Magic Quotes

Briar: They never tell you some things. They tell you mages have wonderful power and they learn all kinds of secrets. Nobody ever mentions that some secrets you don't ever want to learn. Rosethorn: All you can do is learn good to balance the bad. Learn and do all the good within your reach. Then, if you wake in a sweat, you have something to set against the dream.

~ Tamora Pierce

The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson.

~ Tamora Pierce

The spells are made up. I have met people who assure me, very seriously, that they are trying to do them, and I can assure them, just as seriously, that they don’t work.

~ J.k. Rowling

... perhaps the clock hands had become so tired of going in the same direction year after year that they had suddenly begun to go the opposite way instead...

~ Jostein Gaarder

It might have all the same, you never can tell what's magic.

~ Noel Streatfeild

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly himWhen he comes back; you demi-puppets thatBy moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastimeIs to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’dThe noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vaultSet roaring war: to the dread rattling thunderHave I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oakWith his own bolt; the strong-based promontoryHave I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d upThe pine and cedar: graves at my commandHave waked their sleepers, oped, and let ‘em forthBy my so potent art. But this rough magicI here abjure, and, when I have requiredSome heavenly music, which even now I do,To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet soundI’ll drown my book.

~ William Shakespeare

The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.

~ Michael Chabon

I love you. Why it worked right then, why the webbing of my godmother's spell frayed as though the words had been an open flame, I don't know. I haven't found any explanation for it. There aren't any magical words, really. The words just hold the magic. They give it a shape and a form, they make it useful, describe the images within. I'll say this, though: Some words have a power that has nothing to do with supernatural forces. They resound in the heart and mind, they live long after the sounds of them have died away, they echo in the heart and the soul. They have power, and that power is very real. Those three words are good ones.

~ Jim Butcher

I didn't want to believe that killing was deep inside of me. I didn't want to think about the part of me that took a dark joy in gathering all the power it could and using it as I saw fit, everything else be damned. There was power to be had in hatred, too, in anger and in lust, in selfishness and in pride. And I knew that there was some dark corner of me that would enjoy using magic for killing—and then long for more. That was black magic, and it was easy to use. Easy and fun. Like Legos.

~ Jim Butcher

Nothing is lost that we do not first see as lost. Visions born of fear give birth to our failing.Visions born of hope give birth to our success.What is possible lives within us, and it only remains for us to discover it.

~ Terry Brooks

Love and magic have a great deal in common. they enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice.

~ Nora Roberts

What is magic?There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day.

~ Terry Pratchett

Those who spell Magic with a K aren't.

~ Anton Szandor Lavey

If you are drawn to the left hand path, it's usually because you've had some kind of life experience that has shocked you, awakened you.

~ Nikolas Schreck

Magic--that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic.

~ Robert Bloch

Magic is a matter of focusing the disciplined will. But sometimes the will must be abandoned. The secret lies in knowing when to exercise control, and when to let go.

~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

To my mind, ‘magic’ is the hard-to-define quality of the things that stir up mystical feelings like amazement, curiosity, imagination, and above all wonder. Magic is that which renders something beautiful in a spiritual sense. It is that which makes one feel as if the world is more than it is presently understood to be, and yet at the same time the world is working itself out in a good and beautiful way. Magic underlies the relationship between us, and the greater immensities of birth and death. Thus the experience of being in the presence of something magical is an empowering, uplifting experience. Magic, understood this way, contributes meaning to life.

~ Brendan Myers

I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.

~ Alan Rickman

It's easy, there's a trick to it, you do it or you die.

~ Neil Gaiman

Magic is the art of thinking, not strength or language.

~ Christopher Paolini

I need it! I need it! It's a royal heirloom!Adrian?What are you doing here?Looking for you. Come on, we need to go. I'll drive you home.No, I can't. Not until we get it. He stole it!

~ Richelle Mead

Not only do we all have magic, it's all around us as well. We just don't pay attention to it. Every time we make something out of nothing, that's an act of magic. It doesn't matter if it's a painting or a garden, or an abuelo telling his grandchildren some tall tale. Every time we fix something that's broken, whether it's a car engine or a broken heart, that's an act of magic.And what makes it magic is that we *choose* to create or help, just as we can choose to harm. But it's so easy to destroy and so much harder to make things better. That's why doing the right thing makes you stronger.If we can only remember what we are and what we can do, nobody can bind us or control us.

~ Charles De Lint

A man's magic demonstrates what sort of person he is, what is held most deeply inside of him. There is no truer gauge of a man's character than the way in which he employs his strength, his power. I was not a murderer. I was not like Victor Sells. I was Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I was a wizard. Wizards control their power. They don't let it control them. And wizards don't use magic to kill people. They use it to discover, to protect, to mend, to help. Not to destroy.

~ Jim Butcher

Kim was more than a little inclined to snarl at him, but in the past few days she had learned that snarling at Mairelon did little good. He simply smiled and corrected her grammar.

~ Patricia C. Wrede

For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her. Then the bitch blasted me with her water magic, and I got over it.

~ Jennifer Estep

Healthy curiosity is a great key in innovation.

~ Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Touch magic. Pass it on.

~ Jane Yolen

It rained toads the day the White Council came to town.

~ Jim Butcher

I know it is something of a cliche to say that love makes all things possible, but I believe it does. It is not a magic wand that can be waved over life to make it all sweet and lovely and trouble free, but it can give the energy to fight the odds and win.

~ Mary Balogh

Sandry: There has to be something we can do. Lark: We're mages. We do what we can, but some problems are too big to fix. Sandry: Then I wish I weren't a mage. What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people.

~ Tamora Pierce

Magic is the only honest profession. A magician promises to deceive you and he does.

~ Karl Germain

This rough magicI here abjure, and, when I have requiredSome heavenly music, which even now I do,To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet soundI'll drown my book.

~ William Shakespeare

The law of sympathy is one of the most basic parts of magic. It states that the more similar two objects are, the greater the sympathetic link. The greater the link, the more easily they influence each other.

~ Patrick Rothfuss

Oh this? It's a 'bookworm.'They live in books, and they love to eat important or valuable words.

~ Clamp

The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany.

~ Rebecca Solnit

Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.

~ Susanna Clarke

Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world, but people don't know what it is like or how to make it.

~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

That's how I do this life sometimes by making the ordinary just like magic and just like a card trick and just like a mirror and just like the disappearing. Every Indian learns how to be a magician and learns how to misdirect attention and the dark hand is always quicker than the white eye and no matter how close you get to my heart you will never find out my secrets and I'll never tell you and I'll never show you the same trick twice. I'm traveling heavy with illusions.

~ Sherman Alexie

One cannot shape the world without being reshaped in the process. Each gain of power requires its own sacrifice.

~ Phil Hine

Matthew kept hinting that his desire - for blood, chiefly- was so strong that it put everything else at risk. But vampires weren’t the only creatures who had to manage such strong impulses. Much of what qualified as magic was simply desire in action. Witchcraft was different- that took spells and rituals. But magic? A wish, a need, a hunger too strong to be denied- these could turn into deeds when they cross a witch’s mind.

~ Deborah Harkness