Daniel > Daniel's Quotes

“Power," Nita heard her father say behind her. "Creation. Forces from before time. This is--this business is for saints, not children!"
Even saints have to start somewhere," Carl said softly. "And it's always been the children who have saved the universe from the previous generation and remade the universe in their own image.”
― Diane Duane, High Wizardry

“In Life’s name and for Life’s sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so—till Universe’s end. I will look always toward the Heart of Time, where all times are one, where all our sundered worlds lie whole, as they were meant to be.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Don't be afraid to make corrections! Whether the voice came from her memory or was a last whisper from the blinding new star far above, Nita never knew. But she knew what to do. While Kit was still on the first part of the name she pulled out her pen, her best pen that Fred had saved and changed. She clicked it open. The metal still tingled against her skin, the ink at the point still glittered oddly- the same glitter as the ink with which the bright Book was written. Nita bent quickly over the Book and with the pen, in lines of light, drew from the final circle an arrow pointing up-ward, the way out, the symbol that said change could happen- if, only if-”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“You should know how terrible a power belief is, especially in the wrong hands -- and how do you tell which hands are wrong? Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you've changed, by believing. Once you've changed, other things start to follow.”
― Diane Duane

“There is a rule for fantasy writers: The more truth you mix in with a lie, the stronger it gets.”
― Diane Duane

“Virtue," he said. "The real thing. It's not some kind of cuddly teddy bear you can keep on the shelf until you need a hug. It's dangerous, which is why it makes people so nervous. Virtue has its own agenda, and believe me, it's not always yours. The word itself means strength, power. And when it gets loose, you'd better watch out."
Something bad might happen..."
Impossible. But possibly something painful"
-A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane”
― Diane Duane, A Wizard Alone

“Blood in the water I sing,
and one who shed it:
deadliest hunger I sing, and one who fed it-
weaving the ancient-most tale
of the Sea's sending:
singing the tragedy,
singing the joy unending
This is our shame-
this is the whole Ocean's glory:
this is the Song of the Twelve.
Hark to the story!
Hearken, and bring it to pass:
swift lest the sorrow
long ago laid to it's rest
devour us tomarrow! ”
― Diane Duane, Deep Wizardry

“You do have the idea of being ‘just good friends?’”
He gave her a sideways look. “For so high and honorable an estate,” Roshaun said, “ ‘just’ seems a poor modifier to choose.”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War

“(True,) the white hole said. (My name is Khairelikoblepharehglukumeilichephreidosd'enagouni-) and at the same time he went flickering through a pattern of colors that was evidently the visual translation.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Must I accept the barren Gift?
-learn death, and lose my Mastery?
Then let them know whose blood and breath
will take the Gift and set them free:
whose is the voice and whose the mind
to set at naught the well-sung Game-
when finned Finality arrives
and calls me by my secret Name.

Not old enough to love as yet,
but old enough to die, indeed-
-the death-fear bites my throat and heart,
fanged cousin to the Pale One's breed.
But past the fear lies life for all-
perhaps for me: and, past my dread,
past loss of Mastery and life,
the Sea shall yet give up Her dead!

Lone Power, I accept your Gift!
Freely I make death a part of me;
By my accept it is bound
into the lives of all the Sea-

yet what I do now binds to it
a gift I feel of equal worth:
I take Death with me, out of Time,
and make of it a path, a birth!

Let the teeth come! As they tear me,
they tear Your ancient hate for aye-
-so rage, proud Power! Fail again,
and see my blood teach Death to die!”
― Diane Duane, Deep Wizardry

“Except when the freedom is one you don't choose to grant," Memeki said, more loudly this time. She was shaking herself all over, struggling to stand stright again. "You hold our hope with one claw and take it away with her other! I may be weak and doomed soon to die, but I will die as an I, not just one more nameless scarp of shell to be thrown out into the sucking mud! No matter how little a time it lasts, I will be what all these are" -she looked around at Kit and Ponch and Nita and the others-"selves unto themselves and being what matters to each other! Such a life, even a breath's worth of it, is better than anything you've ever given me!" Memeki was trembling again, but with passion with determinatin, desperate and doomed. She took a stem toward the dias, and another, her claw lifted not in that old gesture of submission, but in one more like a warrior's threat. "I will be what the Voice said I was, the Hesper I will be the Aeon of Light, the Power that made a different choice from yours. I will be the Star that did not fall, no matter how little a time the light lasts!”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War

“But the trouble with sainthood these days is the robe-and-halo imagery that gets stuck onto it." Carl got that brooding look again. "People forget that robes were street clothes once... and still are, in a lot of places. And halos are to that fierce air of innocence what speech balloons in comics are to the sound of the voice itself. Shorthand. But most people just see an old symbol and don't bother looking behind it for the meaning. Sainthood starts to look old-fashioned, unattainable... even repellent. Actually, you can see it all around, once you learn to spot it.”
― Diane Duane, A Wizard Alone

“The city breathing, burning, living the life thy had preserved. Ten million lives and more. If something should happen to all that life- how terrible! Nita gulped for control as she remembered Fred's word of just this morning, an eternity ago. And this was what being a wizard was about. Keeping terrible things from happening, even when it hurts. Not just power, or control of what ordinary people couldn't control, or delight in being able to make strange things happen. Those were the side effects- not the reason, the purpose.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Nita stood still, listening to Joanne's footsteps hurrying away, a little faster every second- and slowly began to realize that she'd gotten what she asked for too- the ability to break the cycle of anger and loneliness, not necessarily for others, but at least for herself. It wouldn't even take the Speech; plain words would do it, and the magic of reaching out. It would take a long time, much longer then something simple like breaking the walls of the worlds, and it would cost more effort than even reading the Book of Night with Moon. But it would be worth it- and eventually it would work. A spell always works. Nita went home.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“A legend can just as well be founded in the future as in the past."
"It's called a 'prophecy,'" Urruah said. "You may have heard of the concept.”
― Diane Duane, The Book of Night with Moon

“She tried to walk softly and wished the trees wouldn't stare at her so.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Don't be afraid to make corrections," Picchu said. "Don't be afraid to lend a hand." She fell silent, seeming to think for a moment. "And don't look down.”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“A warp," Nita whispered. "A tunnel through space-time. Are you a white hole?"
It stopped bobbing, stared at her as if she had said something derogatory. (Do I look like a hole?)”
― Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that.”
― Charles Bukowski

“My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.

I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”
― Tom Waits