Daniel Wallace Quotes & Sayings

This is what is meant by last words: they are keys to unlock the afterlife. They're not last words but passwords, and as soon as they're spoken you can go. — Daniel Wallace

For how could he live with himself, if indeed he did live at all, knowing that his life was so inextricably bound to others, knowing that he was not his own man? "So, — Daniel Wallace

Ming Kai gasped for air, a breath he didn't seem to exhale, and his eyes fluttered shut. "He's dead," his replacement wife said, not without a little sadness. "He's dead." A moment passed, that silent moment when the soul leaves the body. Or, rather, when it's supposed to. "No," Ming Kai said, eyes still closed. "Not dead. Sleeping so I can dream." "Damn you," said his replacement wife. "Damn damn damn you. — Daniel Wallace

Magic is dangerous: it's neither good nor bad, right nor wrong; it can be both a blessing and a curse. It takes strength, the strength of a man, to make the magic his own, to make it serve him, and not the other way around. — Daniel Wallace

You lie to her, you lie to me, you lie to yourself. Blind girl blind you. — Daniel Wallace

The ending is always a surprise. — Daniel Wallace

When a man's stories are remembered, then he is immortal. — Daniel Wallace

You're a good man," Fang said. "You're the last good man in this whole town. All the good that could be squeezed out of this forsaken place was used to make you. That's why you're so small, my friend: there just wasn't that much left." Fang laughed. "and that's why you can see us, you know, and nobody else can. You see everybody, even that lumberjack. — Daniel Wallace

The story goes like this: he falls in love with Specter first, then he falls in love with Jenny Hill. L — Daniel Wallace

He says, You're an idiot. You couldn't get yourself arrested without me along to help. — Daniel Wallace

Mine was a crazy dream- but what dream isn't crazy? Can a dream be a dream and be sensible? No. A sensible dream is a plan. Men like us dream, and our dreams come true because we believe in ourselves. — Daniel Wallace

Because you and Al have all the truth with you over there. Don't know what I'm talking about, I guess. My apologies to you who knows better. — Daniel Wallace

In the land of the dying, sentences go unfinished, you know how they're going to end. — Daniel Wallace

All of a sudden my arms were full of the most fantastic life, frenetic, impossible to hold on to even if I'd wanted to, and I wanted to. But then all I was holding was the blanket, because my father had jumped into the river. And that's when I discovered my father hadn't been dying after all. He was changing, transforming himself into something new and different to carry his life forward. — Daniel Wallace

Rachel tried to slap Mrs. Samuels when she said this, but she wasn't really sure where her face was and she missed, terribly. — Daniel Wallace

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is the Force. — Daniel Wallace

You're not necessarily supposed to believe it ... You're just supposed to believe in it. — Daniel Wallace

Edward didn't write any songs. For a long time he
didn't do anything. He looked at her, of course. He didn't
mind looking at her when she passed; looking brought its
own special excitement with it. It was as if she brought her
own light with her, because wherever she went, she
glowed. Who could explain that?
Edward liked to catch that glow once and a while. — Daniel Wallace

Dreams are what keep a man going, William, and already your father was dreaming empire. But looking at him on the day he left that town he was born in, you would have seen little more than a young, handsome boy with nothing but the clothes on his back and the holes in his shoes. You might not have actually seen the holes in his shoes, but they were there, William; the holes were there. "That — Daniel Wallace

He had become simply Edward Bloom: Man. I'd caught him at a bad time in his life. And this was no fault of his own. It was simply that the world no longer held the magic that allowed him to live grandly within it. His — Daniel Wallace

For Ming Kai's nose - which, like so many Chinese organs, was advanced beyond the reckoning of his Caucasian brother - — Daniel Wallace

It would be better for us to have some doubts in an honest pursuit of truth, than it would be for us to be certain about something that was not true. — Daniel Wallace

If it seems like he's going to die she'll call for me. This is how we talk. In the land of the dying, sentences go unfinished, you know how they're going to end. So — Daniel Wallace

They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up. — Daniel Wallace

It was said he could charm anyone, just by walking through the room. It was said he was blessed with a special power. But my father was humble, and he said it wasn't that at all. He just liked people, and people liked him. It was that simple, he said. — Daniel Wallace

What good is always being happy? Sadness hints at the possibility of a future reward. — Daniel Wallace

I don't want to suggest that I was listening to or even overhearing the conversation the two of you were having. I am not the sort of man to eavesdrop. I would say, however, your words did seem almost to float on the air from your table across to my own, which in any case is a short distance, and, having arrived, they were, I would say, impossible not to hear, just as one would have no choice whether to hear a car backfire, or a bird sing. Very difficult not to hear, if one can hear, if one has ears; it's involuntary, you see. We hear things whether we want to or not, and in this way the words you were speaking to one another entered my ears — Daniel Wallace

He was just changing, transforming himself into something new and different to carry his life forward in. All — Daniel Wallace

Dreams are what keep a man going. — Daniel Wallace

He believed the stars were wishes, and that one day they would all come true. — Daniel Wallace

The rest of his hair was dark and full and healthy, and his part was one long straight line of pinkish scalp, a country road across his head. — Daniel Wallace

It was laid out much like any other town - thoughtlessly, and in haste. Here is where the rich people lived, and here the workers. This is where the white people shopped, and here was the special store for the Chinese, which had everything they could ever want, as long as they didn't want that much. — Daniel Wallace

His cars were his magic carpets. — Daniel Wallace

There is an old Italian proverb about the nature of translation: "Traddutore, traditore!" This means simply, "Translators-traitors!" Of course, as you can see, something is lost in the translation of this pithy expression: there is great similarity in both the spelling and the pronunciation of the original saying, but these get diluted once they are put in English dress. Even the translation of this proverb illustrates its truth! — Daniel Wallace

We are part of an energy larger than ourselves, and we play roles in a cosmic fabric that outstrip our incarnate understanding. — Daniel Wallace

I look into his gray-blue dying eyes. We're staring at each other, showing each other our last looks, the faces we'll take with us into eternity, and I'm thinking how I wish I knew him better, how I wish we'd had a life together, wishing my father wasn't such a complete and utter goddamn mystery to me ... — Daniel Wallace

We all have stories, just as you do. Ways in which he touched us, helped us, gave us money, sold it to us wholesale. Lots of stories, big and small. They all add up. Over a lifetime it all adds up. That's why we're here, William. We're a a part of him, who he is, just as he is a part of us. You still don't understand, do you?"
I didn't. But as I stared at the man and he stared back at me, in my father's dream I remembered where we'd met before.
"And what did my father do for you?" I asked him, and the old man smiled.
"He made me laugh," he said. — Daniel Wallace

This wasn't life, of course. This was life support. This was what the medical world had fashioned to take the place of Purgatory. — Daniel Wallace

Then there was a woman, in her mid-fifties about, who in almost every respect was perfectly normal. But this was the way with these people: in so many respects they were normal, there was just that one thing, that one terrible thing. — Daniel Wallace

I think," I say after a while, waiting for the right words to come, "that if a man could be said to be loved by his son, then I think that man could be considered great." For this is the only power I have, to bestow upon my father the mantle of greatness, a thing he sought in the wider world, but one that, in a surprise turn of events, was here at home all along. — Daniel Wallace

Heard it," I say.
"You were supposed to stop me," he says, clearly exhausted after the telling. "How many breaths do I have left? You don't want me to waste them on twice-told jokes, do you? — Daniel Wallace

For this is the only power I have, to bestow upon my father the mantle of greatness, a thing he sought in the wider world, but one that, in a surprise turn of events, was here at home all along. "Ah, — Daniel Wallace

He believed in himself, believed in his quixotic ambition, letting the failures of the previous day disappear as each new day dawned. Yesterday was not today. The past did not predict the future if he could learn from his mistakes. — Daniel Wallace

The car is my father's magic carpet. Not only does it get him places, but it shows him places. — Daniel Wallace

Dying, he has that look dying people get in their eyes sometimes, happy and sad, tired and spiritually blessed, all at the same time. — Daniel Wallace

Because the Empire controls the media, we can turn any news to the Emperor's advantage. — Daniel Wallace

A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself. — Daniel Wallace

I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing at all. I'm doing the other thing. — Daniel Wallace

There were so many dead their spirits could no longer be contained in the darkness, and, like deer, their population had spilled over into parts of the town reserved for the living. — Daniel Wallace

In fact, after a while it was the machines I was looking at, not my father at all. They had become him. They were telling me his story. Which — Daniel Wallace

There is no passion. There is solely obsession.
There is no knowledge. There is solely conviction.
There is no purpose. There is solely will.
There is nothing ...
Only me. — Daniel Wallace

How can the world be seen at such speeds? Where do people need to go so badly they can't realize what is already here, outside the car window? — Daniel Wallace

Because in my mind - in the memory that has lodged itself imperturbably in my mind, my father resembles Abraham Lincoln, a man with long arms and deep pockets and dark eyes ... — Daniel Wallace

In a moment, everything can change and in a moment, you can change everything. — Daniel Wallace

I think about this for a long time, secretly hoping he forgets he ever asked the question. His mind has a way of wandering, but something in the way he looks at me says he's not forgetting anything now, he's holding on tight to that thought, and he's waiting for my answer. I don't know what makes a man great. I've never thought about it before. But at a time like this "I don't know" just won't do. This is an occasion one rises to, and so I make myself as light as possible and wait for a lift. "I — Daniel Wallace

There is no greater grief than that of a man with a broken heart who only just learned he had a heart at all. — Daniel Wallace

How do you know when it's me?"
"Your footsteps are apologetic?"
"What does that mean?"
She turned, smiling wiping her hands on her long, black skirt. "It doesn't mean anything," she said. "Everybody else here just does what they want to do and doesn't think twice about it. But you're never sure. — Daniel Wallace

Remembering a man's stories makes him immortal. — Daniel Wallace

People were so cheap there ... they ate beans to save on bubble bath. — Daniel Wallace