
Nothing is without cost. There is a price to all power, and it is not always obvious.

Tad Williams
Why can nothing be simple?
Geloë shifted on her stool. The wise woman's voice was surprisingly sympathetic. Because nothing is simple, Prince Josua.

Tad Williams