Roger Zelazny

Quotes

1. This day your sin account is filled to overflowing.

   p. 81

2. 

   He played tune after forbidden tune, and the professional musicians put professional expressions of scorn upon their faces; but beneath the table several feet were tapping in slow time with the music.

   p. 46

3. 

   "Yama thinks the Golden Cloud to have changed you."

   "Perhaps it has."

   "He believes it to have softened you, weakened you. You have always posed as a mystic, but now he believes you have become one — to your own undoing, to our undoing."

   He shook his head, turned around. But he did not see her. Stood she there invisible, or had she withdrawn? He spoke softly and without inflection:

   "I shall tear these stars from out the heavens," he stated, "and hurl them in the faces of the gods, if this be necessary. I shall blaspheme in every Temple throughout the land. I shall take lives as a fisherman takes fish, by the net, if this be necessary. I shall mount me again up to the Celestial City, though every step be a flame or a naked sword and the way be guarded by tigers. One day will the gods look down from Heaven and see me upon the stair, bringing them the gift they fear most. That day will the new Yuga begin.

   p. 40

4. 

   Now I just want to sleep the sleep of ages, to know again the Great Rest, the perpetual bliss, to hear the songs the stars sing on the shores of the great sea.

   p. 11

5. 

   The old religion is not only the religion - it is the revealed, enforced and frighteningly demonstrable religion. But don't think that last part too loudly.

   p. 55

6. 

   "For a spur of the moment thing, you came up with a fairly engaging sermon."

   "Thanks."

   "Do you really believe what you preached?"

   Sam laughed. "I'm very gullible when it comes to my own words. I believe everything I say, though I know I'm a liar."

   p. 38

7. 

   Sam smiled. "They are not omnipotent." "I sincerely hope not," replied the other, "but I fear that day is not far off."

   p. 59

8. 

   Some quicksand is quicker than other quicksand. Fortunately, you are settling into that of the slower sort. [...] In the meantime, I suggest you solicit aid of my followers or learn the difficult art of mud-breathing.

   p. 122

9. 

   There is a huge, burnished metal door, erected by the First, that is heavy as sin, three times the height of a man and half that distance in width. It is a full cubit thick and bears a head-sized ring of brass, a complicated pressure-plate lock and an inscription that reads, roughly, "Go away. This is not a place to be. If you do try to enter here, you will fail and also be cursed. If somehow you succeed, then do not complain that you entered unwarned, nor bother us with your deathbed prayers." Signed, "The Gods."

10. 

    "I am nothing," replied the other. "A leaf caught in a whirlpool, perhaps. A feather in the wind ...". "Too bad," said Yama, "for there are leaves and feathers enough in the world for me to have labored so long only to increase their number."

11. 

    Yes, Mara, there is a deathgod ... Fallen or no, the real death dwells in my eyes. You must meet them.

    p. 29

12. 

    "You may not have this man, oh Death," said the Master of the North, "for he belongs to the world, and we of the world will defend him."