Tim Powers

Quotes

1. It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn’t yet lost.

   p. 86

2. 

   He tried to put more conviction into his voice than he felt, and he mentally cursed any God that there might be, for having made this coming ordeal not only tremendously difficult and dangerous, but possibly pointless too.

   p. 400

3. 

   When they’d gone the old man turned around to watch the sun’s slow descent. The Boat of Millions of Years, he thought; the boat of the dying sungod Ra, tacking down the western sky to the source of the dark river that runs through the underworld from west to east, through the twelve hours of the night, at the far eastern end of which the boat will tomorrow reappear, bearing a once again youthful, newly reignited sun.

   Or, he thought bitterly, removed from us by a distance the universe shouldn’t even be able to encompass, it’s a vast motionless globe of burning gas, around which this little ball of a planet rolls like a pellet of dung propelled by a kephera beetle. Take your pick, he told himself as he started slowly down the hill...But be willing to die for your choice.

   p. 3

4. 

   “You ever notice, Joe,” he asked, mechanically picking up the mug, “that it always takes a little more trouble to get something than the thing was really worth?”

   Joe considered it. “Better than taking a lot of trouble and getting nothing.”

   Dundee sipped the coffee. He didn’t seem to have heard Joe. “There’s so much weariness and fatigue in it all. For every action there is an equal...stupefaction. No, that might be bearable—it’s greater than the action.”

   p. 342

5. 

   “God help us,” said Crawford softly.

   “If there is one.” Byron grinned. “A whole lot of ghastly things have turned out to be possible, remember.”

   p. 330

6. 

   Processions of priests and religiosi have been for several days past praying for rain; but the gods are either angry, or nature is too powerful.

   p. 285

7. 

   Every ruler wants to maintain the status quo.

   p. 170

8. 

   She’s probably only now beginning to be able to think for herself, he thought. And she’ll be hating it. Will she acknowledge the responsibilities that she can now clearly see, or will they be so appalling that she’ll just want to return to the selfless haze?

   p. 372

9. 

   He felt as if someone far away below in the darkness was chipping away at the pillars of his mind, and the steady crack...crack...crack of it was the only sound in the universe.

   p. 129

10. 

    The landlord crossed himself when they checked in, but an English ten-pound note for a week’s lodging overcame whatever superstitious misgivings the man may have had.

    p. 285

11. 

    I’ve learned that having a lot of money is more fun than not having a lot of money, and that once you’ve got it, it tends to grow all by itself, like a fire.

    p. 341

12. 

    The wages of courage is death, lad, but it’s the wages of everything else, too.

    p. 140