Abarat Quotes

“Darkness always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It’s only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined, sometimes—if necessary—brought down for a time. Then it will rise again, as it must.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Three is the number of those who do holy work;

Two is the number of those who do lover's work;

One is the number of those who do perfect evil

Or perfect good.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“O little one,
My little one,
Come with me,
Your life is done.

Forget the future,
Forget the past.
Life is over:
Breathe your last.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Perhaps a wiser eye than hers would be able to read tomorrow in tonight's stars, but where was the fun in that? It was better not to know. Better to be alive in the Here and the Now--in this bright, laughing moment--and let the Hours to come take care of themselves.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree

O woe is me,
O woe is me,
I used to have a hamster tree,
But it was eaten by a newt,
And now I have no cuddly fruit,
O woe is me,
O woe is me,
I used to have a hamster tree!”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Believe me, when I say;
There are no two powers
That command the soul.
One is God
The other is the tide.
-Anon
From the novel Abarat”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“You'll learn, honey. Love can be the best thing in life. And it can be the worst. The absolute worst.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Mischief nodded. 'It's true,' he conceded. 'You're in the company of eight world-class thieves,' he said, not without a little touch of pride. 'Saints we are not.'
But then,' said Deaux-Deaux, 'who is?' he thought on this. 'Besides saints.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“She's...just a girl, you know. Like most girls: something and nothing.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Journey to the end of day,
Come the fire-fly,
Come the moon;
Say a prayer for God's good grace
And sleep with lore upon your face.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“My feet are killing me."
"I knew somebody who had feet like that. They'd walk all over him. Archie Kashanian was his name. He used to wake up with footprints all over his chest, all over his face. It was the death of him, finally.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“He[Tom] read from the Almenak."'The song that the Vigil Snake sings is in fact one immensely long word; the longest in the ancient language of the species. It is so long that an individual can sing it for a lifetime and never come to the end of it.'"
"That sounds like a Kleppism to me," Geneva said. "How would they ever learn it?"
"Good question," said Tom. "Maybe they're born with it, like a migration instinct?"'
"Born with a song,"said Geneva.
Tom smiled. "Yes. Don't you like that idea?"
"Liking it and having it be true aren't the same thing, Tom."
"Huh. Sometimes you need to let things strike your heart and not your head, Geneva.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Leavening the flat bread of what we know, with the yeast of what we dream may come to pass.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Sometimes you need to let things strike your heart and not your head.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“That's not fair!"
"Life's not fair, Kaspar. You know that. You had a slave for — how long?"
"Twelve years."
"Did you treat him 'fairly'? No, of course not. You beat him when you were in a bad mood, because it made you feel better, and when you felt better you beat him some more.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“We wouldn't eat an important person like you. Sometimes we'll take a sailor, but —" He shrugged. "— so would you if it was always fish.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“For some reason, the doodles that she had drawn in her workbook came back into her mind. Only this time, instead of being black lines on gray, recycled paper, they were bright in her mind; very bright. And all kinds of colors, the way the sun appeared in your mind if you looked at it for a moment and then closed your eyes. Dozens of little suns: green and red and gold; then colors, too, that you couldn't even name. That was the way the lines looked in Candy's mind's eye.

And they were moving. The wavy lines were rolling across the darkness inside her skull, rolling and breaking, the brilliant colors bursting into arabesques of white and silver.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“No. No, I’m not.” Then she said: “I’m somebody else. I just don’t know who that somebody else is yet.” “Well that’s what journeys are for,” Diamanda Murkitt said.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“Three is the number of those who do holy work;
Two is the number of those who do lovers work;
One is the number of those who do perfect evil
Or perfect good.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“So saying,”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“La oscuridad también ha de desempeñar un papel. Sin ella, ¿cómo sabríamos que caminamos por la senda de la luz? Solamente cuando sus pretensiones se crecen debemos enfrentarnos a ella, domarla y a veces –llegado el caso- someterla durante un tiempo. Después se erguirá de nuevo, como debe ser.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“In addition, she had on board one member of that species who walked behind the stars. Its name was ninety-one syllables long, but it answered to Nephauree. The physical form it presented to her was an illusion: a thin wavering line of smoke-shadow, standing three times her height. Of its true form, she knew nothing. Once she'd made the error of demanding that she see it as it actually was, and the experience had had almost made her ready to stab out her own eyes. The experience had been so traumatizing, she remembered nothing of what she'd seen, but she knew what lay just a few vibrations of vision behind the smoke-shadow was a thing so vile, so repugnant, so utterly without beauty or virtue, that no mind could witness it and remain sane. It was an engine of venoms and despair.”
― Clive Barker , Abarat

“Three is the number of those who do holy work; Two is the number of those who do lover’s work; One is the number of those who do perfect evil Or perfect good. —From the notes of a monk of the Order of St. Oco; his name unknown”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“marriages between humankind and the great bestiary”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“There are some people, you know, who are too important to ever be forgotten. I think she’s one of them.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat