Tad Williams Quotes

He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.

~ Tad Williams

You are only a prisoner when you surrender.

~ Tad Williams

Whatever my ancestors did to you, none of them consulted me.

~ Tad Williams

I haven't met that many women, human or angelic, who actually like to drive. In my experience they seem to be much more pragmatic about the whole thing than we are. For most males, driving is an extension of their masculinity; they have little fantasy scenarios going all the time - races, chases, and dramatic combat with other drivers. Females, on the other hand, generally seem to view driving as something you do to get somewhere. I know, crazy.

~ Tad Williams

-You're pretty hard-boiled, Tinker Bell.-Call me that name again and you'll be wondering how your bollocks wound up lodged in your windpipe--from below. Just because we don't get to your side of things much anymore doesn't mean we don't know anything. 'If you believe in fairies, clap your hands!' If you believe in fairies, kiss my rosy pink arse is more like it. Now are you going to shut your gob or not?

~ Tad Williams

Even the king's Erkynguard might have wished to be elsewhere, rather than here on this killing ground where duty brought them and loyalty prisoned them. Only the mercenaries were here by choice. To Simon, the minds of men who would come to this of their own will were suddenly as incomprehensible as the thoughts of spiders or lizards—less so, even, for the small creatures of the earth almost always fled from danger. These were madmen, Simon realized, and that was the direst problem of the world: that madmen should be strong and unafraid, so that they could force their will on the weak and peace-loving. If God allowed such madness to be, Simon could not help thinking, then He was an old god who had lost His grip.

~ Tad Williams

Was Briony the only person who could hear the venom dripping from the woman’s tongue? What good was beauty — a mature beauty, but beauty nonetheless — if it cloaked such a viperous soul?

~ Tad Williams

A wolf is clever-clever-clever, and they are as faithful as a debt unpaid.

~ Tad Williams

Dear DiaryWent out shopping today. Picked up half a dozen sheep, two pigs, and a princess. The sheep are rather depressingly thin, the pigs and princess only slightly less so. Dear DiaryWent out shopping today. Picked up half a dozen sheep, two pigs, and a princess. The sheep are rather depressingly thin, the pigs and princess only slightly less so.

~ Tad Williams

Sometimes people need reasons for things, even when there are no reasons. That's what makes people believe in conspiracies or religions - if there is any difference. The world is just too complicated, so they need simple explanations.

~ Tad Williams

They were all becoming brothers, in the manner he had seen before: facing death together was the greatest of levelers.

~ Tad Williams

After all, is it not the way we humans shape the universe, shape time itself? Do we not take the raw stuff of chaos and impose a beginning, middle, and end on it, like the simplest and most profound of folktales, to reflect the shapes of our own tiny lives? And if the physicists are right, that the physical world changes as it is observed, and we are its only known observers, then might we not be bending the entire chaotic universe, the eternal, ever-active Now, to fit that familiar form?

~ Tad Williams

...Coca-Cola and fries, the wafer and wine of the Western religion of commerce.

~ Tad Williams

It was strange how the future seemed tied inseparably to the past, so that both revolved through the present, like a great wheel...

~ Tad Williams

She had to find her own story, and she could make it whatever shape she thought best.

~ Tad Williams

Tangaloor, fire-brightFlame-foot, farthest walkerYour hunter speaksIn need he walksIn need, but never in fear.

~ Tad Williams

Remember that each light between sunrise and sunset is worth dying for at least once.

~ Tad Williams

What's the light of Heaven look like on earth? Like sunlight streaming through clouds in the tackiest garage sale painting you ever saw. Really, it's so beautiful it's embarrassing. No subtlety whatsoever.

~ Tad Williams

Ah? A small aversion to menial labor? The doctor cocked an eyebrow. Understandable, but misplaced. One should treasure those hum-drum tasks that keep the body occupied but leave the mind and heart unfettered.

~ Tad Williams

He had once thought it was strange to have a friend you'd never met. Now it was even stranger, losing a friend you'd never really had

~ Tad Williams

I thought... I thought you might... Help you? By my grove, I am helping you. You're not starving anymore, are you? <…> You had a dry night's sleep, too, and you're no longer coughing your liver and lights out. Some might count those as mighty gifts indeed.

~ Tad Williams

Now, ten or more years later, far away from her home or even any thought of having a home, she again touched the feeling from that long ago day, being alone but not lonely, of being solitary yet sufficient.

~ Tad Williams

In bad times, a king or a queen can be a rock for the waters to crash against, so those less strong are not washed away. I will be such a rock. Only give me a chance, sweet Zoria, and I will be a rock for my people.

~ Tad Williams

He led them around the base of a great fallen tree whose exposed roots resembled more than anything else a huge broom - a broom that would have fired the imagination of Rachel the Dragon toward heroic, legendary feats of sweeping.

~ Tad Williams

When you stopped to think about it, he reflected, there weren't many things in life one truly needed. To want too much was worse than greed: it was stupidity - a waste of precious time and effort.

~ Tad Williams

Welcome to the Information Jungle.

~ Tad Williams

We tell lies when we are afraid... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger.

~ Tad Williams

Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.

~ Tad Williams