Ursula Vernon Quotes

I hate prophesies! All they're good for is an extra club to beat yourself up with after the fact. ~ Ursula Vernon

She didn't look any older, so far as she could tell from the mirror, but her heart felt like somebody had been scraping the last bits out with a spoon. ~ Ursula Vernon

So we have this eyesore on the property.
No, it's not the beagle. I can understand why you'd think that, though. ~ Ursula Vernon

I don't always burn my bridges, but when I do, I like there to be no survivors. ~ Ursula Vernon

Grandma Harken was sharpening her garden shears. Her hands slowed on the file and she said finally, "He'll get in trouble and he'll figure it out. Best to do it without us standing over him. It's the only way anybody ever learns to clean up after themselves. ~ Ursula Vernon

And now you will ask me about the musicians that played for the jackalope wives. Well, if you can find a place where they've been dancing, you might see something like sidewinder tracks in the dust, and more than that I cannot tell you. The desert chews its secrets right down to the bone. ~ Ursula Vernon

Wilbur looked at the list glumly. "Are you sure you need all this stuff?"
"Yep."
"The ax?"
"The ax is critical."
"The chalk?"
"The chalk is super-critical."
"The bungee cords?"
"Bungee cords are the single most useful object in the universe, Wilbur. People may say it's duct tape, but it's actually bungee cords. All great heroes know this. ~ Ursula Vernon

Dragons have been known to have staring contests with mountains. They usually win. ~ Ursula Vernon

I love boats. Boats are great. You can get all kinds of places and meet all kinds of interesting people, and you never know if they're going to try to eat you or worship you. ~ Ursula Vernon

Trolls have a longstanding animosity for goats
"Who's that trip-tapping across my bridge!?"
and this led me to think that perhaps trolls are related to goats, since it seems a lot more plausible to me that your relatives would make you insane than some random hooved mammal, however ecologically destructive it might be. What if trolls evolved from goats? Or, no, better yet, what if goats evolved from trolls? Or were domesticated from trolls by human shepherds? And the trolls despise their domesticated cousins as a disgrace to the once-proud troll race, (much as I assume wolves would despise Chihuahuas if they ever gave them much thought) and eat them at every opportunity. ~ Ursula Vernon

And that's how Snuggles the hamster learned that yes, things COULD always get worse. ~ Ursula Vernon

I know exactly what is at stake, Captain. You are trying to convince yourself that whatever cause you follow is worth that girl's death.
I know all about gods, Captain. I know that a god that demands a child's life is not a god worth saving. ~ Ursula Vernon

Oh dear God, no, stop!"

Fumblefoot gave her a reproachful look. Stop what?

I have broken into an enchanted manor house and my pony has crapped on the floor. Oh God.

-Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher ~ T. Kingfisher

I don't know why people don't paint more warthogs. Warthogs are fantastic. They have the most marvelous faces, like cracked mud with tusks. And the eyelashes! Like many otherwise hideous animals, they have truly spectacular eyelashes. But nooo, it's always the charismatic mammals, like foxes and wolves and tigers. Have you ever smelled a fox? Believe me, the warthog produces a light, airy fragrance suitable for the home or office compared to a fox. Um. What was I saying again? ~ Ursula Vernon

The last time Wendell's mother had caught them playing cowboys and Indians, she'd read them a twenty-minute lecture on the history of Native American oppression, which had really put a damper on things. It was hard to have a thrilling shoot-out while yelling: 'I respect your position and hope that we can come to a mutually respectful conclusion! ~ Ursula Vernon

If I may bend your ear for a moment, I like Terry Pratchett. I like footnotes. I like footnotes even when they are not as entertaining as a Pratchett footnote, even when they are in the middle of a book on evolutionary biology and briefly explain the Red Queen hypothesis or the fate of the Stephen's Island Wren or how many bunnies can dance on the back of Australia. Footnotes fill me with a very mild glee. The endnote simply does not compare. ~ Ursula Vernon

There is something about a bathroom that feels like a fortress. A closed bathroom door may only be about two inches of plywood, but it feels like an iron bar. ~ Ursula Vernon

He was tall and slim and had dark hair and young women found him fascinating.

This sort of thing happens often enough, even with boys as mortal as dirt. There's always one who learned how to brood early and often, and always girls who think they can heal him.

Eventually the girls learn better. Either the hurts are petty little things and they get tired of whining or the hurt's so deep and wide that they drown in it. The smart ones heave themselves back to shore and the slower ones wake up married with a husband who lies around and suffers in their direction. It's part of a dance as old as the jackalopes themselves. ~ Ursula Vernon

Once upon a time there was a girl who discovered that if she played a certain tune on a jade flute, she could summon up jade gnomes, a peculiar, harmless, but rather creepy looking spirit of the underground. The fact is that many of us have talents like this, but generally never discover them due to lack of opportunity, since one can go one's entire life without playing a jade flute, or discovering that one can speak the language of ground sloths, or turning fruitcake into solid tungsten by singing Sinatra tunes to it under a quarter moon. ~ Ursula Vernon

