Janus Quotes

Santa was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. The after-action report was signed by the field commander, the director of operations, the secretary of the Office of Sidhe Affairs, and the chief battle-mage. Janus had signed it - and Janus's word could be counted upon for anything he chose to put his name to. Old Saint Nicholas, the Sidhe Lord of the Yuletide, was as dead as a door-nail.
It didn't stick. ~ Chris Lester

Check it out."
Jonah removed the bubble wrap and held up the picture for his three cousins.
Dan took a step backward. The shock was almost as powerful as it had been the day before at the Uffizi. "It's perfect! It's every bit as disgusting as the real one!"
Amy nodded. "And so fast. We only called you yesterday."
Jonah shrugged. "Even the Janus take a short cut every now and then. You can do a lot with digitization these days. You break the picture down to squares and reproduce them one at a time. The other two are just as fly."
"You mean, hog ugly," Hamilton amended.
"The serpents don't help," Dan put in critically. "Live fat spaghetti. Lady, if you're thinking of a modeling career, forget it!"
The rapper clucked sympathetically. "You guys just don't appreciate the power of the visual image. The Wiz used to be like that–until Gangsta Kronikles. When you're in film industry, you understand the whole picture's-worth-a-thousand-words deal."
Hamilton rolled his eyes. "Here we go again. ~ Gordon Korman

I've never quite understood the double Janus face of bi – Janus, the Roman god of gates and doors, especially closets. ~ Paul Monette

He is the very Janus of poets; he wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce begun to admire the one, ere you despise the other. ~ John Dryden

Young ladies take their notions of our sex from the novels written by their own, and compared with the monstrosities that masquerade for men in the pages of that nightmare literature, Phytagoras' plucked bird and Frankenstein's demon were fair average specimens of humanity.
In these so-called books, the chief lover, or Greek god, as he is admiringly referred to -by the way, they do not say which "Greek god" it is that the gentleman bears such a striking likeness to; it might be hump-backed Vulcan, or double-faced Janus, or even driveling Silenus. He resembles the whole family of them, however, in being a blackguard, and perhaps this is what is meant. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

It is, of course, its essentially schizophrenic outlook on society that makes the middle classes such a peculiar mixture of yeast and dough. We tend nowadays to forget that it has always been the great revolutionary class; we see much more the doughy aspect, the bourgeoisie as the heartland of reaction, the universal insult, forever selfish and conforming. Now this Janus-like quality derives from the class's one saving virtue, which is this: that alone of the three great castes of society it sincerely and habitually despises itself. ~ John Fowles

But there was never any arguing with Janus, least of all from the other end of a flik-flik line. ~ Django Wexler

He called me a coward and a traitor," Janus said. "How refusing to sit behind the walls of Ashe-Katarion makes me a coward, I'm not sure I understand, but no doubt the minds of royalty work in mysterious ways. ~ Django Wexler

The god of wine looked around at the assembled crowd. "Miss me?"
The satyrs fell over themselves nodding and bowing. "Oh, yes, very much, sire!"
"Well, I did not miss this place!" Dionysus snapped. "I bear bad news, my friends. Evil news. The minor gods are changing sides. Morpheus has gone over to the enemy. Hecate, Janus, and Nemesis, as well. Zeus knows how many more."
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
"Strike that," Dionysus said. "Even Zeus doesn't know. ~ Rick Riordan

Repentance is a one-faced Janus, ever looking to the past. ~ Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Hence all original religions are allegorical, or susceptible of allegory, and, like Janus, have a double face of false and true ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Two rival tendencies, alien alike in their principles and their aims, which have long been silently developing themselves, are now contending for the mastery within the bosom of the Church, like the unborn babes in Rebekah's womb, and it is simply a truism to assert that every section of our divided Christendom is interested in the result of the struggle. We ~ Janus

Let us see rather that like Janus - or better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death - religion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloomy ... ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Darby, sir, but Janus they call me," the seaman said, "on account of a surgeon we shipped in the Sophie, a learned bloke, saying I saw both ways like some old Roman cut-up by that name. ~ Naomi Novik

Why do you continue your... charade? Your current position would seem to be a good one for revealing the truth'.
'A few people know, sir. Bobby, Jane, some of the Leatherbacks. For the rest... it just seems easier to keep things as they are.' Winter thought of Novus and his tirade. 'It would be one thing if I had just joined up, but it's been so long. People might be upset that they'd been fooled. And...'
Janus raised an eyebrow. Winter hesitated.
'It's all right for the Girl's Own,' she said. 'They joined up because Vordan needs them, and when the war's over they'll go home. I... I haven't anywhere to go.' She tugged the collar of her uniform. 'This is who I am now, for better or worse. This is my home. After the war, maybe it will be all right for a woman to keep this on, but... maybe not.'
Winter found her throat getting thick. She'd never put it that way before, never even thought it so bluntly. This is my home. ~ Django Wexler

Entropy is Janus-faced. Its upside surprises are redemptive and favorable to freedom. It is freedom of choice. But the carrier itself requires constant vigilance against entropic noise. Order is not spontaneous, but it is a necessary condition for all the surprises of freedom and opportunity. ~ George Gilder

No man is an island- he is a holon. A Janus-faced entity who, looking inward, sees himself as a self-contained unique whole, looking outward as a dependent part. His self-assertive tendency is the dynamic manifestation of his unique wholeness, his autonomy and independence as a holon. Its equally universal antagonist, the integrative tendency, expresses his dependence on the larger whole to which he belongs: his 'part-ness.'. ~ Arthur Koestler

Later, the child climbs down from her mother's knee and clambers up onto Tom. He holds her wordlessly, trying to imprint everything about her: the smell of her hair, the softness of her skin, the shape of her tiny fingers, the sound of her breath as she puts her face so close to his.
The island swims away from them, fading into an ever more miniature version of itself, until it is just a flash of memory, held differently, imperfectly by each passenger. Tom watches Isabel, waits for her to return his glance, longs for her to give him one of the old smiles that used to remind him of Janus Light – a fixed, reliable point in the world, which meant he was never lost. But the flame has gone out – her face seems uninhabited now. ~ M. L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans

In my long career in this historical fiction business, though, I've found that the most effective storytelling concept is this: Once upon a time it was now.
That has become my credo and my method as a longtime historical novelist.
It's quite simple, if you see as Janus sees:
Today is now.
Yesterday was now.
Tomorrow will be now.
Three hundred years ago, the eighteenth century was now.
You, as a historical novelist, can make any time now by taking your reader into that time. Once you grasp that, the rest is just hard work.
Stay with me, and you'll see how such work is done. ~ James Alexander Thom

I know [my label], in any case: a double face, a charming Janus, and underneath, the house motto: "Be wary". On my business cards:"Jean-Baptiste Clamence, actor". ~ Albert Camus

Recently, a judge of the prestigious 2014 British Forward Prize for Poetry was moved to observe that "there is an awful lot of very powerful, lyrical, and readable poetry being written today," but we need education, because "we have lost the sense that poetry sits halfway between prose and music - that you can't expect to read it like a novel."

A few years ago, the New York Times published an op-ed of mine, about learning poetry by heart. The response to it confirmed that people of all ages think about poetry as a kind of inspired music, embodying beauty and insight. On one hand, poetry has always flowed from music, as rap and hip-hop remind us big-time. Rappers know how poetry walks and talks. So we have music, or deeply felt recitations of poems that belong to collective memory. On the other hand, we have overly instructive prose poems, as well as the experiments of certain critical ideologies, or conceptual performance art. These aspects seem to represent the public, Janus face of poetry. ~ Carol Muske-Dukes

If I'd found out that Norman Mailer liked me, I'd have killed myself. I think he was too hung up. I'm glad Kurt Vonnegut didn't like me either. He had problems, terrible problems. He couldn't see the world the way I see it. I suppose I'm too much Pollyanna, he was too much Cassandra. Actually I prefer to see myself as the Janus, the two-faced god who is half Pollyanna and half Cassandra, warning of the future and perhaps living too much in the past - a combination of both. But I don't think I'm too over optimistic. ~ Ray Bradbury

Jonah peered critically up at the Renaissance masterpiece. "Man, those copies don't due it justice. This one's the truth!"
"Only a Janus," groaned Hamilton. ~ Gordon Korman

Raesinia wondered if Maurisk, in the barricaded offices of the Hotel Ancerre, repeated it to himself. Janus is coming. ~ Django Wexler

But hippies always forget that old Gaea can be one heartless bitch. Spend a little time wandering lost in the woods as she attacks you and tries to reduce you to fertilizer." She snorted. "You won't be singing kumbayas very long." She paused to make sure Janus would get the point. "In this world, Gaea's the predator and we're the prey. ~ Jenifer Mohammed

You don't see much of any path unless you are Janus, looking simultaneously backward and forward. ~ Frank Herbert

Tom watches Isabel, waits for her to return his glance, longs for her to give him one of the old smiles that used to remind him of Janus Light - a fixed, reliable point in the world, which meant he was never lost. ~ M.L. Stedman

Wolfe let out a full-blooded hiss, as though he were thinking about coming across the desk at Janus. Wolfe is not to be trifled with. Wolfe is not to be threatened - ~ Anonymous

Every person whom we love, indeed to a certain extent every person is to us like Janus, presenting to us the face that we like if that person leaves us, the repellent face if we know him or her to be perpetually at our disposal. ~ Marcel Proust

I can't say that I disagree, but I still don't follow his reasoning."
"The joys of serving under Janus bet Vhalnich," Marcus said, carefully under his breath. ~ Django Wexler

You can't teach kindness with a whip, Janus. ~ Chris Lester

Hermes rolled his eyes. "Surely you've seen network TV lately. It's clear they don't know whether they're coming or going. That's because Janus is in charge of programming. He loves ordering new shows and cancelling them after two episodes. God of beginnings and endings, after all. Anyway, I was bringing him some magic doormats, and I was double-parked-"
"You have to worry about double-parking?"
"Will you let me tell the story?"
"Sorry. ~ Rick Riordan

The book grew out of the introduction I did for Brady's Gates of Janus. I knew that the writing in that introduction had a better than average chance of being read by people involved in Brady's life - parents of victims, police, Brady himself. ~ Peter Sotos

Janus found himself drawn to the edge of the rink, staring fixedly at Candace as she approached: grinning, puffing steam, her cheeks flushed, her brown hair peeking out from under a knitted cap, her hazel eyes sparkling green and gold in the bright winter sun. She wore a wool riding coat, brilliant red trimmed with black, which stood out amid the ice like a ruby on white gold. Janus thought she had never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment, with all her cares and duties laid aside for the pure joy of living. Janus wanted to freeze the moment in his memory and carry it forever: This is what happiness looks like. I never knew. ~ Chris Lester

The Terror was over but its effects were as long-lasting as they were momentous. The experience divided the population so sharply that every subsequent political crisis was influenced profoundly. Right across Europe, the horrors of this terrible year made even mildly progressive reform more difficult and made the political and social establishment both more secure and more conservative. So the Revolution's political legacy was Janus-faced: on the one side benign libertarian ideology, on the other malignant state terrorism. It would be difficult to say which has proved the more influential. ~ Timothy C.W. Blanning

Taboos, magic, superstition, personified abstraction, myths, gods, empty verbalisms, in every culture and at every period of history express man's persisting non-logical impulses. Gods and goddesses like Athena or Janus or Ammon are replaced by new divinities such as Progress and Humanity and even Science; hymns to Jupiter give way to invocations to the People; the magic of the votes and electoral manipulations supersedes the magic of dolls and wands; faith in the Historical Process does duty for faith in the God of our Fathers. ~ James Burnham

From when she was a baby, Tom has taught the girl to respect, but not fear, the forces of nature- the lightning that might strike the light tower on Janus, the oceans that batter the island. ~ M.L. Stedman

As the Colonials settled down in Ashe-Katarion, Janus asked Marcus to come up with a detail of twenty men he thought he could trust to keep a secret.
Marcus was tempted to reply that twenty men could keep a secret only if you sank nineteen of them in the river, and even then you'd have to keep an eye on the last one. ~ Django Wexler

Michael Varus drew his sword. 'My father is Janus, the god of two faces. I am used to seeing through masks and deceptions. ~ Rick Riordan

He can't die! He's the bloody King of Winter."
"Don't be absurd," said Bob, rolling an eye at the wounded Janus. "Just because he's immortal doesn't mean he can't die! ~ Lesley Livingston

Everything is bilateral in the domain of thought. Ideas are binary. Janus is the myth of criticism and the symbol of genius. Only God is triangular! ~ Honore De Balzac