The Bookman Quotes

“Pawns are such fascinating pieces, too...So small, almost insignificant, and yet--they can depose kings. Don't you find that interesting?”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“For one crazy moment he had the notion of a vanished tribe of librarians, lost in the deep underground caverns of the Bodleian, a wild and savage tribe that fed on unwary travellers.”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“Clocks are the enemies of time... they are the gaolers of day and the turnkeys of night."

Tom Thumb”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“They were all machines, he thought, just like La Mettrie had said in L'Homme Machine all those years ago. So he, Orphan, was a machine of flesh and blood, and Lucy, now, was made of something else, more complex perhaps- but they were the same and...

They were in love.

Sometimes that was enough.”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“This place might have been paradise, a treasure trove far greater than any to be found in a pirate yarn.

Everywhere he looked there were books.

They rose into the air in majestic columns, stacks and stacks of them forming a maze that seemed to stretch to forever; the stacks rose high into the air and disappeared towards the unseen ceiling. The air had the overwhelming smell of old books, of polished leather, and yellowing leaves, like the smell of a bookshop or a public library magnified a thousand-fold.”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“But it was not real freedom, he realised. It was the freedom that comes from lack of choice and moreover, was the kind that only came with decisions delayed. It was a freedom of inaction.”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“He wanted to run through the stacks, pick at the books, sample them one after the other, climb the stacks to their highest reaches and see what treasures were hidden there.”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“This is the time of myths, Orphan. They are the cables that run under the floors and power the world, the conduits of unseen currents, the steam that powers the great engines of the earth.”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“This is the time of myths. They are woven into the present like silk strands from the past, like a wire mesh from the future, creating an interlacing pattern, a grand design, a repeating motif. Don't dismiss myth, boy. And never, ever, dismiss the Bookman”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“Orphan could no longer hear or see the shadows of the dead. He didn't think they had perished. Most likely they were hiding now, somewhere in this landscape of books.”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“Destiny is like a book. It needs manufacturing, the pulp process, the glue fixed tightly--and it requires a binding, to hold it together, lest it fall apart.”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman

“I have a lot of time to think. To look at the strands of the past weave themselves into the knots of the present, and to imagine how the future might unfold from them. So many possibilities. Like a game of chess. And you, my little pawn, you are the catalyst, walking through the board one small step at a time, towards...what? What sort of endgame will you bring us all, Orphan?”
― Lavie Tidhar, The Bookman