Okay. Morality in a nutshell. Don't hurt people if you can avoid it. Don't steal stuff unless you're starving or it's really, really important. Work hard. Pay your bills. Try to help others. Always double-check your math if there are explosives involved. If you screwed it up, you need to see it gets fixed. And don't eat anything that talks. If it doesn't fall under one of those categories, just do the best you can. ~ Ursula Vernon

Every now and again, a painting will get away from my control and take over. Sometimes it's a good thing. Sometimes it's a giant drooling hairy thing with pointy teeth. You know how it is. ~ Ursula Vernon

Air and Water can just swirl around being swirly, and Fire is just kind of aggressive, but my gut feeling is that Earth needs to work for a living. Earth has stuff to be doing. Earth is busy. Earth is solid and responsible and works hard. Earth is reliable. Earth is the designated driver of the elements and will always come over and feed the cat when you're out of town. ~ Ursula Vernon

Oh deaf Gog, no, stop!"

Fumblefoot gave her a reproachful look. Stop what?

"I have broken into an enchanted manor house and my pony has crapped on the floor. Oh God. ~ T. Kingfisher

She detested the princes cordially, because she had asked them for help long ago when the hamster kingdom had been trapped under a spell of sleep, and they had laughed at her. (Her mother insisted on the 'cordial' part. Harriet would have preferred to detest them actively, possibly with screaming, but since their parents ruled neighbouring kingdoms, this was not considered diplomatic.) ~ Ursula Vernon

The world was hard and fierce, but it also contained tomato sandwiches, and if that didn't make it a world worth living in, your standards were unreasonably high. ~ Ursula Vernon

Maps? There are no maps.
I go by dark ways, unclean ways. If such a map existed, it would be beyond price. Nameless cults would battle in the low places of the earth for such a price. Dreamers would starve themselves in endless visions seeking its location.
Such a map would have to be drawn on the skin of a black he-goat, in virgin's blood, with a brush made of dragon's eyelashes. The cartographer would go mad, and it would profane the hands that touched it. ~ Ursula Vernon

Temper is itself an obstacle. ~ Ursula Vernon

Then the pulse.
Then a pause.
Then twilight in a box.
Dusk underfoot.
Then generations.

-

Then the same war by a different name.
Wine splashing in the bucket.
The erection, the era.
Then exit Reason.
Then sadness without reason.
Then the removal of the ceiling by hand.

-

Then pages & pages of numbers.
Then the page with the faint green stain.
Then the page on which Prince Theodore, gravely wounded,
is thrown onto a wagon.
Then the page on which Masha weds somebody else.
Then the page that turns to the story of somebody else.
Then the page scribbled in dactyls.
Then the page which begins Exit Angel.
Then the page wrapped around a dead fish.
Then the page where the serfs reach the ocean.
Then a nap.
Then the peg.
Then the page with the curious helmet.
Then the page on which millet is ground.
Then the death of Ursula.
Then the stone page they raised over her head.
Then the page made of grass which goes on.

-

Exit Beauty.

-

Then the page someone folded to mark her place.
Then the page on which nothing happens.
The page after this page.

Then the transcript.
Knocking within.

Interpretation, then harvest.

-

Exit Want.
Then a love story.

Then a trip to the ruins.
Then & only th ~ Srikanth Reddy

I never knew anybody ... who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The truth , when it arrives is always different from what we thought it would be..if we imagine that we already know the truth, that imaginations based on old and habitual ideas. But the truth is always something entirely new to the mind; so we cannot possibly imagine it. Just as we cannot know what a new day is like before we experience it, we cannot think accurately about a new truth until we first live it. As we dare to drop our conditioned opinions, we make room for the truth... ~ Vernon Howard

He stopped and after a while went on. 'Try to choose carefully, Arren, when the great choices muct be made. When I was young I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt to the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, blinds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.'
How could such a man, thought Arren, be in doubt as towho and what he is? He had believed such doubts were reserved for the young, who had not done anything yet. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Belief in the lie is the life of the lie. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

What are a few false promises among friends, angel?"
"They're the difference between you and me ... that's what they are."
Vernon Kraft meets Ajax in The Ragtime Coven, coming soon! ~ Bruce Jenvey

It is useless work that darkens the heart. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The only reason you do not do great things is because you timidly cling to small things. Will you let loose of small things and bear the uncertainty of having nothing for a while? Do this and eventually you will do great things. ~ Vernon Howard

Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

We are all contingent. Resentment is foolish and ungenerous, and even anger is inadequate. I am a fleck of light on the surface of the sea, a glint of light from the evening star. I live in awe. If I never lived at all, yet I am a silent wing on the wind, a bodiless voice in the forest of Albunea. I speak, but all I can say is: Go, go on. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Hector had no virtue?" "Of course he did. He won all his battles, till the last one." "We all do," Aeneas remarked. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I cannot find anywhere in my life a time, or a kind of time, that is unoccupied. I am free, but my time is not. My time is fully and vitally occupied.... None of this is spare time. I can't spare it. ... I have no time to spare. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I named you once, I think," he said, and then strode to his house and entered, bearing the bird still on his wrist. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Oh, how he missed his sister. Out of everyone, the legions of the dead, the numberless infinities of souls who had gone before, it was the loss of Ursula that had left him with the sorest heart. ~ Kate Atkinson

