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Epic Book Quotes

#101 User is offline   Puck 

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Posted 01 September 2010 - 02:21 PM

"You're set. Tie a rope to your ass and go be a hero."
[Glen Cook - She is the Darkness]
Puck was not birthed, she was cleaved from a lava flow and shaped by a fierce god's hands. - [worry]
Ninja Puck, Ninja Puck, really doesn't give a fuck..? - [King Lear]
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#102 User is offline   Nemorensis 

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Posted 03 September 2010 - 07:09 PM

Quote

But the boy clutched his father‟s sword, crying, “So long as men live, there are crimes!”
The man‟s eyes filled with wonder. “No, child,” he said. “Only so long as men are deceived.”

R. Scott Bakker - The Darkness that Comes Before

I'm not sure if it is actually profound or just very ambiguous.
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#103 User is offline   Defiance 

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Posted 09 October 2010 - 03:32 AM

Evil is deception, and crimes only spawn from evil. That's what I got from that quote, at least.

Quote

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n!

~Satan in John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Did a fist pump when I read that, so badass and very deep. I love Milton's Satan.
uhm, that should be 'stuff.' My stiff is never nihilistic.
~Steven Erikson


Mythwood: Play-by-post RP board.
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#104 User is offline   Dave1 

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Posted 02 November 2010 - 02:04 AM

"Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win."
Zhuge Liang in romance of the three kingdoms
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#105 User is offline   Salt-Man Z 

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Posted 09 November 2010 - 04:41 PM

From Blade of Tyshalle:

Tan'elKoth said:

"I fear Michaelson not at all. Michaelson is a fiction, you fools. The truth of him is Caine. You do not comprehend the distinction; and so he will destroy you."

"Here is light. You will say that it is not a living entity, but you miss the point that it is more, not less. Without occupying space, it fills the universe. It nourishes everything, yet itself feeds upon destruction. We claim to control it, but does it not perhaps cultivate us as a source of food? May it not be that all wood grows so that it can be set ablaze, and that men and women are born to kindle fires?"
―Gene Wolfe, The Citadel of the Autarch
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#106 User is offline   Abyss 

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Posted 09 November 2010 - 09:06 PM

View PostSalt-Man Z, on 09 November 2010 - 04:41 PM, said:

From Blade of Tyshalle:

Tan'elKoth said:

"I fear Michaelson not at all. Michaelson is a fiction, you fools. The truth of him is Caine. You do not comprehend the distinction; and so he will destroy you."



Oh. Yeah.

Stover has a phenomenal hand at dialogue. He almost never wastes a word. It's trite sometimes - that quote is basically a restatement of the 'Bruce Wayne is just Batman in disguise' trope, but in the context the story it's usually awesome. I remember reading that and think of Roscharch's 'You're all stuck in here with me.'.

I always liked this one from Caine, same book:

Quote

The future cannot be predicted. It can only be experienced.


..and one other...

Quote

...[he] waits for me to start the Walk: the long measuring stroll where we both psych ourselves into the killing zone. He knows there has to be a Walk; He knows I have a profound respect for tradition.


- Abyss, about due for a re-read but holding out for a street date on the next book... some day... maybe...

ETA - which led to me taking a look at Stover's blog to discover, to my great joy, that's he's passed the completed ACTS OF CAINE: HIS FATHER'S FIST on to his publishers who have tentatively sched'd it for Mar 2011. And as soon as it's available i will be pre-ordering that motherfucker like a motherfucking motherfucker. Fuck.

- Abyss, fucking psychfucked.

This post has been edited by Abyss: 09 November 2010 - 09:23 PM

THIS IS YOUR REMINDER THAT THERE IS A
'VIEW NEW CONTENT' BUTTON THAT
ALLOWS YOU TO VIEW NEW CONTENT
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#107 User is offline   stone monkey 

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Posted 09 November 2010 - 09:24 PM

The Dune quote about violence being the last resort of the incompetent was originally said by Isaac Asimov, apparently.

To which Jerry Pournelle has replied: "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent because only an incompetent would wait until it becomes their last resort."

It's not from a book, but still...

My favourite quote is probably the first line of Robert Fagles translation of The Iliad: "Rage! Sing O Muse of the rage of Achilles..."

You could probably hang a decent story off that :)

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 09 November 2010 - 09:26 PM

If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. … So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants. Bertrand Russell

#108 User is offline   champ 

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Posted 18 November 2010 - 10:29 PM

he died too soon...

Quote

Acuas walked forward.
"How?" he asked. "How did you win?"
There is no mystery, Acuas," said Decado softly. "He was only a man."
"But so are you!"
"No. I am Decado. The Ice Killer! Follow me at your peril."


David Gemmell, what a legend!

This post has been edited by champooon: 18 November 2010 - 10:30 PM

Tehol said:

'Yet my heart breaks for a naked hen.'
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#109 User is offline   Salt-Man Z 

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Posted 18 November 2010 - 11:23 PM

More wisdom from Caine in Blade of Tyshalle:

Quote

[T]here is a time to be smart and careful and look before you leap, and there is a time to just rock and fucking roll.

"Here is light. You will say that it is not a living entity, but you miss the point that it is more, not less. Without occupying space, it fills the universe. It nourishes everything, yet itself feeds upon destruction. We claim to control it, but does it not perhaps cultivate us as a source of food? May it not be that all wood grows so that it can be set ablaze, and that men and women are born to kindle fires?"
―Gene Wolfe, The Citadel of the Autarch
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#110 User is offline   Bauchelain the Evil 

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Posted 19 November 2010 - 04:16 PM

The incipit of Lord of Light by Zelazny, great book

Quote

His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit.Silence, though, could.

