Tor Publishing Group > Tor Publishing Group's Quotes

“Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn't it?”
― Robert Jordan

“By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer's greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry...”
― Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

“And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“I'd rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic

“Assume nothing,’” he said. The first chapter of the Tactics. “If we figure everyone might be a murderer, we’re less likely to be disappointed.”
― Brian Staveley, The Emperor's Blades

“Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.”
― Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom

“If you love books enough, books will love you back.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

“I'm not insane, sir. I have a finely calibrated sense of acceptable risk.”
― John Scalzi, Old Man's War

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“One must not put trust in novelists, Beth; they create worlds to fit their own needs and drive their characters mad in doing it.”
― Mary Robinette Kowal, Shades of Milk and Honey

“It wasn’t freedom she wanted. It was belief in something—a prize big enough to run for and to fight for and to keep on reaching toward no matter what.”
― Susan Dennard, Truthwitch

“What the hell kind of name is Kitty for a werewolf?”
― Carrie Vaughn

“What I remember are tentacles. Tentacles and teeth.”
― Daryl Gregory, Harrison Squared

“Evil is relative…You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.”
― Glen Cook, The Black Company

“Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains

“We're all born strangers to ourselves and each other, and we're seldom formally introduced.”
― Robert Charles Wilson, Spin

“He drinks the life of those who come too close to him. Steals their youth. Also,” she said after a pause, “he moisturizes.”
― Max Gladstone, Three Parts Dead

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Good girls smell like burnt tangerines for those with bad intentions-- fragrant but bitter, it is a repellant. Bad girls like me smell like ripe apples, ready for picking, juicy and tart.
No one will miss them at all.”
― Camilla Bruce, You Let Me In

“Blues is about wanting and not having, about putting that need into someone else's hands for a little while so you can pause and breathe.”
― Cassandra Khaw, A Song for Quiet

“Vampires drained you one way or another.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“To Learn is to create. Learning- whether it is programming, mathematics, art, music, poetry, biology, or chemistry- is all about breaking down walls and freeing the one thing that kept us alive: knowledge.

Knowledge expands freedom in all its forms. Knowledge breaks down walls. It liberates the oppressed. We are committed to knowledge. Knowledge as a hammer against classism, against sexism, against racism, against gender discrimination, against slavery, against bigotry, against war, against hatred. If there is darkness in the world, we will light it up.”
― Leopoldo Gout, Genius: The Game

“Like I said last time, the world our parents grew up in is history. All the old rules, we've thrown them out. We're the ones making the future. We're the founding fathers. Hand us universal Wi-Fi and soup dumplings and we'll fix the world.
So how do you fit in? What if you can't code? What if you've never been able to build anything more than a birdhouse? It doesn't matter. You've got skills that you probably disniss as tricks. That dance you can do, that song you can sing, the painting hanging in your room, those are all skills we need.
See there's a reason my status online is recruiting for the future.
We broke some eggs and we baked a cake. It was delicious, really amazing cream cheese frosting. I saved you a piece, but I don't want to give it to you. I want to teach you how to bake your own cake from scratch. Only, instead of flour and water and eggs, I want you to make something with oil paints, yarn, peptides, or computer parts.
The revolution is now. Welcome aboard. And, uh, get ready to create...”
― Leopoldo Gout, Genius: The Revolution

“baseball caps, some LEDs, wiring, two nine-volt batteries, and a green laser.”
― Leopoldo Gout, Genius: The Game

“People find hope, comfort, or confidence in making the sign of the cross or not walking under a ladder, just as you find hope and confidence in offering a pennant to the witch. Magic exists in the minds of those who believe in it, not in its actual influence on reality.”
― Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Hex

“Later, when he was able to see the bigger picture, he imagined that wild animals must feel the same kind of uncontrollable fear when they first inhaled the smoky air of a forest fire.”
― Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Hex

“This is all it takes for people to plunge into insanity: one night alone with themselves and what they fear the most.”
― Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Hex

“I am filled with memory. I must make room in the dark passage. So I cast it forth, this day. I give it to you. This is the day I became what I am.”
― Catriona Ward, Little Eve

“Through the open window the night is dying. Dark air full of the promise of light, the heavy pause before dawn. Below, the sea is hung with mist, which is His breath on the water. Somewhere beneath the waves His slow, heavy coils are moving in the deep.”
― Catriona Ward, Little Eve

“The world changes at night. Bad things from the beginning of the earth roam in the dark. We must always be safe on the isle by the time the sun falls into the sea.”
― Catriona Ward, Little Eve