Sword Myth Quotes

Freed hands both rising for the pommel now, so natural, so smooth, it was like Kiriath machinery, as if he were machinery, a cunningly crafted clockwork Kiriath mannequin, built to complement the steel.
He felt the accustomed kiss of the grip on his palms, felt the grin on his face turn into a snarl.
Cold chime as the scabbard gave up its embrace.
And the Ravensfriend came out. ~ Richard K. Morgan

Follow the lead of your symptoms, for there's usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul. ~ James Hillman

Myth is supposed to bring us together, but fantasy alienates us. ~ Dustin Hoffman

Creation stories, so central in the religions of the Middle East, play a surprisingly marginal part in Greek myth. The Greeks had nothing to set alongside the resounding 'In the beginning' in the book of Genesis, where one eternal God creates the universe out of nothing. ~ Neil MacGregor

I know I'm not a coal miner, but I do long hours and I never complain, and there is nowhere else I'd rather be. So, yeah, that's how I'd define myself. I want to do it right, and prove people wrong once and for all about the myth of child stars. ~ Daniel Radcliffe

Things that other people do, or that happen to people you love, are some of the things you can't fight. ~ Hilari Bell

Callie tucked her brother into bed, and once he fell asleep, she left her room in search of her husband. She found him outside her door, leaning against the wall with his sword beside him.
"Sin? What are you doing?"
"'Twould appear I am sitting."
"And why are you sitting there?"
"Because it's rather difficult to sleep while standing."
Callie faltered as his meaning became clear. "You are sleeping outside my door? Why?"
"Because if I slept outside of Simon's door, the innkeeper might think I'm strange."
-Callie & Sin ~ Kinley MacGregor

Religious warriors are not an anomaly. It is a mistake to classify believers of particular religious and dogmatic religionlike ideologies into two groups, moderate versus extremist. The true cause of hatred and violence is faith versus faith, an outward expression of the ancient instinct of tribalism. Faith is the one thing that makes otherwise good people do bad things. Nowhere do people tolerate attacks on their person, their family, their country - or their creation myth. In America, for example, it is possible in most places to openly debate different views on religious spirituality - including the nature and even the existence of God, providing it is in the context of theology and philosophy. But it is forbidden to question closely, if at all, the creation myth - the faith - of another person or group, no matter how absurd. To disparage anything in someone else's sacred creation myth is "religious bigotry." It is taken as the equivalent of a personal threat. ~ Edward O. Wilson

The only thing they [government] want is better data. But data doesn't tell people someone is well educated. It's a vicious circle. There is some myth involved. Some of this attitude has a long history. ~ Deborah Meier

Let me tell you a story," I say instead. "Once upon a time, there was a girl whose life was saved by the faery king - "

"This story sounds distinctly familiar. I think I might have heard it somewhere before."

I shush him and say not to interrupt. "If anyone asked her how she felt about the king, she would have said she loathed him. He ruthlessly trained her to fight his own kind. He taught her to kill. She learned from his lessons how to quiet the rage that burned inside her. But she had already decided that one day, when she had grown strong enough and learned everything she could about battle, she was going to murder him."

Kiaran goes still, his eyes glittering in the darkness. He says nothing.

"Her opportunity came one night when he decided she was ready to hunt her first faery. It was a skriker that had been terrorizing a nearby village, slaughtering children in the night. The king handed the girl his sword and ordered her to kill the goblin-like creature.

"She barely won. But in the end, as she thrust the sword deep into the monster's gut, she felt something so profoundly that she thought it would consume her. So she told the king. She whispered the words and meant them with every part of her rage-filled soul: 'I hate you. I hate all of you.' When she lifted the sword again, she intended to pierce it right through his heart.

"That was the first time the girl had ever seen the faery king smile."

~ Elizabeth May

What the hell was that action?"Syn asked him.
"I think it´s something called ´paternal concern.´"
Syn scowled at his bland explanation. "What...? You sure? I thought that crap was a myth." Nykyrian shrugged. "No, really. I watched it once in a documentary. It was fascinating. Belive it or not, there are people out there who actually have feelings for their progeny." "Get the f*ck out. No way. You´re screwing with my head again, aren´t you?" "No, I swear. You just saw it with your own eyes. I did not make this shit up." Syn shivered. "Yeah but it´s really messing with my concept of natural order of the universe. Paternal love? What´s next? Limp regrowth? Genetic splicing reversals? ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

But I saw the pair of them, along with everyone else. Hard to miss. Him towering like a raggedy scarecrow in that flapping black scholar's gown, and the sword always quiet next to him, sweet as honey, and poison with it. ~ Ellen Kushner

I think a myth is created from truth. ~ Mark Lanegan

I shove the wooden debris out of the way until I see the smudged face of the teddy bear. "There she is." I carefully pull out the bear and sword. I proudly flip the bridal veil skirt to show him the scabbard. Raffe stares at the disguised sword for a second before commenting.
"Do you know how many kills this sword has?"
"It's a perfect disguise, Raffe."
"This sword is not just an angel sword. She's an archangel sword. Better than an angel sword, in case that's not clear. She intimidates the other angel swords ~ Susan Ee

You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a 'tree' until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.
We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Out myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbor, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of evil. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Dragons were dangerous in the sky. Of course, they were dangerous on the ground too. Just less dangerous. In the same way that a sword is less dangerous so long as it's pointed at someone else. ~ Brandon Sanderson

A great deal of effort has been devoted to explaining Babel. Not the Babel event
-- which most people consider to be a myth -- but the fact that languages tend
to diverge. A number of linguistic theories have been developed in an effort to
tie all languages together."
"Theories Lagos tried to apply to his virus hypothesis."
"Yes. There are two schools: relativists and universalists. As George Steiner
summarizes it, relativists tend to believe that language is not the vehicle of
thought but its determining medium. It is the framework of cognition. Our
perceptions of everything are organized by the flux of sensations passing over
that framework. Hence, the study of the evolution of language is the study of
the evolution of the human mind itself."
"Okay, I can see the significance of that. What about the universalists?"
"In contrast with the relativists, who believe that languages need not have
anything in common with each other, the universalists believe that if you can
analyze languages enough, you can find that all of them have certain traits in
common. So they analyze languages, looking for such traits."
"Have they found any?"
"No. There seems to be an exception to every rule."
"Which blows universalism out of the water."
"Not necessarily. They explain this problem by saying that the shared traits
are too deeply buried to be analyzable."
"Which is a cop out."
"Their ~ Neal Stephenson

- because just by hating it's possible to be purified from love, just with the sword, with the fire.. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

I would be copping out if I stayed in the myth of the '60s. ~ Jerry Rubin

No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children ... I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic ~ Richard Dawkins

Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. ~ Rumi

Mythology didn't cease to exist and be useful to Pagans when we gained digital watch technology. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

(Will unsheathed his sword.)
What is it you do? (Stryder)
Remember when you told us you'd rather be dead than married? (Val) ~ Kinley MacGregor

I thought: if I die, I hope I get reincarnated into a mosquito so I can bite that fucker kau-kau. ~ Zen Cho

Sadly as some old mediaeval knight
Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield,
The sword two-handed and the shining shield
Suspended in the hall, and full in sight,
While secret longings for the lost delight
Of tourney or adventure in the field
Came over him, and tears but half concealed
Trembled and fell upon his beard of white,
So I behold these books upon their shelf,
My ornaments and arms of other days;
Not wholly useless, though no longer used,
For they remind me of my other self,
Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways
In which I walked, now clouded and confused. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The best thing I can do is tell you the truth, or at least, what I think is the truth. ~ Victoria Aveyard

Destroy superabundance. Starve the flesh, shave the hair, clarify the mind, define the will, restrain the senses, leave the family, flee the church, kill the vermin,vomit the heart, forget the dead. Limit time, forgo amusement, deny nature, reject acquaintances, discard objects, forget truths, dissect myth, stop motion, block impulse, choke sobs, swallow chatter. Scorn joy, scorn touch, scorn tragedy, scorn liberty, scorn constancy, scorn hope, scorn exaltation, scorn reproduction, scorn variety, scorn embellishment, scorn release, scorn rest, scorn sweetness, scorn light. It's a question of form as much as function. It is a matter of revulsion. ~ Jenny Holzer

Many a man has known that startling instant in which Dan Cupid, that busy young rascal, took things in hand, and told him that his baby girl was not a baby girl now, and was about to fly away from him. It is both a happy and a sad thrill that shoots through a man at such an instant. Happy and joyous at his girl's arrival at maturity; sad, as it brings to mind that awkward fact that his own youth is now but a myth; and that his scalp is showing vacant spots. His baby girl in a bridal gown! His baby girl a Matron! His baby girl proudly placing a grandchild in his lap!! It's an impossibility!! But this big world is full of this kind of impossibility, and will stay so as long as Man lasts. ~ Ernest Vincent Wright

Oh, man,' Azdra'ik said. 'This is what our eldest saw. This is what our legends say. Who could know, but us? ~ C.J. Cherryh

If anyone attempted to rule the world by the gospel and to abolish all temporal law and sword on the plea that all are baptized and Christian, and that, according to the gospel, there shall be among them no law or sword - or need for either - pray tell me, friend, what would he be doing? He would be loosing the ropes and chains of the savage wild beasts and letting them bite and mangle everyone, meanwhile insisting that they were harmless, tame, and gentle creatures; but I would have the proof in my wounds. Just so would the wicked under the name of Christian abuse evangelical freedom, carry on their rascality, and insist that they were Christians subject neither to law nor sword, as some are already raving and ranting.

To such a one we must say: Certainly it is true that Christians, so far as they themselves are concerned, are subject neither to law nor sword, and have need of neither. But take heed and first fill the world with real Christians before you attempt to rule it in a Christian and evangelical manner. This you will never accomplish; for the world and the masses are and always will be unchristian, even if they are all baptized and Christian in name. Christians are few and far between (as the saying is). Therefore, it is out of the question that there should be a common Christian government over the whole world, or indeed over a single country or any considerable body of people, for the wicked always outnumber the good. Hence, a man who would venture to g ~ Martin Luther

You're not going to hurt my daddy, are you?" the little girl asked Tanin, glaring at him with dark eyes. "N-no," stuttered Tanin, taken aback. He lowered his sword. "We're just"-he shrugged, flushing scarlet-"talking. You know, man talk ~ Anonymous

I have suggested that behind almost all myth lies the mono-plot of the game of hide-and-seek. ~ Alan Watts

I gave him my best cryptic smile.
He grimaced. "What have you found out?" he asked.
"I'm not at liberty to tell you that." Not with the Pack suspect.
He leaned forward more, letting the moonlight fall on his face. His gaze was direct and difficult to hold. Our stares locked and I gritted my teeth. Five seconds into the conversation and he was already giving me the alpha-stare. If he started clicking his teeth, I'd have to make a run for it. Or introduce him to my sword.
"You will tell me what you know now," he said.
"Or?"
He said nothing, so I elaborated. "See, this kind of threat usually has an 'or' attached to it. Or an 'and.' 'Tell me and I'll allow you to live' or something like that."
His eyes ignited with gold. His gaze was unbearable now.
"I can make you beg to tell me everything you know," he said and his voice was a low growl. It sent icy fingers of terror down my spine.
I gripped Slayer's hilt until it hurt. The golden eyes were burning into my soul. "I don't know," I heard my own voice say, "you look kinda out of shape to me. How long has it been since you took care of your own dirty work?"
His right hand twitched. Muscles boiled under the taut skin and fur burst, sheathing the arm. Claws slid from thickened fingers. The hand snapped inhumanly fast. I weaved back and it fanned my face, leaving no scars. A strand of hair fell onto my left cheek, severed from my braid. The claws retracted.
"I think I still rememb ~ Ilona Andrews

People who experience themselves as authentic are also experiencing themselves as myth, but that's not the narrative they're going with. ~ Rachel Kushner

Having a place means that you know what a place means ... what it means in a storied sense of myth, character and presence but also in an ecological sense ... Integrating native consciousness with mythic consciousness ~ Gary Snyder

I have yet to encounter that common myth of weak men, an insurmountable barrier. ~ James Lane Allen

If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war. If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan and listen to the wails of their parents, we would not be able to repeat clichés we use to justify war. This is why war is carefully sanitized. This is why we are given war's perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war's consequences. The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining…

The wounded, the crippled, and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted offstage. They are war's refuse. We do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they tell is too painful for us to hear. We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myths of glory, honor, patriotism, and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless. ~ Chris Hedges

I was a she was a he was a we were a girl and a girl and a boy and a boy, we were blades, were a knife that could cut through myth, were two knives thrown by a magician, were arrows fired by a god, we hit heart, we hit home, we were the tail of a fish were the reck of a cat were the beack of a bird were the feather that mastered gravity were high above every landscape then down deep in the purple haze of the heather were roamin in a gloamin in a brash unending Scottish piece of perfect jiggling reeling reel can we really keep this up? this fast? this high? this happy? ~ Ali Smith

If we accept that we are all cut from the same genetic cloth, all cultures share the same genius. And whether that genius is placed into technological wizardry which has been our great achievement, or, by contrast, placed into the unraveling of complex threads of memory inherent in a myth is simply a matter of choice. ~ Wade Davis