Timegods' World Quotes

“But collecting mountains of data when our entire civilization was falling in shards around us … ? When an unseen Enemy had leveled most of the cities? When every freeman’s hand was set against education and knowledge and the gentry whom they held responsible for the disaster?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“In a culture where life was short, decisions had to be made in a hurry. You would never have enough time, might never live to see the consequences of a wrong action—or a correct one. On Query, it was different.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“The sign read, roughly translated, “Dr. Odd-Affection,”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“As you may know, I am supporting Loki, past, present, and future.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Loki, the man who destroyed a hundred thousand suns and a million years of life; the man who watched Zealor wipe out a gentle people at the behest of the Tribunes; the man who booby-trapped the gauntlet of Heimdall—good old thunderbolt-throwing, storm-stalking, fire-breathing Loki was the Guard who couldn’t even consider killing the greatest tyrants in time. Two hated my guts, and Freyda would be very sorry and shed a tear and stamp me out like an insect if she could and if I threatened the Guard or her ambition.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“how could so many people talk about the good of Query, and the good of the Guard, and then act in ways basically immoral or destructive just to be a little higher, just to get a star with silver edges instead of gold edges?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Energy is matter, and vice versa, and if you can control energy through your mind, theoretically the rest follows.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“It was my doing. I’d just done what I’d destroyed the sharks for doing. And I had destroyed a hundred thousand systems and a million years of lives because I had no other way of dealing with the sharks. Maybe we were meant for each other, the sharks and me. Even Brendan and Elene shrank away from me. Why wouldn’t they? Who wanted to welcome back the god of destruction, the lord of fire? They knew me, knew me all too well, as I was coming to know myself”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“I was feeling paranoid, but becoming paranoid didn’t mean that someone wasn’t out to get me.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“A chronometer will measure intervals precisely, but not the passage of time.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“I guess that showed why the Guard mainly meddles with humanoid cultures. We’re opportunists, not real knowledge-seekers, and we just don’t have the knowledge base to go beyond humanoid contacts.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Two million years back. How could anyone retain sanity over two million years even with memory therapy and the regenerator? “How … his mind … I mean …” I stammered. “Not that bad,” commented Wryan. “Even when he started he never had much of one.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“We all have been lovers of privacy, except for the inquisitive souls in the Guard, and most times they’ve been kept in line—most times. I wanted to make sure of the rest of the times. Still, we’re also a snoopy people—we clearly like looking in on other cultures and people. Curiosity and privacy … an odd combination, perhaps. But perhaps not. A curious cat walks in shadows all the same.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Messengers who confirm bad news are likely to become the recipients of gratuitous violence.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Baldur laughed. “I don’t think you understand just how alien these people are.” “They aren’t people, Sammis said.” “In my view, anything that thinks is a person.” I had to think about that. Didn’t flying gophers think a little? Where did you draw the line?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Frey, Freyda’s son, was walking around the consoles twirling the light saber. He’d picked that up from some obscure group of galactic-wide do-gooders from near the end of his backtime limits.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Did that mean that we had to do what we did because we did what we did?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“No time manipulation by a member of a species can undo the death of any other species member from that same base system.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“I kept watching the trees, as if I could see them grow or something. They didn’t. The only thing that grew was their shadows.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Query had no distinction between civil and military, between compulsory and voluntary. The Tests determined who could join the Guard, and the Guard was the government. Ability determined position in the Guard, and the Counselors directed the Guards to implement the policies laid down by the Tribunes.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“the story was that Orpheus was sent to Hell and never arrived, but later I checked the Archives. The Archives were silent on that point.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“But after feeling, individually, hundreds of deaths, I knew that death was not to be feared. Dying was another question, and I could leave Odin Thor dying endlessly.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“ONE THING LEADS to another, and pretty soon everything gets complicated. After the complications arrive, then anyone can screw it up.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Terwhit … terwhit … I couldn’t help but smile momentarily. The bird had a point. You sing when you can, not when someone wants you to.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Hatred. There was so much of it. Westron hated Eastron; the farmers and townies hated the gentry; the ConFeds hated the Secos; the gentry hated the Temple; and everyone hated the witches—and the Frost Giants.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“Chaos leads to violence, and some violence can only be halted by removing the causes.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“I wondered how long the stored energy would last. That was the problem with solar heat, especially when it was cloudy for days on end.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“One thing worse than a sincere emperor is an insincere and misguided academic.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World

“THINK OF A world of witches, of high technology and space travel, of science and superstition. A world on the verge of changing inhabitable planets into green pastures and endless forests, a world so short of energy resources that all fuels are grown or captured from the sun.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., Timegods' World