Fool's Gold Quotes

“Could he do it? Could he bury a blade in a man when his back was turned?
Yes, he decided, I could. The gods killed, did they not? Hadn’t Lawl himself murdered thousands of men in fits of jealous rage? That said, Lawl had slept with Toil, his own daughter, and then Toil had married Coos, the child, so perhaps the gods didn’t always set the best example…”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“Roost”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“This is about to go as well as that time I put a ferret in my britches.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“Juiced then she did,” said Firkin, teeth clattering around the words. Yellow, they might be, but Firkin had a surprisingly large number of teeth given his lifestyle. “Put the juju in their minds and their guts. Full of piss and fire. And fiery piss. Though there’s an ointment for that.” He nodded to himself, mop of hair flopping back and forth with the motion. “Good ‘un that is.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“This goblin did not scream. He just legged it. Unfortunately, any attempt to leg it when you are only four feet tall is significantly limited by stride length. Balur was not similarly restricted.
His war hammer descended. The goblin stopped being a small, ugly humanoid and instead became a small, ugly bloodstain.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“He was shivering hard when he came upon the rock face. A ragged wall of granite twenty yards in height, where the land stepped up toward the mountains at the valley’s edge. Such diminutive cliffs were a common enough feature of the landscape, often forming natural boundaries between farmsteads. More to Will’s purpose, they tended to contain caves.
All he had to do was find one that didn’t contain a bear.
‘Lawl-father of the Pantheon above, lord of law and life,’ he prayed silently as he felt his way along the rock, ‘I don’t know what I did to make you piss in my stew tonight, but I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.’
No sooner was the prayer uttered that the rock gave way beneath his hands. He stumbled forward, almost cursing, before he realized that the opening was in fact a cave entrance. ‘Well, that’s service for you,’ he thought ‘Thank you, kindly.’
…
He looked into the cavern packed from wall to wall with small, green figures. Feral faces with pointed snouts and pointier ears. Little black eyes screwed tight in anger. Teeth bared.
…
‘Lawl above,’ Will thought, ‘you’re an absolute bastard.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“I don’t practice magic,” she said. “The person who created the engine does. I simply bought the engine from him, and now employ it.”
“You employ magic?” Lette said. She did not sound impressed.
“Like a small business owner,” Balur said from over Quirk’s shoulder, in a poor imitation of helpfulness.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“I am,” Quirk spoke awkwardly, “reformed. I have stepped away from practicing the magical arts, and now simply study the phenomena in other creature.”
Balur hefted his hammer up onto his shoulder. “You are saying that you can be doing magic, but that you choosing not to be doing it?” To describe his tone as dubious would be like describing Cois-hermaphroditic goddess of love, fertility, and loose morality in general-as being a little bit forward with the ladies.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“Oh,” he said, turning to Balur, with a degree of aggression that the lizard man’s size should have dissuaded. “It’s that simple is it? Just take the gold from Mattrax. From a dragon in, wait…what did I say again? Oh yes, an entire fortress full of guards! Because that’s the first time anyone in Kondorra has looked at their shitty life and said, ‘Wouldn't life be better if we just took all the gold from the dragons?’ Because not one evening has been spent in a tavern fantasizing about just that thing. Because we’ve all had better things to do… Actually I take that back. We have had better things to do. We call them ‘not being killed by a dragon.’ It’s a fun way we like to spend our lives round here”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“Kurr’s face twisted in irritation. Then he finally spat in Will’a face and stood up. “Go anywhere,” he growled at Will, “and I’ll kill you.”
That, thought Will, was not much of an incentive considering his other option was to stay exactly where he was so Kurr could kill him.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“Could he do it? Could he bury a blade in a man when his back was turned?
Yes, he decided, I could. The gods killed, did they not? Hadn’t Lawl himself murdered thousands of men in fits of jealous rage? That said, Lawl had slept with Toil, his own daughter, and then Toil had married Cois, the child, so perhaps the gods didn’t always set the best example…”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“He knew about the gods, of course. His ma and pa had taken special care to make sure he knew Lawl, and his wife Berra, and their children, Toil, Klink, and Knole. But the gods got confusing with Cois, who was Lawl’s daughter and Toil’s sister-daughter. And then there was Barph, the absent god, who was Cois’s son, but also her loved, and who was Betra’s daughter too.
Will really didn’t understand Cois at all.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“The plan is sounding good,” Balur said. “But plans are always being that way. They are always sounding like you will be waltzing into somewhere and will then be two-stepping out while one’s shit is smelling of roses. But what is actually happening is you are waltzing in and you are having your skull smacked, and then you are eviscerating your foes with your jaws, and you are staggering out with your shit smelling of your internal bleeding.” He hesitated. “To be using one specific example.”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold

“The villagers would never go. They have this silly little thing called a desire to live through to tomorrow”
― Jon Hollins, Fool's Gold