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#111 User is offline   acesn8s 

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Posted 19 November 2010 - 09:03 PM

View Poststone monkey, on 09 November 2010 - 09:24 PM, said:

My favourite quote is probably the first line of Robert Fagles translation of The Iliad: "Rage! Sing O Muse of the rage of Achilles..."

You could probably hang a decent story off that :)


It'll never last. :rant:
“The others followed, and found themselves in a small, stuffy basement, which would have been damp, smelly, close, and dark, were it not, in fact, well-lit, which prevented it from being dark.”
― Steven Brust, The Phoenix Guards
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#112 User is offline   Dolorous Menhir 

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Posted 20 November 2010 - 01:37 PM

View Poststone monkey, on 09 November 2010 - 09:24 PM, said:

The Dune quote about violence being the last resort of the incompetent was originally said by Isaac Asimov, apparently


That's from the Foundation series.
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#113 User is offline   Alrin 

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Posted 23 November 2010 - 12:28 AM

The truth of Caine from Caine Black Knife:

Quote

My name's a C-word.

"Fuck epiphanies and denouement. Just clobber the structural confines and ramble all over the page."
— Steven Erikson (2008)
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#114 User is offline   Rath Orlong 

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Posted 23 November 2010 - 08:27 PM

It's not sci-fi or fantasy, but a quote stuck with me from W.E.B. Griffin, the Badge of Honor series.

Det. Washington (The Black Buddah) says to a suspect during an interrogation:

"Disabuse yourself of the notion that you are intellectually equipped to parry with me."
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#115 User is offline   Salt-Man Z 

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Posted 28 September 2011 - 07:50 PM

Two from Butcher's Ghost Story:

Quote

"It was like The Lord of the Rings and All My Children made a baby with the Macho Man Randy Savage and a Whac-A-Mole machine."

and

Quote

If the Eagle Scouts had some sort of Sith equivalent, Marcone was it.

"Here is light. You will say that it is not a living entity, but you miss the point that it is more, not less. Without occupying space, it fills the universe. It nourishes everything, yet itself feeds upon destruction. We claim to control it, but does it not perhaps cultivate us as a source of food? May it not be that all wood grows so that it can be set ablaze, and that men and women are born to kindle fires?"
―Gene Wolfe, The Citadel of the Autarch
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#116 User is offline   Asheroth 

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Posted 02 October 2011 - 11:24 PM

I'm reading the first Chronicles of Thomas Covenant at the moment (while TCG sits idly on my bookshelf), and there are a couple of doozies:

Quote

Foamfollower's question caught him wandering, 'Are you a story-teller, Thomas Covenant?'
Absently, he replied, 'I was, once.'
'And you gave it up? Ah, that is as sad a tale in three words as any you might have told me. But a life without a tale is like a sea without salt. How do you live?'
Covenant folded his arms across the gunwales and rested his chin on them. As the boat moved, Andelain opened constantly in front of him like a bud; but he ignored it, concentrated instead on the plaint of water past the prow. Unconsciously, he clenched his fist over his ring. 'I live.'
'Another?' Foamfollower returned. 'In two words, a story sadder than the first. Say no more - with one word you will make me weep.'


and

Quote

‘Where I come from, we don’t see – If you don’t know the annual cycles of the plants, you can’t tell the difference between spring and summer. If you don’t have a – have a standard of comparison, you can’t recognize – But the world is beautiful – What’s left of it, what we haven’t damaged.’ Images of Haven Farm sprang irrefusably across his mind. He could not restrain the mordancy of his tone as he concluded, ‘We have beauty, too. We call it scenery.’

‘Scenery‘, Mhoram echoed. ‘The word is strange to me – but I do not like the sound.’

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#117 User is offline   Dragnipurake 

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Posted 08 October 2011 - 02:48 AM

"he was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead"
The stars my destination, Alfred Bester


"there are many paths to ascendancy"
I keep forgetting this is from a fantasy book and not from history or some classical literature
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#118 User is offline   WhiskeyJackDaniels 

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Posted 15 October 2011 - 08:20 AM

Troy: Shield of Thunder, by David Gemmel...page 319 paperback

Quote

Hektor: Hail to mighty Achilles. Hail to the champion of the games.

If you don't get why that is epic you desperately need to read Gemmel's Troy trilogy.

The Name of the Wind, page 195 paperback

Quote

Of the battle itself I have only one thing to say. More people died at Drossen Tor than there are living in the world today.



edit: typo

This post has been edited by WhiskeyJackDaniels: 16 October 2011 - 07:07 AM

So, you're the historian who survived the Chain of Dogs.
Actually, I didn't.

It seems you stand alone.
It was ever thus.
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#119 User is offline   Bauchelain the Evil 

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Posted 15 October 2011 - 05:14 PM

View PostWhiskeyJackDaniels, on 15 October 2011 - 08:20 AM, said:

Troy: Shield of Thunder, by David Gemmel...page 319 paperback

Quote

Hektor:Hail to might Achilles. Hail to the champion of the games.

If you don't get why that is epic you desperately need to read Gemmel's Troy trilogy.





I loved that line. That fight was great but Hektor's line made it awesome.
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#120 User is offline   Gryllen 

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Posted 24 October 2011 - 05:15 PM

“Upon him I will visit famine and a fire.
Till all around him desolation rings
And all the demons in the outer dark
Look on amazed and recognize
That vengeance is the business of a man.” Tarsus,4th act of Daeonica

From The name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
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