When God speaks, when the Word speaks, energy is translated into matter. What is atomic fission? It is matter translated back into energy - poof! it disappears. Creation began with energy. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. ~ J. Vernon McGee

Fantasy is a literature particularly useful for embodying and examining the real difference between good and evil. In an America where our reality may seem degraded to posturing patriotism and self-righteous brutality, imaginative literature continues to question what heroism is, to examine the roots of power, and to offer moral alternatives. Imagination is the instrument of ethics. There are many metaphors besides battle, many choices besides war, and most ways of doing good do not, in fact, involve killing anybody. Fanstasy is good at thinking about those other ways. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Toughness is a good thing, yet it is considered good only in men. When a woman is tough, men can't stand it. I like being tough and smart. ~ Lillian Vernon

Then Ged pitied her. She was like a white deer caged, like a white bird wing-clipped, like a silver ring in an old man's finger. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

There is not much you can say about a baby unless you are talking with its father or another mother or nurse; infants are not part of the realm of ordinary language, talk is inadequate to them as they are inadequate to talk. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

To him a thinking man's job was not to deny one reality at the expense of the other, but to include and to connect. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The greatest sin today in the church is the man in the pew who is ignorant of the Bible. ~ J. Vernon McGee

To see a candle's light one must take it into a dark place. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Pregnant women have no ethics. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The tongue they speak there is not like any spoken in the Archipelago or the other Reaches, and they are a savage people, white-skinned, yellow-haired, and fierce, liking the sight of blood and the smell of burning towns. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The children of the revolution are always ungrateful, and the revolution must be grateful that it is so. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

At the pit's bottom is no anger. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The quality and virtue of a slave is invisibility. The powerless need to be invisible even to themselves. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

In diversity is life and where there's life there's hope, was the general sum of his creed, a modest one to be sure. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Gabe pulled the card from the envolope.

I want to help you.

He flipped the card over.

You are the best thing to ever happen to Vernon.

Then in the tiniest script were words that Gabe had to squint to read:

PS. The dog's name is Guppy. ~ Audrey Shafer

High in the hazy sky, the snowfkakes looked tiny and all alike, but as they drifted past the narrow window of the sewing room, all were unique - long or round or triangular - as if they'd borrowed their shapes from the clouds they'd come from. ~ Ursula Hegi

Some songs, some nights won't do anything for you, but people enjoy them and that's the job. The magic is finding those places to stand in the song and gain perspective. ~ Justin Vernon

The habit of silence is lead on the tongue. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I just understand ... I mean this may sound kind of bigheaded, bullheaded, or cumbersome, but when people say they've had a really deep experience with the record, like it caused a divorce or it like ... I've gotten all these stories. ~ Justin Vernon

They did not use the sonic stunners but the foray gun, the ancient weapon that fires a set of metal fragments in a burst. They shot to kill him. He was dying when I got to him, sprawled and twisted away from his skis that stuck up out of the snow, his chest half shot away. I took his head in my arms and spoke to him, but he never answered me; only in a way he answered my love for him, crying out through the silent wreck and tumult of his mind as consciousness lapsed, in the unspoken tongue, once, clearly, 'Arek!' Then no more. I held him, crouching there in the snow, while he died. They let me do that. Then they made me get up, and took me off one way and him another, I going to prison and he into the dark. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Stories are what death thinks he puts an end to. He can't understand that they end in him, but they don't end with him. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

But you're so strong. I wish I were strong. I just like eating. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The unconscious mind is coextensive with the universe. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Terrorism is not new to black people. ~ Vernon Jordan

Boy you really missed the boat. I'll make it simple, so's even fuckin you can understand. Papa God growed us up till we could wear long pants; then he licensed his name to dollar bills, left some car keys on the table, and got the fuck outta town". Water rushes to his eye-holes. "Don't be lookin up at no sky for help. Look down here, at us twisted dreamers". He takes hold of my shoulders, spins me around, and punches me towards the mirror on the wall. "You're the God. Take responsibility. Exercise your power ~ D.B.C. Pierre

When I go to a country, I go to flea markets, antique stores. I am always looking for something. ~ Ursula Andress

The Old Powers of earth are not for men to use. They were never given into our hands, and in our hands they work only ruin. Ill means, ill end. I was not drawn here, but driven here, and the force that drove me works to my undoing. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Xerox is really good at managing documents, and we're definitely good at managing through a process. ~ Ursula Burns

What being at leisure means is more easily felt than defined. ~ Vernon Lee

I have no problem with nudity. I can look at myself. I like walking around nude. It doesn't bother me. I see all the people walking around nude; it doesn't bother me. ~ Ursula Andress

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

What are we so afraid of? Why don't we let 'em tell us we're afraid? What is it they're afraid of?" She picked up the stocking she had been darning, turned it in her hands, was silent awhile; finally she said, "What are they afraid of us for? ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I mean what else is there for a woman to do if she doesn't want to go from the parental to the marital home with nothing in between? 'An educated woman,'Millie amended. 'An educated woman,' Ursula agreed. ~ Kate Atkinson