David > David's Quotes

“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”
― Robert E. Howard

“I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
― Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague De Camp, Queen of the Black Coast

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

Was Rorschach.

Does that answer your Questions, Doctor?”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“Yet, when these facts are seen side by side with other facts in the case, it is difficult not to become lost in superstitious awe. Their very absurdity seems to prohibit the use of the words 'chance' and 'coincidence.' For the sceptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman Law, it is administered with sub-human inefficiency.”
― Eric Ambler, The Mask of Dimitrios

“The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”
― Raymond Chandler, Red Wind: A Collection of Short Stories

“Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

“Treasures are not won by care and forethought
but by swift slaying and reckless attack.”
― Michael Moorcock

“We survive on novelty, so much less demanding than commitment.”
― Mikhail Lermontov

“There's a point, you know, where treachery is so complete and unashamed that it becomes statesmanship.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman and the Mountain of Light

“I have observed over a long lifetime that mental stability is not all it's cracked up to be.”
― Neal Barrett Jr., The Prophecy Machine

“Someone told me once, that he who talks to himself is conversing with a fool. I suppose there's truth in that.”
― Neal Barrett Jr., The Treachery of Kings

“...for he had learned from others of their kind that death seemed to bring small comfort from the worrisome sphere of life....”
― Neal Barrett Jr., The Treachery of Kings

“It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don't like that. This is by the way.”
― H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines

“Shot the man! Shed human blood! Hid in a pool!" ejaculated Mr. Dove, overcome. "Really, Rachel, you are a most trying daughter. Why should you go out before daybreak and do such things?”
― H. Rider Haggard, The Ghost Kings

“They had bigger problems than poorly deployed literary devices.”
― Eva Jurczyk, The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

“A warrior may change his metal, but not his heart.”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars

“No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs

“The time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in a manner of virtue”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

“It is a characteristic of the weak and criminal to attribute to others the misfortunes that are the result of their own wickedness.”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Son of Tarzan

“To lose the only creature in all his world who ever had manifested love and affection for him was the greatest tragedy he had ever known.”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs

“Political correctness is a war on noticing.”
― Steve Sailer