53 quotes found
“It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, an illusion of order for this one frail, foolish, flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity.”
“I know everything, you see,' the old voice wheedled. 'The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past and the present, like other low creatures: no higher faculties than ...”
“They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction.'Poor Grendel's had an accident,' I whisper. 'So may you all.”
“Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see.”
“My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.”
“When I was a child I truly loved:Unthinking love as calm and deepAs the North Sea. But I have lived,And now I do not sleep.”
“What do you call the Hrothgar-wrecker when Hrothgar has been wrecked?”
“I had a chance. I knew I had no more than that. it's all a hero asks for.”
“All order, I've come to understand, is theoretical, unreal — a harmless, sensible, smiling mask men slide between the two great, dark realities, the self and the world — two snake pits.”
“So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age.”
“It was said in the old days that every year Thor made a circle around Middle-earth, beating back the enemies of order. Thor got older every year, and the circle occupied by gods and men grew smalle...”
“It's not easy to kill a mountain goat. He thinks with his spine.”
“Go ahead, scoff, he said, petulant. Except in the life of a hero, the whole world's meaningless. The hero sees values beyond what's possible. That's the nature of a hero. It kills him, of course, u...”
