Stone of Farewell Quotes

“Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess. Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Fear goes where it is invited.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Now I end my death song. I give my farewell to mountain and sky. It has been good to be alive.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“The manchildren, the mortals, have many ideas of what happens after they die, and wrangle about who is right and who is wrong. These disagreements often come to bloodshed, as if they wished to dispatch messengers who could discover the answer to their dispute. Such messengers, as far as I know of mortal philosophy, never return to give their brethren the taste of truth they yearn for.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Sometimes you men are like lizards, sunning on the stones of a crumbled house, thinking: ‘what a nice basking-spot someone built for me.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“For all the things we've seen... my goodness, the world still has more to show us, doesn't it?”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Binabik inspected Simon’s face. The troll’s brown eyes were serious. “Yes, he is perhaps small beneath the stars, Simon—as a mountain is small in comparing to the whole world. But a mountain is bigger than we, and if it falls on us, we will still be very dead in a very big hole.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Part of manhood, I am thinking, is to ponder one’s words before opening one’s mouth.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“You show her respect. That is a good thing,” he said. “Too often it is that men think those who serve are doing it from inferiorness or weakness.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“It was strange how the future seemed tied inseparably to the past, so that both revolved through the present, like a great wheel...”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“These old stories are like blood. They run through people, even when they don't know it or think about it. He considered this idea for a moment. But even if you don't think about them, when the bad times come, the old stories come out on every side. And that's just like blood, too.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“At times, as he sank into the swelling evening, he felt he was on the verge of some great understanding. A sense of being more than himself stole over him, of what it felt like to live in a world that cared little for cities or castles or the worries of the folk who built them. Sometimes he was frightened by the size of this world, by the limitless depths of the evening sky salted with cold stars.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey …” Is that what dying is? Simon wondered. Is it going home? That’s not so bad.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“As with all dwellings,” she said, “of mortals and immortals both, it is the living that makes a house—not the doors, not the walls.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Are you still my friend, Binabik?” he said at last. The troll took the flute from his lips. “To death and beyond, Simon-friend.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess,” he said quietly. “Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Simon said nothing, saving his strength so he could more fully appreciate his misery.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“The manchild has been fate-battered and chance-led in many curious ways, but he is no spell-wielder or great hero. He has fulfilled his responsibilities admirably, but needs no more heaped upon his young shoulders.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“The quiet whisper of their wings was everywhere, as if the warm summer air itself had been given voice.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“He was not great; he was, in fact, very small. At the same moment, though, he was important, just as any point of light in a dark sky might be the star that led a mariner to safety, or the star watched by a lonely child during a sleepless night. . . .”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“So men always would be, ape and angel mixed, their animal nature chafing at the restraints of civilization even as they reached for Heaven or for Hell.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“We must speak out when evil shows itself, whether there is any hope of changing it or not.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Sometimes obvious foolishness is the only answer to grave problems.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Are you still my friend, Binabik?” he said at last. The troll took the flute from his lips. “To death and beyond, Simon-friend.” He began to play once more.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“Better the devil’s tongue to argue and question than a silent tongue and an empty head.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“strange days are upon us. Tradition served us, but now it shackles us.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“He was not great; he was, in fact, very small. At the same moment, though, he was important, just as any point of light in a dark sky might be the star that led a mariner to safety, or the star watched by a lonely child during a sleepless night. . . .”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“well-armed and fierce-faced, threatening despite their small stature. Simon stared at the trolls. The trolls stared at Simon. “They’ve all heard of ye, Simon,” Haestan boomed; the three riders looked up, startled by his loud voice, “—but no one’s hardly seen ye yet.” The trolls looked the tall guardsman up and down in alarm, then clucked at their mounts and rode on hurriedly, disappearing around the mountain face. “Gave them some gossip,” Haestan chuckled. “Binabik told me about his home,” Simon said, “but it was hard to understand what he was saying. Things are never quite what you think they’re going to be, are they?” “Only th’ good Lord Usires knows all answers,” Haestan nodded. “Now, if y’would see y’r small friend, we’d best move on. Walk careful now—and not so close t’edge, there.”  • • •  They made their way slowly down the looping path, which alternately narrowed and widened as it traversed the mountainside. The sun was high overhead, but hidden in a nest of soot-colored clouds, and a biting wind swooped along Mintahoq’s face. The mountaintop above was white-blanketed in ice, like the high peaks across the valley, but at this lower height the snow had fallen more patchily. Some wide drifts lay across the path, and others nestled among”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“In a hole, in a hole.” Skodi piped, “. . . in the ground, in a hole, where the wet-nosed mole sings a song of cold stone, and of mud and gray bone, a quiet, small song all the chill, dark night long as he digs in the deep, where the white worms creep, and the dead all sleep, with their eyes full of earth where the beetles give birth, laying little white eggs, and their brittle black legs go scrape, scrape, scrape, and the dark, like a cape, covers all just the same, darkness hiding their shame as it covered their names, the names of the dead, all gone, all fled, empty winds, empty heads, Above grass grows on stone, fields lie fallow, unsown all is gone that they’ve known so they wail in the deep, crying out in their sleep, without eyes, still they weep, calling out for what’s lost, in the darkness they toss, under pitweed and moss in the deeps of the grave, neither master or slave, has now feature or fame, needs knowledge or name, but they long to come back, and they stare through the cracks at the dim sun above, and they curse cruel love, and the peace lost in life, think of worry and strife, ruined child or wife, all the troubles that burned, dreadful lessons unlearned, still they long to return, to return, to return, they long to return. Return! In a hole, in the ground, under old barrow-mound, where skin, bone, and blood turn to jelly-soft mud, and the rotting world sings . . .”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell