Steven Brust Quotes

I tend to close my eyes when I look at people anymore. ~ Steven Brust

No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style. ~ Steven Brust

Staring into the dragon's maw, one quickly learns wisdom. ~ Steven Brust

Minneapolis has two seasons: Road Removal and Snow Repair. ~ Steven Brust

I just never learn: When you're about to finally get what you've been wanting, and when it's what you need like you've rarely needed anything, turn off your fucking phone. ~ Steven Brust

So I walked down to the operation nearest my office, a brothel, and found the manager. Before he could say anything, I pinned the right side of his cloak to the wall with a throwing knife, about knee level. I did the same with his left side. I put a shuriken into the wall next to each ear, close enough to cut. Then Loiosh went after him and raked his claws down the guy's face. I went up and hit him just below his sternum, then kneed him in the face when he doubled over. He began to understand that I wasn't happy. ~ Steven Brust

Painting consists of long periods of minutes followed by short bursts of hours ~ Steven Brust

But then, it is the mark of a good book that it rewards many readings, is it not? ~ Steven Brust

There are millions of ways for people to die, if you number each vital organ, each ways it can fail, all the poisons from the earth and the sea which can cause these failures. ~ Steven Brust

Just a feeling." "Hmmm. Well, since it's your job to have feelings, I guess I'll go with it. But if you're wrong, and they kill me, I'm going to be very disappointed in you." "I'll bear that in mind." * ~ Steven Brust

It is always man's ideas which drive his actions. This has, at times, resulted in great evil; but as we look around us, we cannot doubt that it has resulted in greater good. ~ Steven Brust

You connect yourself to the viewer by by sharing something that is inside of you that connects with something inside of him. All you have as your guide is that you know what moves you. ~ Steven Brust

Let him who doubts the victory wrest the banner from my hand. ~ Steven Brust

I suggested that my patron goddess should take sensual pleasure, though I didn't put it quite in those terms. ~ Steven Brust

There's nothing worse than a smartass who pretends not to understand hyperbole. ~ Steven Brust

I have something to tell you." "How, you have something to tell me?" "You have understood me exactly." "Well, I am listening." "Listening? Then, you wish me to tell you?" "Yes, that is it. I am listening, and therefore I wish you to tell me." "Shall I tell you now?" "No. ~ Steven Brust

It's just that no one wants to be the one being rescued, we all want to do the rescuing. ~ Steven Brust

It is not the lack of wit or intellect that shallow men crave [in women], it is lack of personality; they desire a woman who will exist only as a shadow to themselves, because this gives them the illusion that they have some importance, that they are more than cattle. ~ Steven Brust

Don't explain why it works; explain how you use it. ~ Steven Brust

But we're assassins: when we make mistakes, people live ~ Steven Brust

Ever heard someone tell you that hard physical labor can be soothing? Can take your mind off your problems? Can leave you feeling better? I'd heard that. In my opinion, hard physical labor gives you blisters, and the only real distraction I got was trying to remember the spells I'd once known for curing them. He was much better than me, by the way; turns out there is even skill involved in digging holes. Who knew? ~ Steven Brust

We passed a street minstrel who was singing in one of the more obscure Eastern languages, and I dropped a few orbs into his instrument case.
"Boss, was he singing what I thought he was singing?"
"A young man tells his beloved of his love for her."
" 'My little hairy testicle - ' "
"It's a cultural thing, Loiosh. You wouldn't understand. ~ Steven Brust

Xxx there is a certain kind of peace that you find in the middle of a city when you are the only one on the street, and you can hear your footsteps echo on the dry pavement, xxx ~ Steven Brust

It is as if I have changed in some way, but I can't tell what it is, or if it will fade with time. ~ Steven Brust

Chaler, who had finished his ale, left the cup where it was, making no effort to procure more, indicating that he was capable of what the natural philosopher calls "learning behaviour," which turn of phrase pleases us so much that we cannot resist making use of it. ~ Steven Brust

Time has stretched, so that a few hours are an age; and it has collapsed, so that the events of hours seem to have ended before they began. Turmoil, even when generated from within, can do that to a person. ~ Steven Brust

People trying to force their agenda on my by deciding how I'm permitted to speak is offensive. ~ Steven Brust

Why does he call you spider?"

"It's a little out of date, actually. When I first met Engels - when I first fell in with that whole crowd, in fact - I would sit with a book in my lap, or something else that I wasn't really paying attention to, so that I could pretend to be doing something else while I listened to the arguments. One evening someone said something particularly indefensible. And I'd got so comfortable that I objected out loud."

James was smiling, too, his head a little to one side as if he were watching the past as I described it.

"In the awful silence that followed - no, don't laugh, it really was awful at the time - Engels said, "I believe our spider has finished her web. Think before you speak, my friends. Fools are her lawful prey."

"Sitting in corners, observing everything, catching everything, and never letting it get away." James shook his head, still smiling. "You must be the only woman on the face of the earth who understands that that's a compliment. ~ Steven Brust

To seek understanding before taking action, yet to trust my instincts when action is called for. Never to avoid danger from fear, never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity, never to be eccentric from fear of conformity. ~ Steven Brust

It wasn't until I was working on 'Tacky' that I admitted to myself that I was writing a series. ~ Steven Brust

What are you working on?" "I'm trying to set up a store to sell baskets of none-of-your-fucking-business at wholesale prices. ~ Steven Brust

All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what's cool. ~ Steven Brust

I guess there's just a time for doing dumb things. ~ Steven Brust

It isn't always easy to act on what's in your head instead of what's in your heart. And it isn't always right to. The whole trick to knowing what to do is deciding when to make yourself listen to your head, and when it's okay to just follow your feelings. ~ Steven Brust

And all of the late, late-night talks, when you're not stoned, but you're so tired you might as well be, when you just sit there glowing with warmth, and all of those things that you really hope for come out, and you connect with each other on such deep levels that, when you think about it the next day, you wonder if it was real - if the others felt it too. ~ Steven Brust

Plan. Yes. Good idea. I should come up with a plan. ~ Steven Brust

A cheery receptionist met Donovan as he entered and said something with an upside-down question mark at the beginning. ~ Steven Brust

Does it really matter what you feel when you do something? Does it somehow make a difference if you're sorry when you go blasting your way over someone's life like a locomotive over a papier-mâché doll ~ Steven Brust

I'm told I'm very charming when people do what I want. ~ Steven Brust

She smiled at me. We were all friends here. Morrolan carried Blackwand, which slew a thousand at the Wall of Barrit's Tomb. Aliera carried Pathfinder, which they say served a power higher than the Empire. Sethra carried Iceflame, which embodied within it the power of the Dzur Mountain. I carried myself rather well, thank you. ~ Steven Brust

The others followed, and found themselves in a small, stuffy basement, which would have been damp, smelly, close, and dark, were it not, in fact, well-lit, which prevented it from being dark. ~ Steven Brust

I've heard it said: 'By his home you shall know him'; and we all know that we must pay attention to anyone who reverses the subject and auxiliary verb in his sentence. ~ Steven Brust

When I say that life is like an onion, I mean this: if you don't do anything with it, it goes rotten. So far, that's no different from other vegetables. But when an onion goes bad, it can either do it from the inside, or the outside. So sometimes you see one that looks good, but the core is rotten. Other times, you can see a bad spot on it, but if you cut that out, the rest is fine. Tastes sharp, but that's what you paid for, isn't it? ~ Steven Brust

There was a sergeant at a desk. I knew he was a sergeant because I recognized the marks on his uniform, and I knew it was a desk because it's always a desk. There's always someone at a desk, except when it's a table that functions as a desk. You sit behind a desk, and everyone knows you're supposed to be there, and that you're doing something that involves your brain. It's an odd, special kind of importance. I think everyone should get a desk; you can sit behind it when you feel like you don't matter. ~ Steven Brust

The tools are real. The viewer is real, you, the artist, is real and a part of everything you paint. You connect yourself to the viewer by sharing something that is inside of you that connects with something inside of him. All you have as your guide is that you know what moves you. All you have to do it with is a brush, some chemical and canvas, and technique. ~ Steven Brust

That's what does it
that moment where you think you're lost, and then discover that you're not, that you've never really left. There's something that happens in that incredible tiny no-time, and that something is like the revelation of learning. ~ Steven Brust

Captain, said Khaavren, both by way of affirmation and correction, thus conveying the maximum amount of information in the fewest possible words; a custom of his, and one that this historian has, in fact, adopted for himself, holding efficiency of language to be a high virtue in all written works without exception. ~ Steven Brust

Saving someone's life is a wonderful feeling. Try it. You feel like, if you don't mind a TV reference, a big damn hero. ~ Steven Brust

Most people seem to take pleasure in feeling superior to someone. I'm not like that, which pleases me because it makes me feel superior. ~ Steven Brust

Boss, she's a _Dragon_. They don't _believe_ in assassination. They consider it a _crime_. If you go up to her and
"
"Kragar," I interrupted, "I never said that I was going to go up to her and say, 'Aliera, I'm trying to assassinate this guy, how would you like to help set him up?' Give me credit for a little finesse, all right? ~ Steven Brust

You may borrow them, if
you wish," so I could avoid letting him startle me.
"I'd like that very much."
"I should warn you, however, that I have several volumes devoted to curses for
people who don't return books."
"I'd like to borrow those, too. ~ Steven Brust

If you're trying to scare me," I said, "it's working." "I can do a great deal more than scare you." Where do they get this stuff? "Um, if I thought all you could do was scare me, you couldn't scare me, if you see what I mean." "We'll see how funny you are in a little while." I was mildly curious about that myself. ~ Steven Brust

I have a clever and devious plan. ~ Steven Brust

There is no excuse for bad manners, except fast reflexes. ~ Steven Brust

[...] I've learned something about my own hunches: the only time they turn out to be meaningful is when I ignore them. ~ Steven Brust

Because here's the thing: No matter how much one tells stories of magical beasts or impossible worlds, in the end, it is always the world of here and now one is writing about. The better one understands that world, the more powerful the stories will be. ~ Steven Brust

Your job is to find better ideas, mine is to cut holes in the ones you have, and you've already done that pretty well. ~ Steven Brust

Xxx it is not lack of wit or intellect that shallow men crave, it is lack of personality; they desire a woman who will exist only as a shadow to themselves, because this gives them the illusion that they have some importance, that they are more than cattle. Personality is what distinguishes us from each other, what makes each man and woman unique, and to submerge one's personality is to make one's self interchangeable, like a mass-produced commodity; xxx ~ Steven Brust

Always speak politely to an enraged dragon. ~ Steven Brust

One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling. ~ Steven Brust

You'll be angry, but I'm going to ask anyway. Will you marry me?' The unsupported voice, the one that happened when he couldn't breathe, but had to speak.
I nudged his hands apart to see his face, and found it faintly overcast by tension. 'No,' I said gently,
He blinked again and asked, his voice unaltered, 'May I ask you once a year, every seventh of December, in case the answer changes?'
'Yes. I don't think it will.'
'Oh. I only ask because I hate the thought of not having breakfast with you for the rest of my life.'
'My dear,' I said. 'Jamie. That's a different question.'
'Oh. Will you have breakfast with me for the rest of my life?'
'Probably. ~ Steven Brust

Chapter the Eleventh: In Which the Plot, Behaving in Much the Manner Of a Soup to which Corn Starch Has been Added, Begins, at Last, to Thicken. ~ Steven Brust

As I passed a market, I thought I saw Devera, Aliera's daughter, looking at me. I almost stopped, but when I looked again she was gone, so I decided I was either imagining it, or she didn't want to talk to me. She is a very unusual child, but I guess now isn't the best time for that conversation. I put it out of my head and kept walking until I reached the Imperial Palace. ~ Steven Brust

Any point in a process looks like the process was leading up to it if that's as far as you've gotten. ~ Steven Brust

Grand," I said. "Just grand. I get myself into the army, stand up in battles I have no business in, get nailed in the back by sorcery, accept an impossible assignment to be carried out in the middle of it all, and then, just to top things off, I have to go have a mystical fucking experience. This is just great. ~ Steven Brust

Pittsburgh. I'd been there. One of the most underrated cities in North America. People who'd never been there thought of it as a graveyard of abandoned steel mills, but it was a beautiful city, and it would be good to have it back. ~ Steven Brust

Boss, what, exactly, are we doing here?" "Feeling maudlin." "Oh. Good. How long are we planning on doing that?" "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" "What?" "Never mind. ~ Steven Brust

Appropriate action means to advance your own goals, without unintentional harm to anyone else. ~ Steven Brust

When you stop being surprised, you've stopped living. ~ Steven Brust

Why do you work so hard to make yourself disliked? I should think you'd find it happens enough on its own without putting yourself to any extra trouble. ~ Steven Brust

I shall draw forth thy bones one by one ere I send thee to the devil. So that for all time thy shapeless body shall serve a a carpet for all the minions of Hell. ~ Steven Brust

You're stubborn, Vlad."

"Is that a compliment? ~ Steven Brust

I'm a decent cook. I'm an outstanding eater. ~ Steven Brust

We create our own omens, I think, and then mystify ourselves trying to understand their significance. ~ Steven Brust

What foul sorcery is this?" she said. "Pretty standard foul sorcery; nothing special." "Okay," she said. "Just checking. ~ Steven Brust

Several years ago, I was getting drunk with four or five of the most powerful sorcerers in the Empire - like you do - when Daymar told a story. ~ Steven Brust

Can you be serious for two words?"
"Not without effort. ~ Steven Brust

The struggle is always worthwhile, if the end be worthwhile and the means honorable; foreknowledge of defeat is not sufficient reason to withdraw from the contest. ~ Steven Brust

I turned away, took a deep breath, and sheathed the weapon. I never know what to
say after I've intimidated someone; I ought to keep a list of tough-guy remarks. ~ Steven Brust

The door opened, and Ren emerged, and my heart did a thing. ~ Steven Brust

Short version: it doesn't matter how many bad decisions you just made, your job is to make the next one correct. ~ Steven Brust

The heart provides the intuitive desires, for the mind to focus upon then achieve them. ~ Steven Redhead

Sometimes on Wednesday I'll read something that I wrote on Tuesday and I'll think, "This is crap. I hate it and I hate myself." Then I'll re-read the identical passage on Thursday. To my astonishment, it has become brilliant overnight. Ignore false negatives. Ignore false positives. Both are Resistance. Keep working. ~ Steven Pressfield

Well, I think the way you feel as a teenager stays with you, forever. I really believe that. And we try to change and we hope that we change, but we don't really in big ways, in serious ways. I think the personality is formed at that time, for the good and for the bad ... We all want to grow up and move on and appear to be different to people. And we want people to see us in a different way. But, I don't know, I think the personality is very, very strongly cemented, and we just bear whatever shortcomings we have and learn to live with it. ~ Steven Morrissey

When it first emerged, Twitter was widely derided as a frivolous distraction that was mostly good for telling your friends what you had for breakfast. Now it is being used to organize and share news about the Iranian political protests, to provide customer support for large corporations, to share interesting news items, and a thousand other applications that did not occur to the founders when they dreamed up the service in 2006. This is not just a case of cultural exaptation: people finding a new use for a tool designed to do something else. In Twitter's case, the users have been redesigning the tool itself. The convention of replying to another user with the @ symbol was spontaneously invented by the Twitter user base. Early Twitter users ported over a convention from the IRC messaging platform and began grouping a topic or event by the "hash-tag" as in "#30Rock" or "inauguration." The ability to search a live stream of tweets - which is likely to prove crucial to Twitter's ultimate business model, thanks to its advertising potential - was developed by another start-up altogether. Thanks to these innovations, following a live feed of tweets about an event - political debates or Lost episodes - has become a central part of the Twitter experience. But for the first year of Twitter's existence, that mode of interaction would have been technically impossible using Twitter. It's like inventing a toaster oven and then looking around a year later and discovering that all your custo ~ Steven Johnson

In my dreams I come face to face with myriad reflections of myself, all unknown and passing strange. They speak unending in languages not my own and walk with companions I have never met, in places my steps have never gone. In my dreams I walk worlds where forests crowd my knees and half the sky is walled ice. Dun herds flow like mud, vast floods tusked and horned surging over the plain, and lo, they are my memories, the migrations of my soul. ~ Steven Erikson

The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket. ~ Steven Pressfield

As Lynn Margulis writes: All the world's bacteria essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptive mechanisms of the entire bacterial kingdom. The speed of recombination over that of mutation is superior: it could take eukaryotic organisms a million years to adjust to a change on a worldwide scale that bacteria can accommodate in a few years. ~ Steven Johnson

The professional gives an ear to criticism, seeking to learn and grow. But she never forgets that Resistance is using criticism against her on a far more diabolical level. Resistance enlists criticism to reinforce the fifth column of fear already at work inside the artist's head, seeking to break her will and crack her dedication. The professional does not fall for this. Her resolution, before all others, remains: No matter what, I will never let Resistance beat me. ~ Steven Pressfield

All you can do is your inch. We grab everyone we can carry, put each other onto our backs, and crawl toward the future. Inch by inch - it's all we can do. ~ Steven Kotler

Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety one? ~ Steven Wright

Solzhenitsyn recounted a party conference in Moscow that ended with a tribute to Stalin. Everyone stood and clapped wildly for three minutes, then four, then five ... and then no one dared to be the first to stop. After eleven minutes of increasingly stinging palms, a factory director on the platform finally sat down, followed by the rest of the grateful assembly. He was arrested that evening and sent to the gulag for ten years.278 ~ Steven Pinker

If not for a dumb beast's incomprehension at its own destruction beneath
the loving hands of two heartbroken children. ~ Steven Erikson

Between the time of Jesus and the 20th century, 19 million people were executed for trivial offenses.68 ~ Steven Pinker

I moved into an all-electric house. I forgot and left the porch light on all day. When I got home the front door wouldn't open. ~ Steven Wright

I dare to believe in the beauty of my dreams, and I use my imagination to see them fulfilled. ~ Steven Cuoco

When it comes to our integrity: one moment in a dark place can cast a shadow for a lifetime. ~ Steven Furtick

If movies generically don't work, you immediately start to pick apart what ingredients contributed to that. If any movie is working, hopefully how it was made will be the least of your concern. You'll only want to have a god time. ~ Steven Spielberg

If only one person in the world held down a terrified, struggling, screaming little girl, cut off her genitals with a septic blade, and sewed her back up, leaving only a tiny hole for urine and menstrual flow, the only question would be how severely that person should be punished, and whether the death penalty would be a sufficiently severe sanction. But when millions of people do this, instead of the enormity being magnified millions-fold, suddenly it becomes "culture," and thereby magically becomes less, rather than more, horrible, and is even defended by some Western "moral thinkers," including feminists. ~ Steven Pinker

The biggest mistake that I see people with Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) making is believing that all electromagnetic fields are harmful. ~ Steven Magee