C.J. Cherryh > Quotes

“Women did such things and went on doing them while the sun died because in all of women's lives there were so many moments that would kill the mind if one thought about them, which would suck the heart and the life out of one, and engrave lines in the face and put gray in the hair if ever one let one's mind work; but there was in the rhythm and the fascination of the stitches a loss of thought, a void, a blank, that was only numbers and not even that, because the mind did not need to count, the fingers did, the length of a thread against the finger measured evenly as a ruler could divide it, the slight difference in tension sensed finely as a machine could sense, the exact number of stitches keeping pattern without really the need to count, but something inward and regular as the beat of a heart, as the slow passing of time which could be frozen in such acts, or speeded past.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh

“Trade isn't about goods. Trade is about information. Goods sit in the warehouse until information moves them.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Chanur's Legacy

“Poisoning us," Bren said, faced with what was a truly attractive service, and with the servants still in the room, "is a process of inconveniently many steps, though conservative of the furniture. One believes we may just have breakfast this morning, nadiin-ji.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Betrayer

“But, oh, how precious those things were! To look at the sky, breathe the cold wind, have fingers nipped by chill and skin stung red and heart stirred to life, gods, he had been dead until Tristen arrived and asked him the first vexing question, and posed him the first insoluble puzzle, and marveled at hailstones and mourned over falling leaves. What miracles there were all around....”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress of Owls

“And she learned to do that, be very nice to people she knew quite well were the Enemy, and even like them sometimes: it didn't mean you weren't going to Get them, because they were bound to do something that would remind you what they were sooner or later.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Cyteen

“A fine lady she weren't, oh, but a damn fine woman and a brave one....”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress in the Eye of Time

“Flying was no cure for want of sleep. The brain wanted time to recycle: when it became all one long, uninterrupted day, the ability to keep going and to keep thinking was no warrant it was healty even for Superman.-Superman”
― C.J. Cherryh, Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel

“One tribe moves out and one tribe stays. History broadens, and philosophy shifts, develops a rift, splits one population from the other . . . and a schism happens, minor or major. It’s the way humankind has always proliferated. We go over the next hill, live a few hundred years, change our languages to accommodate things we never saw before—and before we know it, our cousins think we have an accent. Or we think they have a strange attitude. And we don’t really understand our cousins any longer.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station

“Also, a foreign accent if at least intelligible can sound quite sexy.”
― C.J. Cherryh

“Yes, aiji-ma.” “What is this agreement? You are most valuable when you argue, paidhi! Do not say yes to me!” “I shall most strenuously object when you are wrong, aiji-ma. You have been infallibly right at least this last hour.” “Ha.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Visitor

“What the visual media could not carry into living rooms, the general public could not long remain exercised about. Statistically, a majority of the electorate could not or did not read complicated issues; no pictures, no news; no news, no event; no great sympathy on the part of the public nor sustained interest from the media: safe politics for the Company.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station

“But there was someone she knew who could speak with a special knowledge on the Cross-Lexcorp controversy. Someone she’d rather not deal with. Someone she’d as soon not see again as long as she lived. Her former fiancé. Lex. Lex Luthor. – Lois Lane”
― C.J. Cherryh, Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel

“What you need Lois, is a man. All your artistic brilliance, wasted, toiling away in the sordid day-to-day of White’s little paper empire. Reporting on traffic mishaps. Domestic trifles. Wondering if you can afford a pair of shoes. Knowing you can’t afford the really good wines, the really exquisite things. That suit, for instance. Nice, but not the standard you’re used to.” “We’re not here to discuss my wardrobe.” “Or your writing career? How much have you gotten done, I mean, really done Lois?” “Still looking for an evening you aren’t exhausted? When will that be, Lois?” “The hotel. Or I’m out of here.” – Lois Lane & Lex Luthor”
― C.J. Cherryh, Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel

“You know its shape, since you have it. Give it up, and be paid. Or don’t—and be paid, hani, be paid then too.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Pride of Chanur

“The world was so beautiful, and there was so much of it: he could gaze forever at the wonder of leaves and not see them all: could inhale the wind and not smell all its scents, hear the sounds of men and horses and not hear all the sounds of the woods, and taste the thousand flavors in stale water and still find it wonderful... because it was not the darkness.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress of Dragons

“Belief... was its own magic-so long as it was carefully placed, often examined, like a bridge kept in careful repair.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress of Ice

“Before is the only time you own, the only before you can trust is now, and you don’t even know how long before is.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress in the Eye of Time

“If your fiancé tended to come sailing in windows without notice, you didn’t have extra time to run and gather up messes. She dropped everything into the hamper and stepped into a hot, steamy shower, soap with no cloying scent, just clean. Just her again. And her eyes shut while she was standing there. She’d slip down the shower wall and go to sleep there, but she was already getting stiff. She got out, delved into the medicine cabinet for a couple of Advil and chased them down with a glass of water. Clean, clear water. A miracle. She stood watching crystal liquid swirl down the drain and thought somehow she’d never asked herself how water got that clean. She splashed it up in her face, dried her Band-Aids with a towel And went and turned on her computer. Last thing. Last defining thing – on any day.-Lois Lane”
― C.J. Cherryh, Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel

“Baji-naji, nand' paidhi. Fortune has a human face and bastard Chance whores drunken down your streets.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Foreigner

“Could there be a snare in too much beauty? Could there be too much expectation of good, and too much fiath?

Could ever there be too much love?

And could love require lies?”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress of Owls

“...it struck at the root of intentions, not at the flower.

And both root and the flower were important to him, one having to do with what one meant to do... and the other, most fearsome, with the outcome of it.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress of Owls

“Take care of him, her father had charged her. She had thought - until he wakes. But she began to see what her father had trusted to her, and how very much Sasha needed someone he could trust-

Someone as brave as her father, someone not afraid of him - no matter what.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Yvgenie

“Jase-aiji suggests this maneuver will be extremely long, even days, and that for comfort and dignity—”
“No,” Ilisidi said abruptly. “We will not go below.”
“Nand’ dowager . . .”
“Interesting things happen here. Not there. If I were reckless of staff safety I would send after hot tea,” Ilisidi said. “I forego the tea. In that, I have taken my personal precautions and my staff is settled in safety.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Explorer

“He was home, but he wasn't. He had gotten where he had to go, but he hadn't. He had found out who he was, but he didn't know why it had failed to satify his questions.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress of Ice

“The worst atrocities began with half-measures, with apologies, compromising with the wrong side, shrinking from what had to be done.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station

“A bizarre hysteria, perhaps, that point which many reached here, when anger was all that mattered. It led to self-destruction.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station

“The world was full of life, more life than they could hold back with guns or fences; it came into the town at night; it seduced the children and year by year crept closer.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Forty Thousand in Gehenna

“Were the seeds of next things always there, in the circle of the year, and was that how the world worked its miracles?”
― C.J. Cherryh, Fortress of Eagles

“...the necessity of getting up. He made it that far. Ended up with Banichi's arm around him, Banichi standing on one leg. The dowager-aiji said something rude about young men falling at her feet, and go sit down, SHE was in command of the plane.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Foreigner

“Lois. Oh… no. Lois. Dinner. His name … be it Clark Kent or Superman …was mud. –Clark Kent”
― C.J. Cherryh, Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel