# The Dragonbone Chair

- Author: [Tad Williams](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams.md)
- Quotes: 29
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair

## 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/he-who-is-certain.md)

> “Is this being in love?” he suddenly wondered? It was nothing like the ballads he had heard sung—this was more irritating than uplifting.

p. 500 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/is-this-being.md)

> “Now, boy, now...” he said bewilderedly, “what is all this talk of glory? Have you caught the sickness, too? Curse me for a blind beggar, I should have seen. This fever has cankered even your simple heart, hasn’t it, Simon? I’m sorry. It takes a strong will or practiced eye to see through the glitter to the rotten core.”

p. 139 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/now-boy-now.md)

> “I have not slept well since I first entered my brother’s dungeons. While my comfort has improved since then, worry has taken the place of hanging in chains as a denier of rest.”
>
> “There are many kinds of imprisonment,” Jarnauga nodded.

p. 739 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/i-have-not.md)

> As he silently approached the last float, a latticework ball of reeds, he offered an unspoken prayer to He Who Always Steps on Sand that even now the little bottom-walkers were pushing and shoving their way into the cage below. Because of his unusual education, which included a year living on Perdruin—unheard of for a Wrannaman—Tiamak did not really believe in He Who Always Steps on Sand anymore, but he still held a fondness for him, such as might be felt for a senile grandfather who often tumbled down from the house, but once brought nuts and carved toys. Besides, it never hurt to pray, even if one did not believe in the object of prayer. It helped to compose the mind, and, at the very least, it impressed others.

p. 447 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/as-he-silently.md)

> Light, with its handmaiden color, was everywhere.

p. 629 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/light-with-its.md)

> Not being stupid is important.

p. 360 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/not-being-stupid.md)

> The spider hung motionless, like a dull brown gem in an intricate necklace. The web was complete, now, the last strands laid delicately in place; it stretched from one side of the ceiling corner to the other, quivering gently in the rising air as though strummed by invisible hands.
>
> For a moment Isgrimnur lost the thread of talk, important talk though it was. His eyes had drifted from the worried faces huddled near the fireplace in the great hall, roving up to the darkened corner, and to the tiny builder at rest.
>
> There’s sense, he told himself. You build something and then you stay there. That’s the way it’s meant to be. Not this running here, running there, never see your blood-family or your home roofs for a year at a time.

p. 619 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/the-spider-hung.md)

> A king’s son has nothing but inferiors, each one a potential assassin.

p. 12 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/a-kings-son.md)

> Ambitious men never believe others aren’t the same.

p. 484 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/ambitious-men-never.md)

> No charm is proof against a dagger in the back.

p. 677 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/no-charm-is-proof.md)

> “Never make your home in a place,” the old man had said, too lazy in the spring warmth to do more than wag a finger. “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.” Morgenes had grinned. “That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You’ll never lack for a home—unless you lose your head, of course...”

p. 718 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/never-make-your.md)

> The wise man is not waiting for the realness of the world to prove itself to him. How can one be an authority before the experiencing of this realness? My master taught me—and to me it seems chash, meaning correct—that you must not defend against the entering of knowledge.

p. 266 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/the-wise-man.md)

> Simon, there are more things you don’t know than there are things that I do know. I despair of the imbalance.

p. 177 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/simon-there-are.md)

> We trolls say: “Make Philosophy your evening guest, but do not let her stay the night.”

p. 260 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/we-trolls-say.md)

> “Neither War nor Violent Death,” Morgenes had written, “have anything uplifting about them, yet they are the candle to which Humanity flies again and again, as complacently as the lowly moth. He who has been upon a battlefield, and who is not blinded by popular conceptions, will confirm that on this ground Mankind seems to have created a Hell on Earth out of sheer impatience, rather than waiting for that original to which—if the priests are correct—most of us will eventually be ushered.

p. 302 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/neither-war-nor.md)

> Damn everyone to Hell. And damn the bloody forest. And God, too, for that matter.
>
> He looked up fearfully from his chill handful of water, but his silent blasphemy went unpunished.

p. 238 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/damn-everyone-to-hell.md)

> Perhaps he was a bumpkin; at least he was an honest bumpkin.

p. 516 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/perhaps-he-was.md)

> “It would please me your not being obsequious. That is a trait of marketplace people who are selling shoddy goods. I am sure to prefer endless, stupid questions to that.”
>
> “Ob...obseek...?”
>
> “Obsequious. Flattering with oiliness. It is not liked by me. In Yiqanuc we say: ‘Send the man with the oily tongue to go and lick the snowshoes.’”

p. 262 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/it-would-please.md)

> “Sharp it away, lad, sharp it away,” the burly guardsman said, making the blade skitter across the whetstone, “lest otherways ye’ll be a girl afore ye’re a man.”

p. 502 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/sharp-it-away.md)

> “There is nothing like the ocean to remind you of what is important,” she said quietly, and smiled. Cadrach’s returned smile was weak.
>
> “Ah, by the Good Lord, that’s true,” he groaned. “I am reminded that life is sweet, that the sea is treacherous, and that I am a fool.”
>
> Miriamele nodded solemnly, staring up at the bellying sails. “Those are good things to remember,” she said.

p. 713 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/there-is-nothing.md)

> Nothing is without cost. There is a price to all power, and it is not always obvious.

p. 142 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/nothing-is-without.md)

> “Thank you, Duke,” the troll said seriously. “May your god be blessing us indeed. We go into unknown places.”
>
> “As do all mortals,” Josua added. “Sooner or later.”

p. 567 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/thank-you-duke.md)

> I shall endeavor to turn dross to purest Metal Absolute: in short, to teach you something.

p. 41 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/i-shall-endeavor.md)

> The fear was all he had left, but even that was something—he was afraid, so he must be alive! There was darkness, but there was Simon, too! There were not one and the same. Not yet. Not quite...

p. 199 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/the-fear-was.md)

> 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.

p. 724 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/when-you-stopped.md)

> If you have not noticed, we are preparing for war. I’m sorry if that inconveniences you.

p. 549 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/if-you-have.md)

> “This fellow,” he indicated the woodsman with a sweep of his stick, “will reliably not become more alive, but he may have friends or family who will be unsettled to find him so extremely dead.”

p. 253 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/this-fellow-he-indicated.md)

> “I’m your apprentice!” Simon protested. “When are you going to teach me something?”
>
> “Idiot boy! What do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to teach you to read and to write. That’s the most important thing. What do you want to learn?”
>
> “Magic!” Simon said immediately. Morgenes stared at him.
>
> “And what about reading...?” the doctor asked ominously.
>
> Simon was cross. As usual, people seemed determined to balk him at every turn. “I don’t know,” he said. What’s so important about reading and letters, anyway? Books are just stories about things. Why should I want to read books?”
>
> Morgenes grinned, an old stoat finding a hole in the henyard fence. “Ah, boy, how can I be mad at you...what a wonderful, charming, perfectly stupid thing to say!” The doctor chuckled appreciatively, deep in his throat.
>
> “What do you mean?” Simon’s eyebrows moved together as he frowned. “Why is it wonderful and stupid?”
>
> “Wonderful because I have such a wonderful answer,” Morgenes laughed. Stupid because...because young people are made stupid, I suppose—as tortoises are made with shells, and wasps with stings—it is their protection against life’s unkindnesses.”
>
> “Begging your pardon?” Simon was totally flummoxed now.
>
> “Books,” Morgenes said grandly, leaning back on his precarious stool, “—books are magic. That is the simple answer. And books are traps as well.”
>
> “Magic? Traps?”
>
> “Books are a form of magic—” the doctor lifted the volume he had just laid on the stack, “—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 logical discourses...he speaks to you! Across centuries! And if you wish to visit far Nascadu or lost Khandia, you have also but to open a book....”
>
> “Yes, yes, I suppose I understand all that.” Simon did not try to hide his disappointment. This was not what he had meant by the word “magic.” “What about traps, then? Why ‘traps’?”
>
> Morgenes leaned forward, waggling the leather-bound volume under Simon’s nose. “A piece of writing is a trap,” he said cheerily, “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 doctor waved an all-encompassing hand about the room, “the more traps, then the better chance of capturing some particular, elusive, shining beast—one that might otherwise die unseen.”

p. 92 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tad-williams/the-dragonbone-chair/im-your-apprentice.md)