Amazing excerpts from Tad Williams' The Dragonbone Chair
I strongly recommend this if you're into fantasy, or good books in general. Every time I read the series, it puts me right into my element.
Without further ado, here are my favorite quotes!
(Pronouns have been omitted to stop spoilers)
I try to live by these words. Plus, it helps that their epic nature makes me drool:
"This is the hour at last, then, he thought wildly. Steel rang on polished witchwood. There must be honor, the thought was desperate. Even if there is no one to see it...God will see..."
I would love to know what it's like to feel oneself and the world this way; every time I want a new perspective, I re-read this passage:
"The dragon's black blood had spilled over him, burning like a fire. In the instant of its touch he had felt his own life subdued. The dreadful essence coursed through him, scalding away his spirit, and leaving only dragon-life. It was as if he had himself become--in the failing moment before darkness came--the Worm's secret heart.
[The dragon]'s smolderingly slow and intricate life captured him. He spread; he changed, and the changing was as painful as both death and birth.
His bones became heavy, solid as stone and curvingly reptilian. His skin hardened into gemlike scales, and he felt his pelt sliding on his back like a mailshirt of diamonds.
....The old black blood raced through him. Still he grew, and he perceived and named all things of the spinning world. Its skin, the earth's skin, became his own--the crawling surface of which all things were born, where they struggled and failed, surrendering at last to become a part of him once more. Its bones were his bones, the rocky pillars on which all things stood, and through which he felt every tremor of breathing life."
This is exactly how I feel about the written word:
"'Books are a form of magic because they span time and distance more surely than any spell or charm. What did so-and-so think about such-and-such two hundred years agone? Can you fly back through the ages and ask him? No--or at least, probably not.
'But ah! If he wrote down his thoughts, if somewhere there exists a scroll, or a book of his local discourses...he speaks to you! Across centuries!"
...'A piece of writing IS a trap, and the best kind. A book, you see, is the only kind of trap that keeps its captive--which is knowledge--alive forever. The more books you have, the more traps, then the better chance of capturing some particular, elusive, shining beast--one that might otherwise die unseen.'"
Now onto the next book in the series!
Without further ado, here are my favorite quotes!
(Pronouns have been omitted to stop spoilers)
I try to live by these words. Plus, it helps that their epic nature makes me drool:
"This is the hour at last, then, he thought wildly. Steel rang on polished witchwood. There must be honor, the thought was desperate. Even if there is no one to see it...God will see..."
I would love to know what it's like to feel oneself and the world this way; every time I want a new perspective, I re-read this passage:
"The dragon's black blood had spilled over him, burning like a fire. In the instant of its touch he had felt his own life subdued. The dreadful essence coursed through him, scalding away his spirit, and leaving only dragon-life. It was as if he had himself become--in the failing moment before darkness came--the Worm's secret heart.
[The dragon]'s smolderingly slow and intricate life captured him. He spread; he changed, and the changing was as painful as both death and birth.
His bones became heavy, solid as stone and curvingly reptilian. His skin hardened into gemlike scales, and he felt his pelt sliding on his back like a mailshirt of diamonds.
....The old black blood raced through him. Still he grew, and he perceived and named all things of the spinning world. Its skin, the earth's skin, became his own--the crawling surface of which all things were born, where they struggled and failed, surrendering at last to become a part of him once more. Its bones were his bones, the rocky pillars on which all things stood, and through which he felt every tremor of breathing life."
This is exactly how I feel about the written word:
"'Books are a form of magic because they span time and distance more surely than any spell or charm. What did so-and-so think about such-and-such two hundred years agone? Can you fly back through the ages and ask him? No--or at least, probably not.
'But ah! If he wrote down his thoughts, if somewhere there exists a scroll, or a book of his local discourses...he speaks to you! Across centuries!"
...'A piece of writing IS a trap, and the best kind. A book, you see, is the only kind of trap that keeps its captive--which is knowledge--alive forever. The more books you have, the more traps, then the better chance of capturing some particular, elusive, shining beast--one that might otherwise die unseen.'"
Now onto the next book in the series!