Natonya Walton Quotes

Writers are not nice people. We can't be. ~ Jo Walton

Morally, magic is just indefensible. ~ Jo Walton

You can almost always find chains of coincidence to disprove magic. That's because it doesn't happen the way it does in books. It makes those chains of coincidence. That's what it is. ~ Jo Walton

With a lot of comedies, the characters go on a journey, and they come back, and they're the exact same people. ~ David Walton

They were ghosts, I suppose, the procession of the dead. They weren't pale kings and pale maidens, they were work-worn men and women - perfectly ordinary people, except for being dead. You'd never mistake them for living people. You couldn't quite see through them, but they were even more drained of colour than everything else, and they weren't quite as solid as they ought to be. One of the men I recognised. He had been sitting in Fedw Hir near Grampar making blubbing sounds with his mouth. Now he strode along easily with a spring in his step. His face was grave and composed, he was a man with dignity and purpose. He bent and picked up one of my oak leaves from the path and offered it like a ticket at the cinema as he passed between the two trees. I didn't see anyone take it. I couldn't see into the darkness at all. ~ Jo Walton

This school is enough to make anyone a communist. ~ Jo Walton

The truth, of course, is that a billion falsehoods told a billion times by a billion people are still false. ~ Travis Walton

See, you're walking really fast now, you don't need it at all," she called after me. I stopped and turned around. I could feel my cheeks burning. The bus station was full of people. "Nobody would pretend to be a cripple! Nobody would use a stick they didn't need! You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking that I would. If I could walk without it I'd break it in half across your back and run off singing. You have no right to talk to me like that, to talk to anyone like that. Who made you queen of the world when I wasn't looking? Why do you imagine I would go out with a stick I don't need - to try to steal your sympathy? I don't want your sympathy, that's the last thing I want. I just want to mind my own business, which is what you should be doing. ~ Jo Walton

That which is everybody's business is nobody's business. ~ Izaak Walton

I think; therefore, I am above average. ~ Michael Walton

Consider Augustus's motto. Hurry more slowly. ~ Jo Walton

Angling may be saidtobe so likemathematics, that itcan never be fully learnt. ~ Izaak Walton

It was many years ago that I got out of a crewtruck in the national forest and ran toward a large glowing object hovering in the darkening Arizona sky. But when I made that fateful choice to leavethe truck, I was leaving behind more than just my six fellow workmen. I was leaving behind forever all semblance of a normal life, running headlong toward an experience so overwhelmingly mind-rending in its effects, so devastating in itsaftermath, that my life would never - could never - be the same again. ~ Travis Walton

There is an iron "scold's bridle" in Walton Church. They used these things in ancient days for curbing women's tongues. They have given up the attempt now. I suppose iron was getting scarce, and nothing else would be strong enough. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

The morning of December 23, Emilienne woke from the kind of hard, heavy sleep known only to soldiers, drunks, and mothers of newly born children. ~ Leslye Walton

I've always thought fairies are like mushrooms, you trip over them when you're not thinking about them, but they're hard to spot when you're searching for them. ~ Jo Walton

Are these black cats like the hare?"

"No. They're smaller; they only want me to play with them. Fly away with them to a place on the other side of the moon. There's a garden there, all silvery-gold, and the cats and hares dance and jump round and round. They can jump so much farther than they can on earth; it's like flying, and they love it so. Sometimes I've felt as if I'd like to dance and jump through the air too, they looked so happy, and I've thought maybe if I did I wouldn't be afraid any more, but when I look they're all dancing round a Figure that sits still in the middle of the garden. A big black Figure with a hood on. And It hasn't got any face. Its face is so awful that It keeps it covered. And then I get so terribly afraid. And everything stops."

"And you see all that in the picture?"

"I don't know." She hesitated again. "I think it's partly dreams. After I've thought they were at the windows - the cats and the big hare. They sit there and watch, you see, after I've gone to sleep. But they don't come often. I don't usually know what's there."

She came closer and whispered, her blue eyes earnest and weird, "I don't think it's an animal hare. I think it's Aunt Sarai's hare, that maybe it came from hell. It isn't swearing to say that word just as the name of a place, is it? That's why people used to be so scared of witches' black cats, isn't it, because they thought they weren't earth-cats, they were from the devil? Mothe ~ Evangeline Walton

Also another time she had wakened in dead of night, thinking that something touched her, and when she looked she saw that a black scaly tail, tufted with flame at the end, like a fiend's, had switched across her and lay there burning the covers. And when she turned shrieking, to see what manner of thing lay beside her in the bed, she was at first reassured by sight of her husband's face, then saw, to her horror, that horns had risen, black and pointed, from his forehead. After that she screamed again and remembered nothing until Joseph was shaking her awake, and there were neither horns nor tail to be seen. Nor were the bedclothes scorched. ~ Evangeline Walton

Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization. ~ Jo Walton

It is agreed by most men, that the Eele is a most daintie fish; the Romans have esteemed her the Helena of their feasts, and some The Queen of pleasure. ~ Izaak Walton

To trust any man is the road to slavery. ~ Evangeline Walton

My family took me to church when I was like 4 years old, and I had to be in a pageant, and I was playing Jesus. ~ David Walton

I didn't want to write unless I could say, and think for myself. I looked to peers that I not only respected but those that supported that. I finished becoming who I am today by sticking up for myself as a voice, but that is in part thanks to the huge role the good guys I chose to work with played in my professional development. Some really terrific human beings who loved horror welcomed me with open arms. ~ Karen Walton

Gabe pulled her closer. You just lean on me, Vivi. I'll keep us both upright for a while. ~ Leslye Walton

When I watch a comedy that's just hitting you over the head with jokes constantly, some really hit, but if they miss, you're like, 'Eh.' ~ David Walton

SO WHAT ARE THE CULTURAL IDEAS BEHIND GENESIS 1? Our first proposition is that Genesis 1 is ancient cosmology. That is, it does not attempt to describe cosmology in modern terms or address modern questions. The Israelites received no revelation to update or modify their "scientific" understanding of the cosmos. They did not know that stars were suns; they did not know that the earth was spherical and moving through space; they did not know that the sun was much further away than the moon, or even further than the birds flying in the air. They believed that the sky was material (not vaporous), solid enough to support the residence of deity as well as to hold back waters. In these ways, and many others, they thought about the cosmos in much the same way that anyone in the ancient world thought, and not at all like anyone thinks today.[1] And God did not think it important to revise their thinking. ~ John H. Walton

The universe is a quantum computer. Since you can simulate any set of particle interactions with a quantum computer made of the same number of particles, then there's no practical difference between the universe and a quantum computer simulating the universe. ~ David Walton

I learned this early on in the variety business: You've got to give folks responsibility, you've got to trust them, and then you've got to check on them. ~ Sam Walton

It's just paper - all I own is a pickup truck and a little Wal-Mart stock. ~ Sam Walton

Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune. ~ Sam Walton

A lot of people understand what not saying anything means, so, in effect, not saying anything is really saying a lot. ~ Bill Walton

It was wisely said, by a man of great observation, that there are as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them. ~ Izaak Walton

It was so awful! And he kept on looking at me and I knew I must get out of bed or he'd come and touch me. I did, too, but when I got out I wasn't me-I was a little white bunny. And he started out of the room and I had to go with him for fear he'd touch me. It felt so horrid, going out with him and looking back at mother there asleep.

"We went into the main part of the house, and one of the big front doors was open, and we went out through it. And then he gave a big jump, and so did I, and it took us clear up into the sky. We couldn't fly, but we kept jumping and jumping.

"Sometimes we stayed in the sky a little while, jumping from cloud to cloud, and the moon would get closer and closer and bigger and bigger, and its face would change and get horrible and grin at us until it seemed like its mouth was a mile wide and open, to swallow us up. And then we'd come down again and jump from one cliff to another, and the sea would be roaring down under us, and the waves all grey and cold and moving around and boiling like they were mad or afraid.

"We went all over the island and sometimes we jumped over the sea to the mainland and back again; and sometimes I tried to get away and run back to Mother - I thought she'd know me even if I was a bunny - but always, whichever way I turned, the hare was there in front of me, and his teeth were shining.

"We kept it up all night, and I was so tired and cold and miserable, and so scared. I didn't know ~ Evangeline Walton

For a very long time, Viviane and Jack lived in that world people inhabit before love. Some people called that place friendship; others called it confusing. Viviane found it a pleasant place with an altitude that only occasionally made her nauseous. ~ Leslye Walton

If Anthony Johnson ever gets a jumper, who's going to stop him? ~ Bill Walton

I had confidence that as long as we did our work well and were good to our customers, there would be no limit to us. ~ Sam Walton

I like to think that he marveled at the mass of bandages that unraveled completely and tumbled to the ground, ant at the pair of pure white wings that unfolded from my shoulder blades and arched, large and strong, over my head.
But, mostly, I like to think that Jack Griffith, my father, smiled as I let go of the railing behind me and, stretching my wings to that star-studded sky, soared into the night. ~ Leslye Walton

Tarantino and Jackson is like Scorsese and DeNiro, and their silent communication. ~ Walton Goggins

The life of a character doesn't just exist between action and cut. ~ Walton Goggins

But imagine how he'd feel if you said that to him. It's not considering him as a person but as part of a class of inferior things. ~ Jo Walton

I've come to realize that the biggest problem anywhere in the world is that people's perceptions of reality are compulsively filtered through the screening mesh of what they want, and do not want, to be true. ~ Travis Walton

Kevin Garnett is the prototype for the NBA player of the future. He's already one of the greatest players to have played the game. ~ Bill Walton

Quincy laughed. "If I were Elizabeth I shouldn't thank either of you for that comforting diagnosis. Would it do any good to open Aunt Sarai's grave and drive a stake through her? If you believe in as much sorcery as that, you must regret the days of witch-burners, Carew."

Carew said quietly, "No. Witch-burners were barbarous blunderers. If I wanted to suppress a dangerous letter, could I do it by burning the envelope and leaving the letter loose? The witch would come back unchanged; I should merely have postponed the danger until another time and place. And have further handicapped myself to meet it, by depriving the witch, by violent death, of the years allotted her, or him, for evolution."

Joseph said with dry humor, "She might not have used them for that, Carew. At least not for your idea of it."

Carew shrugged. "That would be her responsibility, not mine. And, in any case, she would be that many years nearer the time of her inevitable change."

This time Joseph did not answer, only smiled. ~ Evangeline Walton

I have nothing but respect for the Lakers. So many of their legends shaped who I am as a person and player. ~ Bill Walton

I would like to think that Ive left the world of cardiovascular surgery better than when I found it. That would be a suitable epitaph. ~ C. Walton Lillehei

At home I walked through a haze of belongings that knew, at least vaguely, who they belonged to. Grampar's chair resented anyone else sitting on it as much as he did himself. Gramma's shirts and jumpers adjusted themselves to hide her missing breast. My mother's shoes positively vibrated with consciousness. Our toys looked out for us. There was a potato knife in the kitchen that Gramma couldn't use. It was an ordinary enough brown-handled thing, but she'd cut herself with it once, and ever after it wanted more of her blood. If I rummaged through the kitchen drawer, I could feel it brooding. After she died, that faded. Then there were the coffee spoons, rarely used, tiny, a wedding present. They were made of silver, and they knew themselves superior to everything else and special.

None of these things did anything. The coffee spoons didn't stir the coffee without being held or anything. They didn't have conversations with the sugar tongs about who was the most cherished. I suppose what they really did was physiological. They confirmed the past, they connected everything, they were threads in a tapestry. ~ Jo Walton

Sam Walton instilled ownership of the products in the stores into the collective consciousness of every associate regardless of what job they did for the company. ~ Michael Bergdahl