K J Parker Quotes

Hope, though; now there's a real pest. Hope doesn't just nibble your cheese and chew holes in your skirting boards. Hope keeps you plodding on when it really is time to call it quits. Hope drags you to sixteen auditions in a single day, when there's a nice job in your brother-in-law's tannery just waiting for you. Hope keeps you going in Old Stairs or Paradise, even though there's no money and nothing to eat and the landlord just took your chair and your chamber pot. Personally, I can see no great merit in simply being alive if you're miserable and in pain, but Hope won't let you go. She's a tease, like bad children teasing a dumb animal, and I've made a point of avoiding her whenever I can. Still, sometimes she runs you down and there's nowhere left for you to go. You can turn and fight her and lose, or let her scoop you up and turn your brain to mush.

Hope against hope. We had human chains shifting those blocks with levers and rollers, through the narrow alleys where carts couldn't go. We had shifts digging the ditch by lamplight, in the rain. And in every working party there was at least one man who cheerfully announced that it wasn't going to work, the whole idea was stupid, the enemy'll find a way round this in two shakes, just you see; and even he didn't really believe it, because of Hope. Hope turns a hundred men and women ripping the skin off their hands on a coarse hemp rope into a street party. Someone tells a joke, or clowns around, or starts singing a f ~ K.J. Parker

That was the truly horrifying thing about it: the sense of time as an enemy, to be fought tooth and nail
but there was so much of it; you killed an hour, but what good did that do when there were thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions more hours just waiting to take its place? ~ K.J. Parker

Everyone keeps telling me what I can't do, but they're wrong. The only thing I can't do is nothing. ~ K.J. Parker

The world is full of annoyances, none more infuriating than a fool with a valid point. ~ K.J. Parker

His mother collected medicines, rather in the way a boy collects coins or seals or arrowheads; one or two genuine pieces, along with a whole load of junk. ~ K.J. Parker

He looked at me the way the male spider gazes at his beloved. He knows he's going to get eaten afterwards, but it'll be worth it. "Deal," he said. ~ K.J. Parker

And lies, of course - It's like astronomy, I always say. Clever fellows, the astronomers, they can tell ever such a lot about something they can't see by the shadow it casts over something they can. Same with lies. The shape of a lie will often give you the truth. ~ K.J. Parker

Faith comes in different tempers: there's the hard, brittle faith that shatters when it meets an obstacle it can't cut through, and the tough, springy faith that bounces off unchipped. ~ K.J. Parker

I like to let them talk things out, but fact isn't a democratic process; if a thing isn't true it isn't true, even if everybody votes that it is. ~ K.J. Parker

I gather you play chess, he'd said, and she'd given him a look, later he'd ralised it was fair warning; yes, she played chess. The had a mignificent coral and ivory set, worth a thousand acres of good arable land. He'd made soft opening, the way you do when you're playing a girl, and suddenly he found himself staring defeat in the facs - he'd never los a game except three times, to Senza. ~ K.J. Parker

Phrantzes considered for a moment, collecting his thoughts like a general rallying his surviving troops after a massacre. ~ K.J. Parker

I don't believe in gods, only in religion. ~ K.J. Parker

A wise man once said that any human being is capable of infinite achievement, so long as it's not the work they're supposed to be doing. ~ K.J. Parker

After all, what is truth but the consensus of memories of reliable witnesses? ~ K.J. Parker

It's the way my mind works, when it works at all. Things to do today: settle down, achieve serenity, live happily ever after. Tick the box and move on. ~ K.J. Parker

We can't let him win. Even if it takes fifty years, or a hundred. You can't let the bad guys win. It's not acceptable."

For Hodda, life is drama. It falls into a set number of clearly defined categories: tragedy, comedy, romance, burlesque, farce. If it's a comedy, the good guys win and everybody gets married. If it's a tragedy, the good guys win but everybody dies. But you can't let the bad guys win. Nobody's going to pay to see that.

Me, I don't care about the bad guys, so long as they keep the hell away from me. When they get too close, in my face, I tell lies and run away. That means I'll never be a hero, but I don't mind that. I do character parts and impersonations. ~ K.J. Parker

Ah". Tzimisces smiled. "Let me guess. Flowery periphrases, back-to-back literary allusions and quotations from thousand-year-old authors. A marked reluctance to use one word when twelve can be jammed in if you sit on the lid. ~ K.J. Parker

The thing about me that seems to puzzle people the most - people who know me, who believe what i tell them - is that I can write the most profound things without actually meaning them.
I can persuade people of things I don't believe myself,or (more usually) simply don't care about ~ K.J. Parker

For what it was worth, she got the impression that Niessa liked her, or at least approved of her, in the same way a chess-player approves of one of his pieces when it stays where it's been put and doesn't go wandering off all over the board. ~ K.J. Parker

Obviously, there's no way of making money that doesn't hurt somebody somewhere, but there are degrees of scale and immediacy. A merchant prince or a banker or a wealthy landowner isn't generally required to take responsibility for the people he cheats, screws and starves; society couldn't function if that were the case. ~ K.J. Parker

The public," he said, "bless them. It's the same in tailoring: they always think they know more about your job than you do, and then you get the blame when it ends up looking a mess." He ~ K.J. Parker

Of course, I never beat Ogus at anything, unless I cheated. Which I did, whenever I could. I figure, winning is winning. Cheating is just one of many ways of prevailing; just happens to be the way I'm best at. ~ K.J. Parker

It'd have been so nice if my life had been a well-controlled experiment. You know; start off with your basic ingredients, add education, experiences, events, stirring with a glass rod, when appropriate retarding the reaction with a block of ice. Predictable consequences, intended results, and something worth having at the end. Hasn't quite worked out like that. As for the result, the product, we'll have to wait and see. I may yet surprise myself. ~ K.J. Parker

It's about keeping the peace, said Rasso from the livery. His choice of words made Marzo want to smile. Rasso had borrowed the phrase from him and, like any man in the colony who borrowed anything, he seemed determined to use it till it fell apart before he was called on to give it back. ~ K.J. Parker

I'd finally given her what she wanted,
the elixir of eternal youth, effected by the removal of her internal fire (the
catalyst of change) through the agency of death. ~ K.J. Parker

I have strong views about not tempting providence and, as a wise man once said, the difference between luck and a wheelbarrow is, luck doesn't work if you push it. ~ K.J. Parker

Death is to be feared because of the pain and loss it inflicts through love, and for no other reason. ~ K.J. Parker

I've always had this theory, that we're all born with a certain optimum age, the age we're really meant to be, and once we reach it we stick there, in our minds, where it counts. Personally I've always been twenty-five. I was good at being twenty-five. ~ K.J. Parker

He couldn't even write his name. When he was Emperor, he had to sign documents with a stencil. ~ K.J. Parker

All his life he'd dealt in honour and service, the way a furrier deals in furs or a vintner in wine. On his lips the terms had had specialised political meanings, and he'd long since stopped thinking about what the words stood for in the world at large. Now, unfortunately a little bit too late, he'd been granted a little gleam of insight; service is what makes you stand in the line when nobody would try and stop you if you ran away, and honour is what's left when every other conceivable reason for staying there has long since evaporated. ~ K.J. Parker

But how do we know it's really you? I mean, I could put a saucepan on my head and call myself the God of Boiled Dumplings; wouldn't mean I was telling the truth. ~ K.J. Parker

Being, in my own small way, a part of Authority, it never ceases to amaze me how much people believe in it and trust it. I see it from the inside, of course - inefficiencies, stupidities, corruption, bloody-minded ignorance and simple lack of resources to cope with the magnitude of the endless, ever-multiplying problems. But other people see it from the outside. They see the Land Walls. They see the emperor's head on the coins, with Victory on the reverse. They see the temples. They see soldiers in shining armour. They see, and they believe, that the empire is big, strong, wise, unbeatable. ~ K.J. Parker

I figure a friend has the right to offend you at least once. ~ K.J. Parker

I have my faults. But when I hear bad news that's palpably true, I don't argue or ask for proof. ~ K.J. Parker

When you come to rely on the written word, it's time to light the fire with it. ~ K.J. Parker

I rarely ask for suggestions, because, when I do, people tend to make them. ~ K.J. Parker

It was as though the Gods had dropped something - a comb, a hairpin, a needle - and it had fallen down to earth; unimaginably huge and incomprehensibly magnificent, made of celestial materials by a divine craftsman, too big and too beautiful to have any place in our world, utterly incongruous, a numbing statement of the difference between Them and us - Excuse me. It was an impressive sight. ~ K.J. Parker

Ah well. He'd beaten her twice sind then: once on their honeymoon, though he still suspected her of throwing the game, and once on the day she lost the baby. And two out of eight hundred and six wasn't too bad, against such an opponent. ~ K.J. Parker

If there's a truth and nobody knows it, is it still true? Or is it like a light burning in a locked, shuttered house that nobody will ever get to see? ~ K.J. Parker

I know she comes across as annoying to begin with," he said. "But once you've got to know her a bit better, you'll find it makes no difference whatsoever. ~ K.J. Parker

Ah well." Gignomai turned slowly round. "It's not often commented on, but when you stop and think, mercy is the biggest injustice of them all. ~ K.J. Parker

If the world is a book, are you the hero, or just a walk-on part? ~ K.J. Parker

It`s remarkable the truly stupid things people can do because it`s expected of them, or they think it`s expected of them. ~ K.J. Parker

No disrespect to the fire god, naturally; blame it instead on His administration, presumably made up of officers of roughly the same level of ability as their terrestial counterparts. That would explain why the mild storm she'd ordered for Oida hit her instead. ~ K.J. Parker

When you get to my age, you'll find it's fatally easy to forget to hate all your enemies all the time; and once you've slipped up and not hated one of them, it makes it almost impossibly hard to hate the rest of them. ~ K.J. Parker

Great art, I've always felt, is like a pearl; thousands of layers of creativity and sensibility built up around an inner core of money. ~ K.J. Parker

I mention this because that's how the world changes. It's either so quick that we never know what hit us, or so gradual that we don't notice. ~ K.J. Parker

He never makes notes, he just remembers it all, like a barmaid. ~ K.J. Parker

The idea is to make the space around you into a zone where nothing mortal can survive. ~ K.J. Parker

In politics, it's what isn't said that matters. ~ K.J. Parker

He took a couple of steps. "I clink," he said. "It's undignified."
"Everybody clinks. It's what soldiers do. ~ K.J. Parker

Witnesses are, of course, ambivalent; some of them need record what would otherwise be lost and go to waste, while others need to hunted down and killed before they cant tell what they know; and the man who stands on the grave of the last witness own the truth and is responsible for it, a dangerous trustee. ~ K.J. Parker

Our problem as Americans
at least, among my race and gender
is that we resist the very idea of limits, regarding limits of all sorts as temporary and regrettable impositions on our lives. ~ Parker J. Palmer

My life is not only about my strengths and virtues; it is also about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow. An inevitable though often ignored dimension of the quest for "wholeness" is that we must embrace what we dislike or find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confident
and proud of. ~ Parker J. Palmer

Right. Put Some coffee on while I think about this. I'm in dire need"
Merrick gave him a look. "You can't work the stove, can you?"
"I'm the eighth Earl Crane and the twelfth Viscount Fortunegate. I don't have to work the stove."
"Two extra names and you can't lift your arms any more. Bloody lucky they didn't make you a duke too or you'd forget how to brush your own teeth. ~ K.J. Charles

Our strongest gifts are usually those we are barely aware of possessing. They are a part of our God-given nature, with us from the moment we drew first breath, and we are no more conscious of having them them than we are of breathing. ~ Parker J. Palmer

Well, God knows what you used to be, then, because you're built like a brick shithouse and hung like a horse. ~ K.J. Charles

Someone wanted to choke me to death on my own hair? ~ K.J. Charles

Such an easy thing, to be liked. All you had to do was make sure people didn't know you. ~ K.J. Charles

Rainbow Cloud strode forward like a hunting cat with the same strength of height and broad shoulders, the same rolling gait as First Light's father. They were indeed the same man, split in two at birth, so the family might be rewarded by twice the skill in hunting each brother possessed. ~ P.J. Parker

The early morning sunshine shot up the ice-covered valley. It glinted off the backs of slumbering mastodon, reflected between the antlers of caribou. ~ P.J. Parker

I value ethical standards, of course. But in a culture like ours – which devalues or dismisses the reality and power of the inner life – ethics too often becomes an external code of conduct, an objective set of rules we are told to follow, a moral exoskeleton we put on hoping to prop ourselves up. The problem with exoskeletons is simple: we can slip them off as easily as we can don them. ~ Parker J. Palmer

You right," Hawk said. "Couldn't happen. Be like J. Edgar Hoover running around in a dress."
"Exactly," I said. "Impossible. ~ Robert B. Parker

Finally (and here is a sentence I never imagined writing), I thank my conversation partners on Facebook. A couple of years ago, my friend Finn Ryan set up a Facebook author page for me. Grateful as I was, my skepticism about the medium kept me from posting anything there until six months before I finished this book. I am very glad that I took the leap. The folks who share that space with me have helped me refine a number of key ideas, allowing me to write a better book than I could have written alone. Many thanks to all my Facebook "friends" as well as my face-to-face friends. ~ Parker J. Palmer

Beware, William of Mercia, you heeded not our warnings and you can no longer turn back, but the path ahead is strewn with danger, to you, and to those who travel with you. This is but the beginning. The legions of the underworld await you, armies will seek to destroy you, but only you can know the true course. ~ K.J. Wignall

Like many middle-class Americans, especially those who are white and male, I
was raised in a subculture that insisted I could do anything I wanted to do, be
anything I wanted to be, if I were willing to make the effort. The message was
that both the universe and I were without limits, given enough energy and
commitment on my part. God made things that way, and all I had to do was to
get with the program. My troubles began, of course, when I started to slam
into my limitations, especially in the form of failure. ~ Parker J. Palmer

Another clue to finding true self and vocation: we must withdraw the negative projections we make on people and situations-projections that serve mainly to mask our fears about ourselves-and acknowledge and embrace our own liabilities and limits. ~ Parker J. Palmer

In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as the place where the person you least want to live with always lives ~ Parker J. Palmer

Community doesn't just create abundance - community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed. ~ Parker J. Palmer

Sticking your head in the sand does not prevent the tide from coming in. ~ K.J.

There are a number of recommended methods of dealing with ghosts - salt and iron, harmonic resonance, some people swear by exorcism, and not just the priests - but that's the fist time I've seen anyone try a left hook. ~ K.J. Charles

He pushed a finger through the surface of the water to trace the outline of her mouth. Ethereal bits of flesh floated loosely about his knuckle and nail. Then, calmly, he pulled her body up out of the tub and into his arms. He placed his lips on hers, now as cold and dead as his own. ~ P.J. Parker

I miss being the age when I thought I'd have my shit together by the time I was the age I am now.. ~ K.j. Force

The ancient human question 'Who am I?' leads inevitably to the equally important question 'Whose am I?' - for there is no self outside of relationship. ~ Parker J. Palmer

No one can or will ever feel your pain as much as you. Forgive yourself for the past, seize the gift of the present moment. ~ K.J. Kilton

The past isn't fixed and frozen in place. Instead, its meaning changes as life unfolds. ~ Parker J. Palmer

We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are. ~ Parker J. Palmer

One large cat bounded up the side of the outcrop to stand in full view on an overhanging boulder. She stared down at them, inside their protective enclosure, tilting her head from side to side. Her scarred yellow-brown coat was immaculately groomed, but the long tufting hair of her snout was matted with the bright red smear of uncongealed blood from a recent kill. Her upper lip curved over the top of foot-long saber teeth. ~ P.J. Parker

In writing Simon's stories, I have written myself out of my own life. ~ K.J. Charles

That's different." "People always say that, you know," Julius observed. "And yet, somehow, it never is. Here we are." They ~ K.J. Charles

When I forget my own inner multiplicity and my own long and continuing journey toward selfhood, my expectations of students become excessive and unreal. If I can remember the inner pluralism of my own soul and the slow pace of my own self-emergence, I will be better able to serve the pluralism among my students at the pace of their young lives. ~ Parker J. Palmer

There's often a distressing disconnect between the good words we speak and the way we live our lives. In personal relations and politics, the mass media, the academy and organized religion, our good words tend to float away even as they leave our lips, ascending to an altitude where they neither reflect nor connect with the human condition. We long for words like love, truth, and justice to become flesh and dwell among us. But in our violent world, it's risky business to wrap our frail flesh around words like those, and we don't like the odds. ~ Parker J. Palmer

You seem to look upon depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you ... Do you think you could see it instead as the hand of a friend, pressing you down to the ground on which it is safe to stand? ~ Parker J. Palmer

Have you seen the mummies at the British Museum?"
"The Egyptian ones? No, not yet. But they have a similar thing in China."
"Did you ever imagine if they started moving? Withered hands reaching towards you and sunken eyes staring?"
"I didn't, but now I know what I'll be dreaming about tonight. ~ K.J. Charles

As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots. ~ Parker J. Palmer

Mentoring is a mutuality that requires more than meeting the right teacher: the teacher must meet the right student. ~ Parker J. Palmer

Each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up. ~ Parker J. Palmer

Let me be frank. I find you intriguing, and extremely appealing, and delightful company, and very much a man who deserves more pleasure in his life. If you'd like to take that pleasure with me, I'd be honoured. If you aren't so minded, don't take offence at the offer, and I shan't at the refusal. And if you decide you'd prefer Corvin, for example, I shall bow out like a gentleman, although I shall probably kick him in the shins at some point from pure envy. ~ K.J. Charles

We continually make decisions in private which affect the commonweal, as the ecologists (to take but one example) have shown us. When I keep my house warmer than it needs to be, I consume fuel which might help someone else keep warm, or keep a job. When the food I eat is high on the protein chain I contribute to a maldistribution of protein around the world. When I teach my children to be primarily concerned with private gain, I diminish the ranks of public leadership in the rising generation. ~ Parker J. Palmer

You discover your voice. You matter. Maybe not to the world, yet. You matter to yourself. You're worthy. ~ K.J. Kilton

I've deprived my family in order to buy books. No doubt there is a special punishment in hell for such self-indulgence. Perhaps I shall be struck with blindness among the rarest known to men. ~ I.J. Parker

Time steals from us the capacity to be smitten, does it not? It slowly but surely washes away all your enthusiasm and deposits uncertainty in its place. ~ K.J. Bishop

The goodness of the world grew like moss in cracks, she thought. It grew, somehow, with hidden roots, nourished by something unseen. ~ K.J. Bishop