Jon > Jon's Quotes

“The devil is here," Cortez said. He shook his head at Anna's protesting frown. "Not some cartoon demon. I'm not a fool. But the devil has always lived in men when they reach too far, when they fail to ask if they should do something just because they can do it.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon’s Gate

“Forget God for a moment," she said. "Do you believe in the concept of forgiveness? In the possibility of redemption? In the value of every human life, no matter how tainted or corrupted?"

"Fuck no," Bull said. "I think it is entirely possible to go so far into the red you can't ever balance the books.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon’s Gate

“It was astounding, Bobbie thought, how quickly humanity could go from 'What unimaginable intelligence fashioned these soul-wrenching wonders?' to 'Well, since they’re not here, can I have their stuff?”
― James S.A. Corey

“No," Alex said, a deep frown cutting into his forehead. "A person can fail the people they love just by being who they are.”
― James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn

“That’s what the Earth was. A shining jewel from space, up close a blasted landscape covered with mites living by devouring the dying.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“In order to be heard by the oppressing class, one must speak as a member of it. Not only the language, but the diction. The accusation of tyranny, however well-founded in fact, is dismissed unless it is delivered in the manner that power recognizes as powerful.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“Evil is evil, Stregobor,” said the witcher seriously as he got up. “Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I’m not a pious hermit. I haven't done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“I believe in the sword. As you can see, I carry two. Every witcher does. It's said, spitefully, the silver one is for monsters and the iron for humans. But that's wrong. As there are monsters which can be struck down only with a silver blade, so there are those for whom iron is lethal. And lola, not just any iron, it must come from a meteorite”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“Because it was us, human beings, who were the intruders here. This land was ruled by dragons, manticores, griffins and amphisboenas, vampires and werewolves, striga, kikimoras, chimera and flying drakes. And this land had to be taken from them bit by bit, every valley, every mountain pass, every forest and every meadow.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“Memories, monsters, they are in our blood, and theirs are the faces we find staring back at us in broken mirrors.”
― Andy Davidson, In the Valley of the Sun

“This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Its only after you've lost everything," Tyler says, "that you're free to do anything.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Getting fired,’ Tyler says, ‘is the best thing that could happen to any of us. That way, we’d quit treading water and do something with our lives.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying, organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“If you're male and you're Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need. We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact," Tyler said. "So don't fuck with us.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Our world is in equilibrium. The annihilation, the killing, of any creatures that inhabit this world upsets that equilibrium. And a lack of equilibrium brings closer extinction; extinction and the end of the world as we know it.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Sword of Destiny

“All around, wherever one looks, there's greyness and dullness. Even things which begin beautifully lead swiftly to boredom and dreariness, to that human ritual, that wearisome rhythm called life.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski

“Life is full of hazards, selection also occurs in life, Geralt. Misfortune, sicknesses and wars also select. Defying destiny may be just as hazardous as succumbing to it.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Sword of Destiny

“This had to happen. We forgot that we are not the only ones in this world, that the whole of creation does not revolve around us. Like stupid, fat, lazy minnows in a slimy pond we chose not to accept the existence of pike. We allowed our world, like the pond, to become slimy, boggy and sluggish. Look around you - there is crime and sin everywhere, greed, the pursuit of profit, quarrels and disagreements are rife. Our traditions are disappearing, respect for our values is fading. Instead of living according to Nature we have begun to destroy it. And what have we got for it? The air is poisoned by the stink of smelting furnaces, the rivers and brooks are tainted by slaughter houses and tanneries, forests are being cut down without a thought.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves

“Intolerance and superstition has always been the domain of the more stupid amongst the common folk and, I conjecture, will never be uprooted, for they are as eternal as stupidity itself. There, where mountains tower today, one day there will be seas; there where today seas surge, will one day be deserts. But stupidity will remain stupidity.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves

“It's the beautiful thing about youth.

There's a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential.”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter

“He could never get used to sitting next to men who sang the hymns of love and forgiveness knowing what they'd done and knowing they were getting their redemption. Taking advantage of grace while those they had done it to were probably up at night walking back and forth across worn carpet or fumbling in the medicine cabinet searching for the pills to help them sleep. He didn't like the part of the service when these same men left their seats and stood at the pulpit and gave testimony. It was the same story over and over. Yes, I raped. Yes, I took another life. Yes, I stole. Yes, I raised a fist to my fellow man. But now I have found the love of God. Now I can see the light. Now I am found and on and on to a smattering of amens and hallelujahs and praise the Lords until Russell couldn't take it anymore and so he gave up. He didn't believe it worked that way and if it did then something didn't seem right.”
― Michael Farris Smith, Desperation Road

“Has it ever occurred to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes." He ran an eye over the hilt, plain cold metal scored with faint grooves for a good grip, glinting in the torchlight. "But a sword... a sword has a voice."

"Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear." He wrapped his fingers tightly round the grip. "A gentle warning. A word of caution. Do you hear it?"

Logen nodded slowly. "Now," murmured Bayaz, "compare it to the sword half-drawn." A foot length of metal hissed out of the sheath, a single silver letter shining near the hilt. The blade itself was dull, but its edge had a cold and frosty glint. "It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?"

Logen nodded again, his eye fastened on that glittering edge. "Now compare it to the sword full drawn." Bayaz whipped the long blade from its sheath with a faint ringing sound, brought it up so that the point hovered inches from Logen's face. "It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“The failure of something great is never a simple matter, but where there is success and glory, there must also be failure and shame.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged

“Never to want for anything, or work for anything, or show the tiniest grain of self-discipline in a whole life must give a man a strange outlook on the world.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged