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Tim Powers
100 quotes
“He always had to use holy water—real holy water, from gallon jugs he filled from the silver urn at St. Anne’s—but though it impressed the customers, all he could see that it actually did was get stuff wet.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When did you…die?” “I don’t know. Sometime besides now.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It always upset me to consider how thoroughly even the keenest-edged minds are at the mercy of hormones and such biological baggage. We are all indeed windowless gonads, as Leibniz nearly said.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And you’ve never married.” “I don’t know any women well enough to hate ’em that much.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Solipsism,” said Felise. “I thought that too, for a while, but it was so obvious that my cat didn’t think so, didn’t think I was the only thing in the universe, that I decided it wasn’t true.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love isn’t in the category of normal things. Not any worthwhile kind of love, anyway.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You protect the ones you love. He clung to the thought. Even if they ignorantly resent you for it.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nolo contendere spelled backward is reincarnation.” “Uh—no it’s not.” “Yes it is. I heard it on the radio.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, you’re right, I did kill her, I do remember. With a gun. She disrespected me.” He nodded. “One does what one has to do—I don’t blame myself. I was always true to my own conscience.” The last sentences had a rote sound, as if he’d said them many times. “Your conscience? You were always true to your, your narcissism.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s something you should know about me.” “What’s that?” “I don’t know, but you should know it.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work out your own damnation,” he said breathlessly, “in fear and trembling.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Biscuit sighed and lifted from the mantle the glass box with Grandpa Coldharp’s oracular penny in it. It was an Indian head penny, minted in 1909, and when the box was shaken the penny bounced around inside but always came up heads; the family tradition was that you could ask it any question, as long as the answer was yes.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What would Dad say, Frank wondered briefly, if he knew I was making a living as an art forger? He’d understand. As he once told me, while squinting against the hideous sunlight of a cold morning, “Frankie, if it was easy they'd have got somebody else to do it.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This fruit syrup stuff is no good for smoking; it’s only fit for impressing ignorant girls.” Tyler shrugged, as if to say that that was reason enough to smoke it right there.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the story was finished, Orcrist shook his head wonderingly. “The Fates must have something planned for you, Frank.” “I hope it’s something quiet.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art, like a lot of things, is a lost art.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What was that building?” Thomas asked, leaning on the coping, and staring out at the conflagration. “Oh, a city office bombed by radicals,” Spencer answered, “or a radicals’ den bombed by city officers. I just hope it doesn’t spread real far on this wind.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Weird evening,” he said. “With this wind and all.” Gladhand nodded. “Several hundred years ago it was considered a valid defense in a murder trial if you could prove the Santa Ana wind was blowing when the murder was committed. The opinion was that the dry, hot wind made everybody so irritable that any murder was almost automatically excusable. Or so I’ve heard, anyway.” Thomas pondered it. “There might be something to that,” he said. “No,” Gladhand said. “There isn’t. Start sanctioning heat-of-anger crimes and you’ve lost the last hold on the set of conventions we call…society, civilization.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s too bad she’s the first girl I ever really knew, Thomas thought. I have no way of knowing whether all girls are this way or if she’s unique. I wonder if every guy heaves an instinctive sigh of relief when he’s kissed his girl goodnight, and the door is shut, and he can go relax by himself?”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gladhand sipped his whiskey. “Bourbon renewal, I called this,” he said, waving his glass. “One sip and the whole neighborhood looks better.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn’t yet lost.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He felt as if someone far away below in the darkness was chipping away at the pillars of his mind, and the steady crack...crack...crack of it was the only sound in the universe.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The wages of courage is death, lad, but it’s the wages of everything else, too.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You’re still Brian Duffy. As much as you ever were. But you’re Arthur, too, and that kind of outshines everything else. Brandy and water tastes more like brandy than water, after all.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Trusting Merlin is like giving a migrant scorpion a lift inside your hat.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Say that again after you’ve been in the same spot and acted differently, old buddy. Maybe then I’ll be ashamed.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’ve learned that having a lot of money is more fun than not having a lot of money, and that once you’ve got it, it tends to grow all by itself, like a fire.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You ever notice, Joe,” he asked, mechanically picking up the mug, “that it always takes a little more trouble to get something than the thing was really worth?” Joe considered it. “Better than taking a lot of trouble and getting nothing.” Dundee sipped the coffee. He didn’t seem to have heard Joe. “There’s so much weariness and fatigue in it all. For every action there is an equal...stupefaction. No, that might be bearable—it’s greater than the action.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Certainly no valid answer is ever gained by excluding any factors of the problem; that was the Puritans’ error.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some people, he thought, simply have no will to survive—they’re walking hors d’oeuvres waiting for someone who can spare the time to devour them.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People are so tasty when they’re truly embittered, truly despairing...and that’s when they come to Sevatividam. They can’t stand the bitter rain, so they run in under one of the two awnings—religion or dissipation—and guess who’s waiting for them under both awnings at once...”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And everybody there thought we were! So who cares? So I care—you are what people think you are, which is why it’s so important to get them thinking you’re someone who...counts. Gaah.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How does my offer sound? ”Rivas took a long thoughtful sip. “Let’s see,” he said finally. “It sounds insincere, impossible, and definitely, absolutely unattractive.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The seas and the weathers are what is; your vessels adapt to them or sink.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whats o’clock?” It wants a quarter to twelve, And to-morrow’s doomsday.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was dizzy, and it occurred to him that Newton must have been right when he’d said that light consisted of particles, for today he could feel them hitting him.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The church has become a more...exclusive club since the founder’s day, it’s clear. No doubt the Devil is more hospitable.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every ruler wants to maintain the status quo.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) first seen 1818 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interlude “Summer, 1818” (p. 170)
“Processions of priests and religiosi have been for several days past praying for rain; but the gods are either angry, or nature is too powerful.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The landlord crossed himself when they checked in, but an English ten-pound note for a week’s lodging overcame whatever superstitious misgivings the man may have had.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God help us,” said Crawford softly. “If there is one.” Byron grinned. “A whole lot of ghastly things have turned out to be possible, remember.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She’s probably only now beginning to be able to think for herself, he thought. And she’ll be hating it. Will she acknowledge the responsibilities that she can now clearly see, or will they be so appalling that she’ll just want to return to the selfless haze?”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He tried to put more conviction into his voice than he felt, and he mentally cursed any God that there might be, for having made this coming ordeal not only tremendously difficult and dangerous, but possibly pointless too.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It wasn’t fair, but fairness was something you had to go get; it wasn’t delivered like the mail.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gambling was the place where statistics and profound human consequences met most nakedly, after all, and cards, even more than dice or the numbers on a roulette wheel, seemed able to define and perhaps even dictate a player’s...luck.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m really willing to try to believe you’re not crazy, but you gotta help me a little, you know?”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He thought about crossing his fingers, but clasped her hand instead.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People in 1900 didn’t think that radium could hurt you, just carrying a chip of it in your pocket like a lucky rock, and then one day their legs fell off and they died of cancer. Not believing something is no help if you turn out to be wrong.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sukie had always said that the Alice books were the Old and New Testaments for ghosts—which Pete had never understood; after all, Lewis Carroll hadn’t been dead yet when he’d written them.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the early eighties, savvy Japanese had been scouring Melrose for old leather jackets and jukeboxes, and nervous tourists would drive by to look at the punks with green mohawks; now the funny hairstyles looked as if they’d been done at the Beverly Center. Like a government-subsidized avant-garde, Sullivan had thought as he’d tooled his old van down the crowded avenue, affluent disenfranchisement is just galvanic twitching in a dead frog’s leg.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source