Fevre Dream Quotes

“Beneath it his skin was milky white, serene and unlined, ready to begin anew, ready for the world to write upon it.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“How could it end any other way? The beast was greater than they were, a force of nature. The beast was like the river, eternal. It had no doubts, no thoughts, no dreams or plans.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“Good and evil are silly lies, nonsense put forth to plague honest sensible men.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“ABNER Marsh had a mind that was not unlike his body. It was big all around, ample in size and capacity, and he crammed all sorts of things into it. It was strong as well; when Abner Marsh took something in his hand it did not easily slip away, and when he took something in his head it was not easily forgotten. He was a powerful man with a powerful brain, but body and mind shared one other trait as well: they were deliberate. Some might even say slow. Marsh did not run, he did not dance, he did not scamper or slide along; he walked with a straightforward dignified gait that nonetheless got him where he wanted to go. So it was with his mind. Abner Marsh was not quick in word or thought, but he was far from stupid; he chewed over things thoroughly, but at his own pace.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“I love beauty, but sometimes a thing lovely to behold conceals vileness and evil within.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“Till the rest of his days were done, Abner Marsh remembered that moment, that first look into the eyes of Joshua York.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“it was well known among rivermen that having a preacher and a gray mare on board was an invitation to disaster.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“We had never built, never created, only stolen your garments and lived in your cities and fed ourselves on your life, your vitality, your very blood—but we could create, given a chance, we had it within us to whisper stories of cities of our own. The red thirst has been a curse, has made my race and yours enemies, has robbed my people of all noble aspirations.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“You know I never held much with slavery, even if I never done much against it neither. I would of, but those damned abolitionists were such Bible-thumpers. Only I been thinkin', and it seems to me maybe they was right after all. You can't just go... usin' another kind of people, like they wasn't people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it's got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that's what them abolitionists been sayin' all along. You try to be reasonable, that's only right, but if it don't work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“Some mate," Karl Framm said with contempt. "Hell, that little stern-wheeler we're chasin' don't draw nothin'. After a good rain, she could steam halfway across the city of N'Orleans without ever noticin' that she'd left the river.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“Sometimes I think … the humanity of him is all hollow, a mask … he is only an old animal, so ancient it has lost even the taste for food, but it hunts on nonetheless, because that is all it remembers, that is all it is, the beast.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“the main thing is that poetry is pretty. The way the words fit together, the rhythms, the pictures they paint. Poems are pleasant when said aloud. The rhymes, the inner music, just the way they sound.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“If my dreams are to come true, there must come a time when day and night clasp hands across the twilight of fear that lies between us. There must come a time for risk. Let it be now, with you.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“The old boisterous, cussing, free-spending, wild riverman who slapped you on the back, bought you drinks all night, and told you outrageous lies was a dying breed now.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“El clima era implacable. Durante las horas de sol, el calor resultaba opresivo, y el aire era denso y húmedo si no se estaba al amparo de las brisas de río. Vados hediondos subían día y noche de las cloacas, olores intensos a putrefacción que emanaban de las aguas estancadas como un perfume nauseabundo. No le parecía de extrañar que la fiebre amarilla asolara Nueva Orleans tan a menudo.
(…)
Me da mala espina. Esta ciudad, con el calor, los colores vivos, los olores los esclavos…Todo está muy vivo en Nueva Orleans, pero creo que por dentro hay enfermedad y podredumbre. En apariencia, todo es opulento y hermoso: la gastronomía, las costumbres, la arquitectura. Pero por debajo… Cada uno de esos patios tan hermosos tiene un pozo de aspecto exquisito, pero luego pasa las carretas que venden barriles de agua del río, y es que resulta que el agua de los pozos no se puede beber. Las salsas y las especias son deliciosas, hasta que se sabe que su objetivo es disimular que la carne se está pudriendo. Paséese por el mercado de San Luis y admire todo ese mármol, la hermosa cúpula, la luz que entra en la rotonda, para después enterarse de que es un famoso mercado de esclavos, donde se venden seres humanos como si fuera ganado. Aquí hasta los cementerios son bonitos: nada de tumbas sencillas y cruces de madera, sino grandiosos mausoleos de mármol, a cuál más altivo, con estatuas y bellos pensamientos poéticos grabados en la piedra. Pero dentro de cada uno hay un cadáver que se pudre, infestado de larvas y gusanos. Hay que encerrarlos en piedra porque la tierra no sirve ni para enterrar y las tumbas se llenas de agua. Y la pestilencia cubre como un rosario esta hermosa ciudad.”
― George R.R. Martin, Sueño del Fevre

“chiarore rossastro”
― George R.R. Martin, Il battello del delirio

“Sour Billy had left his horse tied up outside a grog shop. He mounted it, and told the girl to walk along beside him. They”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream

“that point one of them, a swarthy bald-headed man, demanded that she be stripped. The encanteur snapped a curt command, and Emily gingerly undid her dress and stepped out of it. Someone shouted up a lewd compliment that drew a round of laughter from the audience. The girl smiled weakly while the auctioneer grinned and added a comment of his own.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream