K.J. Parker Quotes & Sayings

No disrespect to the fire god, naturally; blame it instead on His administration, presumably made up of officers of roughly the same level of ability as their terrestial counterparts. That would explain why the mild storm she'd ordered for Oida hit her instead. — K.J. Parker

To try and rationalise all this in terms of right, wrong, good, evil, is just naive; the very worst things we do, after all, we do for love, and the very worst pain we feel comes from love. She was right about that. In my opinion, love is the greatest and most enduring enemy, because love gives rise to the memories that kill us, slowly, every day. I think a man who never encounters love might quite possibly live forever. He'd have to, because if he died, who the hell would ever remember him? — K.J. Parker

It's the way my mind works, when it works at all. Things to do today: settle down, achieve serenity, live happily ever after. Tick the box and move on. — K.J. Parker

I'd finally given her what she wanted,
the elixir of eternal youth, effected by the removal of her internal fire (the
catalyst of change) through the agency of death. — K.J. Parker

A quiet life," Stheno replied. "You wouldn't think it was a lot to ask."
The Hammer — K.J. Parker

Ladies from fine old Imperial families shouldn't sleep in tents and shit in ditches. Exactly what they were supposed to do all day nobody had quite figured out yet; be put away in cupboards when not in use seemed to be the prevailing opinion. — K.J. Parker

Ah well." Gignomai turned slowly round. "It's not often commented on, but when you stop and think, mercy is the biggest injustice of them all. — K.J. Parker

... if medical science is geography, then mankind as a species has a map with three towns marked on it and a lot of blank space with drawings of sea serpents. — K.J. Parker

In politics, it's what isn't said that matters. — K.J. Parker

He took a couple of steps. "I clink," he said. "It's undignified."
"Everybody clinks. It's what soldiers do. — K.J. Parker

We hold that you can't own anything that four strong men can't lift. — K.J. Parker

Most wars start because someone makes a mistake, and most battles are lost by the losing side rather than won by the victors. I'm not sure if that makes things better or worse. I suppose it depends on which you disapprove of more, malice or stupidity. — K.J. Parker

He was astonished at how calm he found he was. Fear of death had always energised him, making him move far more quickly than his body should have been capable of, accelerating his reactions and his thought process to a quite incredible level. This time, though, he only thought, Oh, and realised that he didn't really care all that much. He could feel his responsibilities, the love of others towards him, the unfulfilled possibilities; they were like a child's hand trying to pull him up, doing its best but simply not strong enough for the job. Above all, there was no blame. I tried to climb a wall, but I couldn't, and there it is. — K.J. Parker

I figure a friend has the right to offend you at least once. — K.J. Parker

It's sheer spitefulness to allow mortals to love because everybody dies but the love they cause to be in others doesn't die with them. Therefore love is the cause of the greatest sorrow therefore love is the greatest evil. — K.J. Parker

I gather you play chess, he'd said, and she'd given him a look, later he'd ralised it was fair warning; yes, she played chess. The had a mignificent coral and ivory set, worth a thousand acres of good arable land. He'd made soft opening, the way you do when you're playing a girl, and suddenly he found himself staring defeat in the facs - he'd never los a game except three times, to Senza. — K.J. Parker

For what it was worth, she got the impression that Niessa liked her, or at least approved of her, in the same way a chess-player approves of one of his pieces when it stays where it's been put and doesn't go wandering off all over the board. — K.J. Parker

The quickest way to a man's heart,' said the instructor, 'is proverbially through his stomach. But if you want to get into his brain, I recommend the eye-socket. — K.J. Parker

The idea is to make the space around you into a zone where nothing mortal can survive. — K.J. Parker

Secretly, deep down, everybody on Earth believes they can write poetry, apart from the members of the Poets' Guild, who know they can't. — K.J. Parker

I know she comes across as annoying to begin with," he said. "But once you've got to know her a bit better, you'll find it makes no difference whatsoever. — K.J. Parker

Ah". Tzimisces smiled. "Let me guess. Flowery periphrases, back-to-back literary allusions and quotations from thousand-year-old authors. A marked reluctance to use one word when twelve can be jammed in if you sit on the lid. — K.J. Parker

Aidi nodded. "Lying to yourself's always a problem," he said. — K.J. Parker

The easiest way to do anything is properly. — K.J. Parker

There's an argument for saying that brave men deserve what they get, but it's a serious business forcing cowards to stand in harm's way. — K.J. Parker

Consider it this way. The present is a split second, so tiny and trivial as to be immaterial. Everything else, everything real and substantial, is a coral reef of dead split seconds, forming the islands and continents of our reality. Every moment is a brick in the wall of the past, building enormous structures that have identity and meaning, cities we live in. The future is wet shapeless clay, the present is so brief it barely exists, but the past houses and shelters us, gives us a home and a name; and the mortar that binds those bricks, that stops them from sliding apart into a nettle-shrouded ruin, is memory. — K.J. Parker

It never ceases to amaze me how adaptable social geometry can be. Within a couple of days I went from being the centre of the circle to an indefinite point outside its circumference. — K.J. Parker

Age is irrelevant where two people have deep, sincere feelings for each other. — K.J. Parker

He couldn't even write his name. When he was Emperor, he had to sign documents with a stencil. — K.J. Parker

That was the truly horrifying thing about it: the sense of time as an enemy, to be fought tooth and nail
but there was so much of it; you killed an hour, but what good did that do when there were thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions more hours just waiting to take its place? — K.J. Parker

In an ideal world, you'd be able to pick beef puddings from a beef pudding tree. — K.J. Parker

After all, what is truth but the consensus of memories of reliable witnesses? — K.J. Parker

I don't believe in gods, only in religion. — K.J. Parker

Phrantzes considered for a moment, collecting his thoughts like a general rallying his surviving troops after a massacre. — K.J. Parker

When you come to rely on the written word, it's time to light the fire with it. — K.J. Parker

Always tell as much truth as you can when you're lying," he said. "Nothing deceives like the truth." The — K.J. Parker

There is no absolute right or wrong, good or evil, but there are good manners and common decency. — K.J. Parker

War is an admission of failure — K.J. Parker

He turned away, and suddenly she thought about the old children's story, where the stupid girl opens the box that God gave her, and all the evils of the world fly out, except Hope, which stays at the bottom; and she wondered what Hope was doing in there in the first place, in with all the bad things. Then the answer came to her, and she wondered how she could've been so stupid. Hope was in there because it was evil too, probably the worst of them all, so heavy with malice and pain that it couldn't drag itself out of the opened box. — K.J. Parker

Patient striving with tolerances in the quiet war against error. — K.J. Parker

It's about keeping the peace, said Rasso from the livery. His choice of words made Marzo want to smile. Rasso had borrowed the phrase from him and, like any man in the colony who borrowed anything, he seemed determined to use it till it fell apart before he was called on to give it back. — K.J. Parker

Obviously, there's no way of making money that doesn't hurt somebody somewhere, but there are degrees of scale and immediacy. A merchant prince or a banker or a wealthy landowner isn't generally required to take responsibility for the people he cheats, screws and starves; society couldn't function if that were the case. — K.J. Parker

When you get to my age, you'll find it's fatally easy to forget to hate all your enemies all the time; and once you've slipped up and not hated one of them, it makes it almost impossibly hard to hate the rest of them. — K.J. Parker

Basic fact of life: no matter how far you run, you always take yourself with you. — K.J. Parker

But how do we know it's really you? I mean, I could put a saucepan on my head and call myself the God of Boiled Dumplings; wouldn't mean I was telling the truth. — K.J. Parker

It's remarkable the truly stupid things people can do because it's expected of them, or they think it's expected of them. — K.J. Parker

Did you ever hear of a place called Sphoe? — K.J. Parker

His mother collected medicines, rather in the way a boy collects coins or seals or arrowheads; one or two genuine pieces, along with a whole load of junk. — K.J. Parker

The fact is, the more you look for something, the likelier you are to find it, even if it isn't actually there; Sooner or later, if you look hard enough, you'll find something.
The trick is then to interpret what you've found as what you were looking for. — K.J. Parker

If the world is a book, are you the hero, or just a walk-on part? — K.J. Parker

The thing about me that seems to puzzle people the most - people who know me, who believe what i tell them - is that I can write the most profound things without actually meaning them.
I can persuade people of things I don't believe myself,or (more usually) simply don't care about — K.J. Parker

Why are there never eighty soldiers around when you need them? — K.J. Parker

One of these days I'd really like to win a battle, rather than just stand quiet while they lose it at me. You know, just to be able say I'd done it. But I'm not complaining. I mean, it works. — K.J. Parker

It doesn't matter if your ignorant so long as you can find people to know stuff for you. — K.J. Parker

Death is to be feared because of the pain and loss it inflicts through love, and for no other reason. — K.J. Parker

A city with no way of telling the time can by no stretch of the imagination be called civilised. It's just a mob with walls. — K.J. Parker

When she started crying, all he wanted to do was hit her. — K.J. Parker

If there's a truth and nobody knows it, is it still true? Or is it like a light burning in a locked, shuttered house that nobody will ever get to see? — K.J. Parker

The world is full of annoyances, none more infuriating than a fool with a valid point. — K.J. Parker

Ah well. He'd beaten her twice sind then: once on their honeymoon, though he still suspected her of throwing the game, and once on the day she lost the baby. And two out of eight hundred and six wasn't too bad, against such an opponent. — K.J. Parker

Here lies Mago the boxer, of whom it may honestly be said that he never harmed anybody. — K.J. Parker

The public," he said, "bless them. It's the same in tailoring: they always think they know more about your job than you do, and then you get the blame when it ends up looking a mess." He — K.J. Parker

The exceptionally profound is always, by definition, basic and mundane. — K.J. Parker

It'd have been so nice if my life had been a well-controlled experiment. You know; start off with your basic ingredients, add education, experiences, events, stirring with a glass rod, when appropriate retarding the reaction with a block of ice. Predictable consequences, intended results, and something worth having at the end. Hasn't quite worked out like that. As for the result, the product, we'll have to wait and see. I may yet surprise myself. — K.J. Parker

Faith comes in different tempers: there's the hard, brittle faith that shatters when it meets an obstacle it can't cut through, and the tough, springy faith that bounces off unchipped. — K.J. Parker

A wise man once said that any human being is capable of infinite achievement, so long as it's not the work they're supposed to be doing. — K.J. Parker

If a man exists who is immune to force, even if he's the most blameless anchorite living on top of a column in the middle of the desert, he is beyond government, beyond authority, and cannot be controlled; and that would be intolerable. — K.J. Parker

That's the thing," she said. "You add on getting rid of starvation and poverty like it's a fringe benefit. Like the slice of lemon you get with a plate of whitebait." He laughed. "That's why I succeed," he said, "where the men with beautiful souls always fail. If you walk through the market asking the stallholders to give you a slice of lemon for free, they'd laugh in your face. Pay for the whitebait and you get a good meal of whitebait for your money, plus the free lemon. — K.J. Parker