Spiderlight Quotes

“Helping people is like beating your head against a wall, and in the end, when you live forever and you’re sick of the same mistakes over and over and over; in the end the only thing left is just to amuse yourself at their expense. Because you can’t make things better, and frankly, no matter how much evil you do, you’re not making things much worse, either.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“You’re a priestess. That means people don’t think of you the same way. But believe me, most of us basically can’t talk to a man without him looking us over and deciding whether or not he wants to give us the shaft. And if he does then, whatever else we are, whatever else we do, it’s always there, somewhere in his mind. And if he doesn’t fancy us, then that’s a judgment too, writing us off as a thing without value. You can’t get rid of it. And either way it means you’re always a woman, first. You’re not a warrior, or an archer, or even just a friend to drink with. You’re a woman, and that means you’ve got a place, and a use.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“They were stupid!” he got out through clenched fangs. “Stupid and blind and limited! And I tried to tell them! I said everything I could to show how murderous and merciless and terrible you—we—you are! But they thought they knew best. They had to challenge you. They dared encroach on the world of humanity. And that means death. I know that now. It always means death.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“the face that launched a thousand statues.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“you’ve been digging shit for so long that somehow you’ve struck gold.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Like a bloody cave,” was Lief’s assessment, “and it stinks of magic.” Penthos gave him an arch look. “And you’d have a sensitivity for magic?” “It has floating lights, and that bloke over in the corner is wearing a crown of glowing ice, and his mate’s got the head of a parrot. I don’t think you need to be Grand Archmage Woddleflot to pick up the delicate scent of magic.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Magic knows not light or darkness. It is the Power Elemental, that predates any such concerns,” he told her archly, somewhat sabotaged by the smug smirk that always crept onto his face when he was pontificating. “Besides, what need we fear the Dark, when we have you to show us the way to the Light?”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“New food. Different food. That had everyone’s interest. Across the span of the web, that was strung in mistlike sheets from tree to tree across their forest, he felt the others rousing, rising from their torpor. There was always food, even for so many bodies as Mother’s Brood ran to, but variety was welcome.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“perhaps pain’s the enemy no matter which side you’re on,”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“What was building a web but a gustatory expression of hope?”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“I could dearly use some indication that the Light is not simply to pass out of the world, unheeded and unmourned. I have been too long in dark places.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“An old thief’s trick—good thieves knew that you didn’t just hear, you had to properly listen. What his ears told him was that he was being followed.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“There had been other Dark Lords, a string of them back through history as various evil men discovered the true power of the Dark and rose to dominate the evil creatures of the world.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Anything that grows old and large enough must approach wisdom. And approach evil too, often enough, but time suffices to bring wit even to such creatures.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Not a spider,” he spat, with a string of bloody saliva. “All I wanted to be was a spider. I was happy as a spider. Or what a spider thinks is happy. Your prophecy. They made me into this for your prophecy. And you have killed the only man who could make it right. Not a spider. Not a man. Not any thing.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“There’s a lot of Dark territory between us and the Shadow Canyons,” Lief pointed out unhappily. “Ghants and blight-wolves and Murgl-wyrms and all sorts.” His finger traced a line from Shogg’s Ford, showing the route. “Not convinced that the power of prophecy’s going to get us through all that.”
“It will be an epic journey,” Harathes said potentiously. “A worthy quest, through monsters and the servants of the Dark one, past evil forests, marshes, and jagged rocks . . .”
“Mm.” Lief grimaced. “You’re not selling it to me.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Am I really about to rescue a servant of evil from the hands of the righteous?" Nth whimpered. It was a human sound. Lief had, once or twice, been beaten and broken just enough to make that sound.
"Fuck the righteous.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Magic knows not light or darkness. It is the Power Elemental, that predates any such concerns,” he told her archly, somewhat sabotaged by the smug smirk that always”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Love, you’re not my type.” The thief shrugged. “Personally I like them domestic, pleasant natured, and not bugnuts crazy, none of which locks you have the key for.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Abnasio’s smile was so kindly you could shave with it.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Were all beings just a thin skin of volition floating on a sea of drives and directives they could not control?”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“It’s a difficult line to walk, child. Too rich, and how are we different from any tinpot noble or king in the abuse of our influence? And yet too impoverished, and we have no respect. People equate wealth with success, no matter how we instruct them.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Life was hard. Life was complicated. That was what these people did not understand.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight