Tad Williams Quotes

I've always preferred the city at night. I believe that San Judas, or any city, belongs to the people who sleep there. Or maybe they don't sleep - some don't - but they live there. Everybody else is just a tourist.
Venice, Italy, for instance, pulls in a millions tourists for their own Carnival season but the actual local population is only a couple of hundred thousand. Lots of empty canals and streets at night, especially when you get away from the big hotels, and the residents pretty much have it to themselves when tourist season slows during the winter.
Jude has character - everybody agrees on that. It also has that thing I like best about a city: You can never own it, but it you treat it with respect it will eventually invite you in and make you one of its true citizens. But like I said, you've got to live there. If you're never around after the bars close, or at the other end of the night as the early workers get up to start another day and the coffee shops and news agents raise their security gates, then you don't really know the place, do you? ~ Tad Williams

A man who will not listen carefully to advice honestly given is a fool. Of course, a man who blindly takes any advice he receives is a bigger fool. ~ Tad Williams

There were more problems with solitude than just being horny and bored. If you didn't have anyone to talk to for days on end, you didn't have anyone to let you know whether you were going nuts or not. ~ Tad Williams

When your teeth are gone, learn to like mush. ~ Tad Williams

Learn a lot about the world and finish things, even if it is just a short story. Finish it before you start something else. Finish it before you start rewriting it. That's really important.
It's to find out if you're going to be a writer or not, because that's one of the most important lessons.
Most, maybe 90% of people, will start writing and never finish what they started. If you want to be a writer that's the hardest and most important lesson: Finish it. Then go back to fix it. ~ Tad Williams

I'm pretty much a cat that way. Scratch my stomach, and I'll purr at you, but I'll want to gut you with my claws even more than if you'd ignored me. ~ Tad Williams

Do you listen to the wolves, Seoman?" Jiriki asked. "It's hard n-not to." "They sing such fierce songs." The Sitha shook his head. "They are like your mortal kind. They sing of where they have been, and what they have seen and scented. They tell each other where the elk are running, and who has taken whom to mate, but mostly they are merely crying 'I am! Here I am!' ~ Tad Williams

Stairs. This is Hell. Hell is stairs, was all Theo could think. I'd sell my soul for a goddamn elevator.
But I don't have a soul, do I? I'm some kind of fairy.
Okay, settle for an escalator, then. ~ Tad Williams

Dying men think of funny things-and that's what we all are here, aren't we? Dying men. ~ Tad Williams

See, vodka, that's drinking. Beer - well, beer is just getting the inside of your mouth wet. ~ Tad Williams

Good stories will tell you that facing the lie is the worst terror of all. And there is no talisman or magic sword that is half so potent a weapon as truth ~ Tad Williams

Dear Diary
Went out shopping today. Picked up half a dozen sheep, two pigs, and a princess. The sheep are rather depressingly thin, the pigs and princess only slightly less so. Dear Diary
Went out shopping today. Picked up half a dozen sheep, two pigs, and a princess. The sheep are rather depressingly thin, the pigs and princess only slightly less so. ~ Tad Williams

That is the problem with rumors," said Avin Brone. "It is very hard to prove that things are not true - much more difficult than proving they are. ~ Tad Williams

For me, any book I'm writing is also a chance to get in and research and read and learn things that I maybe only knew a little bit about before. ~ Tad Williams

Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it- memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey. ~ Tad Williams

He shouldn't have had to die."
"Nobody should have to die," Miriamele said slowly. "Especially while they're still alive. ~ Tad Williams

Fear goes where it is invited. ~ Tad Williams

We are none of us promised anything but the last breath we take. ~ Tad Williams

Perhaps a heart was indeed like a piece of dry birchwood, and could only take fire and burn brightly once - that any fire that came after would be only an ember, smaller and cooler. ~ Tad Williams

It's always difficult when people compare me unfavorably with other contemporary writers. It's much easier when they use examples from earlier eras of fiction. Because then I can say, Well, I may not be talented, but at least I'm not DEAD. ~ Tad Williams

We tell lies when we are afraid ... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger. ~ Tad Williams

Was Briony the only person who could hear the venom dripping from the woman's tongue? What good was beauty - a mature beauty, but beauty nonetheless - if it cloaked such a viperous soul? ~ Tad Williams

You dog!" she said, so loud that half the crowded tavern turned to watch. "A few days past the walls of the inner keep and you think your pizzle has turned to solid silver? At least when Nevin Hewney falls asleep on top of a girl, drooling and farting and limp as custard, he doesn't pretend he's done her a favor. ~ Tad Williams

Theo knew enough about women and their clothes to recognize she was trying to strike an appropriate balance between ... what? Between liking him and hating him? Between wanting to look good and not wanting to look too available? Just because he knew a mixed message when he saw one didn't mean he knew exactly which messages were being mixed ~ Tad Williams

Wicked Tribe, Rooling Tribe! is the mejor hacker tribe. Too small, too fast, too scientific! ~ Tad Williams

A proud man who could do more than he is asked to do. It is not good for the spirit. ~ Tad Williams

In the midst of such industry, gawky Simon was the fabled grasshopper in the nest of ants. He knew he would never amount to much: many people had told him so, and nearly all of them were older - and presumably wiser - than he. At an age when other boys were clamoring for the responsibilities of manhood, Simon was still a muddler and a meanderer. No matter what task he was given to do, his attention soon wandered, and he would be dreaming of battles, and giants, and sea voyages on tall, shining ships ... and somehow, things would get broken, or lost, or done wrong. ~ Tad Williams

Sleep. To lie down and shut out the noise, the fear, the unceasing misery. ~ Tad Williams

Stories are the things people use to give the universe a shape ... there is little difference between a folktale, a religous revelation, and a scientific theor ~ Tad Williams

Humans turn the places they live into great crowded piles of mud and stone, like the nests termites build
but what happens when in all the world there are only termite hills left but no bush? ~ Tad Williams

After all, is it not the way we humans shape the universe, shape time itself? Do we not take the raw stuff of chaos and impose a beginning, middle, and end on it, like the simplest and most profound of folktales, to reflect the shapes of our own tiny lives? And if the physicists are right, that the physical world changes as it is observed, and we are its only known observers, then might we not be bending the entire chaotic universe, the eternal, ever-active Now, to fit that familiar form? ~ Tad Williams

What is it you want, fairy woman?" he asked at last. "I have dead men to burn and a siege to finish." Ayaminu ~ Tad Williams

If God is all-powerful, then the Devil must be nothing more than a darkness in the mind of God. But if the Devil is something real and separate, than perfection is impossible, and there can be no God ... except for the aspirations of fallen angels ... ~ Tad Williams

stupid people trying to manage me sends me into acute depression. ~ Tad Williams

I am a sandwich man. Somewhere early in life, my epigenetic switches got flicked to 'likes sandwiches,' and that's where they still are. I suspect it's at least in part because they're easy to eat while reading. ~ Tad Williams

Now I end my death song. I give my farewell to mountain and sky. It has been good to be alive. ~ Tad Williams

A wolf is clever-clever-clever, and they are as faithful as a debt unpaid. ~ Tad Williams

Welcome, Simon, to the world of those who are every day condemned to thinking and wondering and never ever knowing with certainness. ~ Tad Williams

I haven't met that many women, human or angelic, who actually like to drive. In my experience they seem to be much more pragmatic about the whole thing than we are. For most males, driving is an extension of their masculinity; they have little fantasy scenarios going all the time - races, chases, and dramatic combat with other drivers. Females, on the other hand, generally seem to view driving as something you do to get somewhere. I know, crazy. ~ Tad Williams

Our lives aren't even about doing real things most of the time. We think and talk about people we've never met, pretend to visit places we've never actually been, to discuss things that are just names as though they were as real as rocks or animals or something. Information Age. Hell it's the Imagination Age. We're living in our own minds.
No, she decided as the plane began its steep descent, really we're living in other people's minds. ~ Tad Williams

and everywhere books, books, books, ~ Tad Williams

Sometimes people need reasons for things, even when there are no reasons. That's what makes people believe in conspiracies or religions - if there is any difference. The world is just too complicated, so they need simple explanations. ~ Tad Williams

There is no such thing as an accident. That's what science is all about. ( ... ) There are only patterns we don't yet recognize. ~ Tad Williams

Since your father has escaped my justice, it is you who must hear my words."
"Words. You keep saying ... "
"Because that was the gift your father gave to me. And the curse that ruined me as well, changed my life to wretched misery. There are hours yet before the guard comes - nay, eons. An eternity, in fact. This is my time, Miranda. Now you will have your words back: before I kill you, you will hear my tale ... and you will know what you have done. ~ Tad Williams

If you wish to carry a hungry weasel in your pocket, it is your choice. ~ Tad Williams

The world was all mud and wire. The war in the heavens was only a faint imitation of the horror men had learned to make. ~ Tad Williams

He turned up the car radio and punched buttons until he found something loud and thumpingly exultant, some piece of jolly stupidity from AC/DC. ~ Tad Williams

He led them around the base of a great fallen tree whose exposed roots resembled more than anything else a huge broom - a broom that would have fired the imagination of Rachel the Dragon toward heroic, legendary feats of sweeping. ~ Tad Williams

Ah? A small aversion to menial labor?" The doctor cocked an eyebrow. "Understandable, but misplaced. One should treasure those hum-drum tasks that keep the body occupied but leave the mind and heart unfettered. ~ Tad Williams

Confident. Cocky. Lazy. Dead. ~ Tad Williams

Music really did mean something to him, he realized, and it always had. It called to him, although there were no words to describe what it promised. It was like a secret language he never forgot how to speak, a hometown he could always return to when he tired of what life was throwing at him. ~ Tad Williams

Part of manhood, I am thinking, is to ponder one's words before opening one's mouth. ~ Tad Williams

Something gurgled in his throat. It took a moment before he realized it was a scream bottled in his innards, a blast of misery trying to force its way out. ~ Tad Williams

If someone had told her that she would be transported to what was for all purposes a magical land, where history could be rewritten at a whim, or people could suddenly be shrunk to the size of poppy seeds, but that at least for this moment, her most pressing concern would have been the absence of cigarettes, she would have thought them mad. ~ Tad Williams

Were all these castle folk in their ornate finery no more than confused souls hiding inside costumes, as the hard shells of snails protected the helpless, naked things that lived within them? ~ Tad Williams

Go down." It seemed obvious. "You have to go down before you can come out - that's how these things always work. ~ Tad Williams

Barrick could only stand and watch them go, alone with the tribe of incomprehensible strangers who lived now in his blood and his thoughts. ~ Tad Williams

The man who lives beside the water hole does not dream of thirst. ~ Tad Williams

If your enemy comes to speak bearing a sword, open your door to him and speak, but keep your own sword at hand. If he comes to you empty-handed, greet him the same way. But if he comes to you bearing gifts, stand on your walls and cast stones down on him. ~ Tad Williams

I mean, you could lie here day after day, if you wanted to, and think about nothing but waterbugs. Not chase waterbugs, mind you, just think about them. You could spend your whole day, every day, just wondering and pondering about waterbugs, and talking to others about waterbugs ... and before you realized it, you'd be old. One day you'd realize that you'd never actually seen a waterbug ... but by then you wouldn't want to, because it would spoil all your beautiful ideas. ~ Tad Williams

Fight and live, fight and die, God waits for all. ~ Tad Williams

THE NAME OF THE WIND has everything fantasy readers like, magic and mysteries and ancient evil, but it's also humorous and terrifying and completely believable. As with all the very best books in our field, it's not the fantasy trappings (wonderful as they are) that make this novel so good, but what the author has to say about true, common things, about ambition and failure, art, love, and loss. ~ Tad Williams

God grant me a quick honorable death, Isgrimnur prayed, and never let me be one of those old fools who sits by the campfire telling the young men that things will never be as good as they once were. ~ Tad Williams

A man whose wisdom is true does not sit in waiting for the world to come at him piece by piece for proving its existence! ~ Tad Williams

To fight a war, you must believe it can accomplish something. We fight this one to save John's kingdom, or perhaps even to save all of mankind ... but isn't that what we always think? That all wars are useless - except the one we're fighting now? ~ Tad Williams

It was only after they had left the bridge and its gaurdian far behind that Theo realized he had left Tansy's telephone-brooch in the pocket of his jacket. He had no plans to go back for it, of course: as far as Theo was concerned, that piece of two-legged ugliness was welcome to blow out Tansy's long-distance bill or download a ton of troll-porn and charge it to the Daisy commune.
Betray me, huh? Taste the Revenge of Vilmos! ~ Tad Williams

Johnny Battistini had gone to Japan once as a replacement drummer for a metal band past its prime ... a one-shot gig that he had talked about for years afterward. At the time, Theo had been frustrated by Johnny's inability to describe Tokyo and why it had made such an impression on him. Although he spoke about it frequently ... he could never explain his fascination more clearly than: 'It was just ... weird. It's like a regular city, but then it's all different and shit. But to them it's not different. And that's the really weird part! ~ Tad Williams

Of all the songs we Zida'ya sing," she (Aditu) murmured, "the closest to our hearts are those which tell of things lost."
"Perhaps that is because none of us can show something's value until it is gone," said Josua. ~ Tad Williams

Welcome to the Information Jungle. ~ Tad Williams

Whatever my ancestors did to you, none of them consulted me. ~ Tad Williams

The road to Heaven is paved with bullshit and busy work. ~ Tad Williams

But a mouse can be brave. Small as they are, though, they learn it is wiser not to challenge the cat. ~ Tad Williams

I'm tired of being lost and I'm tired of dying, so I'm going to try something different this time. ~ Tad Williams

If we do not reach our hands will always be empty. ~ Tad Williams

He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder. ~ Tad Williams

Every time you open your mouth," Clarence said, "you just seem older and weirder. ~ Tad Williams

Thank God for, as I posted earlier, the glow of work accomplished. Because a few seconds later, someone on the internet mentioned pie. I don't blame them. It's a good subject. But pie was mentioned and I remembered there was strawberry-rhubarb pie in the refrigerator. So I went there. And pie there was none. I suspect the teenaged boy has inhaled it. And now I cling to life and hope as best I can, because my world is dark and pieless. ~ Tad Williams

I've always been partial to werewolves, perhaps because there's a desperation to their plight that resonates. ~ Tad Williams

Sometimes I talk about baseball just to annoy people who don't understand it. ~ Tad Williams

Coca-Cola and fries, the wafer and wine of the Western religion of commerce. ~ Tad Williams

If you're writing fantasy or science fiction, it's really hard to do if you don't know a lot, at least in a basic way, about how the real world works. ~ Tad Williams

As I said, Princess, I am a writer, and as all know, that is another name for a fool. ~ Tad Williams

A teenage girl creaming while she listens to some boy-band, a monk digging on the God he hears in Gregorian chants, or John fucking Coltrane himself climbing up into the sky on a staircase made of sixteenth notes, it's all the same. If it takes you there, it's good. ~ Tad Williams

Because love does not do sums, but instead make choices, and then gives its all. ~ Tad Williams

What does that mean, 'real'? Amn't I real, you? If you cut me, do I not bleed? If you piss me off, will I not kick you up the arse? ~ Tad Williams

You show me what someone listens to, I'll tell you everything you want to know about his soul. (For instance, a bunch of Nickelback albums would have indicated he never had a soul in the first place.) ~ Tad Williams

When it falls on your head, then you are knowing it is a rock. ~ Tad Williams

Even the king's Erkynguard might have wished to be elsewhere, rather than here on this killing ground where duty brought them and loyalty prisoned them. Only the mercenaries were here by choice. To Simon, the minds of men who would come to this of their own will were suddenly as incomprehensible as the thoughts of spiders or lizards - less so, even, for the small creatures of the earth almost always fled from danger. These were madmen, Simon realized, and that was the direst problem of the world: that madmen should be strong and unafraid, so that they could force their will on the weak and peace-loving. If God allowed such madness to be, Simon could not help thinking, then He was an old god who had lost His grip. ~ Tad Williams

Every time we tell a lie, the thing we fear grows stronger. ~ Tad Williams

How can you care for a rough man like me?' he asked me. 'How can you love a man who can bring you no lands but the farm a soldier's pension can buy? Who can give your children no title of nobility?' Because love does not do sums, I should have told him. Love makes choices, and then gives its all. Had he seen himself as I first saw him though, he could have had no questions. ~ Tad Williams

Unless technology itself is drastically repressed, the idea of the dystopian monoculture like Orwell's 1984 gets harder to believe. But the danger of a solipsistic society will grow, of a disconnected society of mirror-watchers and navel-gazers. ~ Tad Williams

You are only a prisoner when you surrender. ~ Tad Williams

Every man is the hero of his own song. ~ Tad Williams

I must make a choice every time I speak a sentence in English. I try to choose the happier way of saying things, so that my own words will not weigh me down like stones. ~ Tad Williams

Kind of like I suspect things are at night in the It's A Small World ride, when all the little figures come to life and whisper about how they'd like to torture and murder all those screaming children and grinning grown-ups in the boats. ~ Tad Williams

Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess. Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival. ~ Tad Williams

Briony's ladies-in-waiting kept their distance, as though their mistress had some illness which might spread - and indeed she did, Briony thought, because unhappiness was ambitious. ~ Tad Williams

It was strange how the future seemed tied inseparably to the past, so that both revolved through the present, like a great wheel ... ~ Tad Williams

A piece of writing is a trap," he said cheerily, "and the best kind. A book, you see, is the only kind of trap that keeps its captive - which is knowledge - alive forever. ~ Tad Williams

That is what I hate about ruling and royalty, Simon. It is living, breathing people with whom a prince plays the games of statecraft. ~ Tad Williams