Chronicler Quotes

The mind is like a muddy road. Two ruts run down its center, from all the carts that have passed that way. no matter how many carts try to roll alongside the ruts, to stay out of the mud, sooner or later, a turn here or a jolt there will send them down into the ruts for good. Just so is the mind. As hard as we try to keep our thoughts out of the old ways, the old patterns, the old ruts, any little jog or jerk will send them right back down into the mud." -The Chronicler ~ Adam Gidwitz

Chronicler wiped the nib of his pen clean, "It's not really my place to comment on the story," he said placidly. "If you say you saw a dragon ... " He shrugged. Kvothe gave him a profoundly disappointed look. "This from the author of The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus? This from Devan Lochees, the great debunker?" "This from Devan Lochees who agreed not to interrupt or change a single word of the story he is recording." Chronicler lay his pen down and massaged his hand. "Because those were the only conditions under which he could get access to a story he very much desired. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

One chronicler writes of an area of India during the end of the 20th century: Almost no-one in this slum was poor by Indian benchmarks. ... True, a few residents trapped rats and frogs and fried them for dinner. A few ate the scrub grass at the sewage lake edge. And these individuals, miserable souls, thereby made an inestimable contribution to their neighbors. They gave those slum dwellers who didn't fry rats and eat weeds a sense of their upward mobility. ~ Katherine Boo

Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler. ~ Horace

Chronicler picked up his pen, but before he could dip it, Kvothe held up a hand. Let me say one thing before I start. I've told stories in the past, painted pictures with words, told hard lies and harder truths. Once, I sang colors to a blind man. Seven hours I played, but at the end he said he saw them, green and red and gold. That, I think, was easier than this. Trying to make you understand her with nothing more than words. You have never seen her, never heard her voice. You cannot know. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

I leave it to Pater Leoden to distribute the remainder of my worldly goods among the parish, as, being an immoral soul, I will have no further need of them."
"You mean, immortal, don't you?" Chronicler asked uncertainly. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

What does it take to be a great social chronicler? Perhaps one of the key attributes is an understanding of what it feels like to fall from grace. ~ Tina Brown

As an early-and-often chronicler of Chicago-on-the-Potomac, I am amazed at the stubborn and clingy persistence of President Barack Obama's snowblowers in the media. See no scandal, hear no scandal, speak no scandal. ~ Michelle Malkin

So I do not consider myself a chronicler of my fatherland or even a chronicler of Havana. ~ Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Julie Orringer is the real thing, a breathtaking chronicler of the secrets and cruelties underneath the surface of middle-class American life. These are terrific stories-wise, compassionate and haunting. ~ Dan Chaon

In the Nazi Arbeit [work] camps back in '44 when a man was caught smoking one cigarette, the whole barracks would die," a patient, Ralph, once told me. "For one cigarette! Yet even so, the men did not give up their inspiration, their will to live and to enjoy what they got out of life from certain substances, like liquor or tobacco or whatever the case may be." I don't know how accurate his account was as history, but as a chronicler of his own drug urges and those of his fellow Hastings Street addicts, Ralph spoke the bare truth: people jeopardize their lives for the sake of making the moment livable. ~ Gabor Mate

If you walk a city, if you love a city, if you put in your miles and years with open heart and mind, the city will reveal itself to you. Maybe it won't become yours, but you will become its - its chronicler, its pilgrim, its ardent lover, its nonnative son or native daughter or defender. ~ Rebecca Solnit

In Siena, where more than half the inhabitants died of the plague, work was abandoned on the great cathedral, planned to be the largest in the world, and never resumed, owing to loss of workers and master masons and "the melancholy and grief" of the survivors. The cathedral's truncated transept still stands in permanent witness to the sweep of death's scythe. Agnolo di Tura, a chronicler of Siena, recorded the fear of contagion that froze every other instinct. 'Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another,' he wrote, 'for this plague seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And no one could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship.… And I, Angolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my five children with my own hands, and so did many others likewise. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

I'm not asking you to describe the rain falling the night the archangel arrived; I'm demanding that you get me wet. Make up your mind, Mr. Writer, and for once in your life be the flower that smells rather than the chronicler of the aroma. There's not much pleasure in writing what you live. The challenge is to live what you write. ~ Eduardo Galeano

But I'm collecting the story of his life. The real story.' Chronicler made a helpless gesture. 'Without the dark parts it's just some silly f - ' Chronicler froze halfway through the word, eyes darting nervously to the side.
Bast grinned like a child catching a priest midcurse. 'Go on,' he urged, his eyes were delighted, and hard, and terrible. 'Say it.'
Like some silly faerie story,' Chronicler finished, his voice thin and pale as paper.
Bast smiled a wide smile. 'You know nothing of the Fae, if you think our stories lack their darker sides. But all that aside, this is a faerie story, because you are gathering it for me. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

A disturbing novel about dreams and wishes, a nightmarish distaff monkey's paw of a book that it's impossible to forget. Lisa Tuttle remains our preeminent chronicler of family madness and desire. ~ Neil Gaiman

Fitzgerald's work was almost entirely out of print when 'The Lost Weekend' was published in 1944 - even 'Gatsby' seemed well on its way to being forgotten - and Jackson had meant to be 'deliberately prophetic' in calling attention to a writer he considered the foremost chronicler of 'the temper and spirit of the time.' More than twenty years later he finally received credit, in writing, for having played a key role in the so-called Fitzgerald Revival. ~ Blake Bailey

My duty is that of a chronicler; and if I perform that conscientiously, the lessons which my observations suggest will need no pointing out. ~ Bayard Taylor

After an awkward pause, Bast extended his hand. Chronicler hesitated for a bare moment before reaching out quickly, as if he were sticking his hand into a fire.
Nothing happened, both of them seemed moderately surprised.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Kvothe addressed them bitingly. "Five fingers and flesh with blood beneath. One could almost believe that on the other end of that hand lay a person of some sort. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

I was no conscious chronicler or witness of the events that unfolded in those times. Surely you understand. You must understand. Do you look thousands of years into the future? Do you measure what's happening to you now by what may matter a thousand years hence? I was stumbling and lurching, groping and from time to time drowning, as any man might. ~ Anne Rice

Too many books. Too few centuries. ~ Jay Kristoff

I see things going on before my eyes and I photograph them as they are, without trying to change them. I don't warn people beforehand. That's why I'm a chronicler. I speak about us and I speak about myself. ~ Martin Parr

The Archbishop [Thomas Becket] was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on the evening of the twenty-ninth of December. The body lay in the Cathedral all night, and was prepared for burial on the following day. The Archbishop was dressed in an extraordinary collection of clothes. He had on a large brown mantle; under it, a white surplice; below that, a lamb's-wool coat; then another woolen coat; and a third woolen coat below this; under this, there was the black, cowled robe of the Benedictine Order; under this, a shirt; and next to the body, a curious haircloth, covered with linen. As the body grew cold, the vermin that were living in this multiple covering started to crawl out, and as MacArthur quotes the chronicler: 'The vermin boiled over like water in a simmering cauldron, and the onlookers burst into alternate weeping and laughter. ~ Hans Zinsser

Eric Peters is a chronicler of his journey; he's been a faithful steward of the story God is telling through him, and this newest chapter, BiRDS OF RELOCATiON, is Eric's testimony that along the way there are moments of deep joy and gratitude-they may seem brief, but they're bright, and they're worth singing about. The joy I hear on this record heralds a long and welcome peace. ~ Andrew Peterson

What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Chronicler snapped. "You're just spouting nonsense now."
"I'm spouting too much sense for you to understand," Bast said testily. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

Is this..." Chronicler hesitated, looking around. "Are we in Newarre?"
Kote nodded. "You are, in fact, in the middle of Newarre. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

One notices immediately that the First Book of Samuel is mostly ignored by the Chronicler. This truth of the assembly does not want to go back to the rawness of the tribe. It is content to live from the state, and it is glad for the lid that state truth has put upon the tribal versions that might contain embarrassments. The beginning point is only to give a favorable version of the transition. The first narrative disposes of Saul by telling of the suicide. The narrative is crafted so that David is not mentioned, and therefore could not be blamed, until v. 14. ~ Walter Brueggemann

Happiness, unlike grief, does not clamor for a chronicler. ~ Maude Meagher

So," Chronicler said. "Subjunctive mood." "At best," Kvothe said, "it is a pointless thing. It needlessly complicates the language. It offends me. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

If Murakami's novels are grand enigmas, his stories are bite-sized conundrums. ( ... ) The great pleasure of the new story collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, is watching Murakami come at his obsessions from so many different angles. There's a panoply of strangeness between these covers ( ... ) This collection shows Murakami at his dynamic, organic best. As a chronicler of contemporary alienation, a writer for the Radiohead age, he shows how taut and thin our routines have become, how ill-equipped we are to contend with the forces that threaten to disrupt us. ~ Antoine Wilson

Bast brightened at the opportunity. Straightening up in his chair he looked thoughtful for a moment then said. "She had perfect ears." He made a delicate gesture with his hands. "Perfect little ears, like they were carved out of ... something." Chronicler laughed, then looked slightly taken aback, as if he'd surprised himself. "Her ears?" he asked as if he couldn't be sure if he had heard correctly. "You know how hard it is to find a pretty girl with the right sort of ears," Bast said matter-of-factly. Chronicler laughed again, seeming to find it easier the second time. "No," he said. "No, I'm sure I don't." Bast gave the story collector a deeply pitying look. "Well then, you'll just have to take my word for it. They were exceptionally fine. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

It's not over if you're still here," Chronicler said. "It's not a tragedy if you're still alive. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

I rarely think about my childhood. It's a slippery thing I can't keep hold of for long - it slithers out of my grasp. And a lot of the time I remember what was missing instead of what was there. I am a chronicler of absence. ~ Carrie Fisher

The triumphs of the warrior are bounded by the narrow theatre of his own age; but those of a Scott or a Shakspeare will be renewed with greater and greater lustre in ages yet unborn, when the victorious chieftain shall be forgotten, or shall live only in the song of the minstrel and the page of the chronicler. ~ William H. Prescott

Whether histories have a happy ending or not depends on when the chronicler ends the tale. ~ Linda Gordon

I am lost without my Boswell.
[Sherlock Holmes on Dr. Watson.] ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I belong to the Boston Biographers Group - and get my monthly 'fix' from them. Where else can I sit down for two hours with people who understand the challenge I face, daily, as a life-chronicler? ~ Nigel Hamilton

I'm seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don't think is unfair. ~ Julian Fellowes

The observer, that old record keeper, the chronicler of events, made his appearance in that taxi. The hands of my clock turned elastic while I imprinted these feelings in memory. You must remember this. It was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive.
Memory. ~ Abraham Verghese

A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle