C.J. Cherryh > Quotes

“Pyetr Kochevikov believed in human weakness far more than he believed in wizards, human weakness being everywhere evident and sorcery being a matter, like the Little Old Man who should ward the stables, of people’s absolute will to believe other people’s responsibility.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“They were riding in the sun, and Bogdan asked him-asked him something Tamas was sure-but distressingly enough, he could no longer remember the exact sound of Bogdan’s voice; or see Bogdan’s face except in shadow. Sunlight streamed about them, blindingly bright. Petals drifted down in clouds from the orchards, a blizzard of dying flowers.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Anger gathered out of that dark place in him, a muddle of desire and rage, regarding the creature that had its hand on him-he gave a shudder and knew at the same time it was the ghost, a woman’s ghost, who had lead a foolish, foolish knowledge of this creature. He could not move, he could hardly breathe collectedly.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Your uncle is a bully,” Pyetr said. “I am a profligate, a gambler, a liar, and occasionally a person of bad character, but I do swear to you, I have never been a bully, and you insist to make me one. Look me in the face, boy!”

Sasha looked up, stopped, startled as a rabbit.

“Good,” Pyetr said. “Say it again, about horses.”

“I don’t want to talk about the horses, Pyetr Illitch!”

“Then accept my deep apology, young sir.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Why?" Lee asked after a moment. "Why do you make such a bargain?"
"For the going," said Ras very softly. "The going itself is our hire. Use us wisely, human sen'en, for we are a sharp sword, to part the Dark for you. So we did for the regul, I have heard, giving them many worlds. And when we have gone far enough, and the tether strains...bid us good-bye, and be wiser that the regul. We are the Face that Looks Outward. We are makers of paths, walkers on the wind; and the going itself...is the hire for which we have always served."
Boaz pressed her lips together, thinking for one cold moment on the dead worlds, about which human councils would have to know, the course of mri homeworlds, destroyed beneath the mri in fear, fears which had to come to former wielders of the Sword: dread that mri might serve others, one's near neighbors. Fear. Fear had killed the worlds between.
To use the mri, one had to play the Game, to cast them from the hand and let them go.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Kutath

“He shut his eyes and looked away, and had to look back, at the poles, and the dreadful skulls. He felt cold all over, and his heart was thumping from shocks.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The lady leaned forward, and rested ghostly hands on his shoulders. He felt the chill even through armor. And touched ghostly lips to his ever so gently.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“I put nothing past Kavi Chernevog.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“The slide was a roaring in his ears and every handhold moved with him, slipping and tumbling as he went, down and down into choking dust.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“He’s my enemy. And I need one. I need a good, strong enemy to gather up the people who wish I didn’t exist,”
― C.J. Cherryh, Regenesis

“This close to the queen’s domains, nothing comes by accident. You-and I. Your assumption that you are not the queen’s may be true-or false.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The goblin watched them make a fire, the goblin watched them make breakfast, the goblin watched them eat it, and Tamas glowered at it. His head was throbbing, his eyes felt full of sand, and only motion kept his mind from straying down the same unpleasant and useless paths it had followed all night.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“He knew that she was determined now to rescue a father who had never been anything but grief to her.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Pyetr kept his mouth firmly shut for a moment and tried to think of the way a young and credulous boy might think, who respected wizards and goblins, a boy he firmly intended to get out of this place, even if the boy persisted in being a fool.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“He had Pyetr, without whom he did not know what he would do.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“She was so calm-like a tsarina, he thought: a face like that, hands like that, feet like that, should be set off with cloth of gold and jewels; but she wore only a thin white dress with dirty sleeves.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“It somewhat gave one a queasy feeling, thinking about rusalkas, and wondering exactly in what fashion they did sustain themselves, or what exactly her appetites had been.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“You don’t believe in witches. But I might be one.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Reijiri, clearly with the agility of practice, took a boost from one of his aishid, and clambered up to stand atop the engine. The”
― C.J. Cherryh, Defiance

“Its nails were dark and long, on hands as beautiful as a woman’s, as expressive, as graceful in ironic gesture. And somehow it had gained another step without his seeing it.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“When you doubt something-I think that could hurt the spell or whatever, even when you’re as powerful as he.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“The stones in his dream echoed with drums.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“A slim, slight shadow stood there, wrapped in a dark cloak. A goblin, he thought at first blink-until the figure cast back the hood. A mere girl faced him, pale as the starlight and insubstantial as his grip on the world. She had a cleft in her chin. Would a sorcerer’s illusion add that human detail?”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The goblin turned up next to him, at the edge of the woods, making the horse nervous, watching him as if he were the object of its intention.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“If he owned a tower in the middle of a forest full of goblins, he would not leave its gates standing open or let its walls grow over with climbable vines like that.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Join us at the fire,” Azdra’ik said to Tamas. “I swear to you, I swear to you it’s rabbit and venison, nothing else. Nor has ever been. Come.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“We’re going against the queen of all goblins and you wonder whose magic is stronger?”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Fair turned foul and fair again, not a human beauty, but beauty all the same, constantly changing with the reelings of the moon, across the night.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“His confidence and his courage were the only assets he had ever had in life, the fact that Pyetr Kochevikov would make a try while everyone else was hesitating. For a man who had a knowledge of the odds for his only inheritance from his father, the existence of unknowables and uncertainties threaded through every situation, was a terrible revelation.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“He saw shadows move on the ceiling, like scampering cats in the rafters, strange shapes like creatures lurking and slithering and pausing again.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka