Tim Pratt Quotes & Sayings

Hi there," he said. "I hear you need to see a man about a frog. — Tim Pratt

Once, my writing-avoidance behavior involved me mixing up a cleaning concoction and getting some ancient stains out of the carpet. My wife liked that one. — Tim Pratt

After several stops, and a dark journey through the tunnel under the bay, B stood up and said, "This is it." They stepped off the train and took an escalator up a level, into a domed area, and then exited the train station. As always when Marla emerged from an underground space into the light, she felt a sense of new possibilities, as if she'd returned from the underworld and brought back secrets. There was power even in symbolic journeys. — Tim Pratt

I don't want awesome powers. They come with awesome responsibilities, and those suck. — Tim Pratt

I like plans. They create a comforting illusion of sanity and order. — Tim Pratt

As I got older, I had more experience with borders. Some literal - living in the dramatically blue misty mountains on the line between North Carolina and Tennessee, and living in California - home to expats, transplants, and refugees from both sides of innumerable borders. — Tim Pratt

All water has been everywhere, Bekah. What flows from your faucet was once frozen inside a glacier, and squeezed by unimaginable pressures at the bottom of the deepest sea, and rippling in a lightless lake in a cavern no living thing has ever touched. Also, it has almost certainly been inside a dinosaur. All water is one water, and all water remembers the past. — Tim Pratt

the counters and center island were crammed with mason jars and novelty saltshakers and cookie jars in the shapes of cats, blimps, pumpkins, frogs, robots, potbellied demons, and other things. — Tim Pratt

A body is a body." Viscarro shrugged his bony shoulders. "Dead, alive, alive, dead. I fail to see the importance of the distinction."
Yeah? So you'd just as soon fuck a living person as a dead one? What's the point of the distinction? Oh, right-one's normal, and one's called necrophilia."
Viscarro sighed. "Touche, I suppose. — Tim Pratt

If I became lost in the multiverse, exploring infinite parallel dimensions, my only criterion for settling down somewhere would be whether or not I could find you: and once I did, I'd stay there even if it was a world ruled by giant spider-priests, or one where killer robots won the Civil War, or even a world where sandwiches were never invented, because you'd make it the best of all possible worlds anyway, and plus we could get rich off inventing sandwiches. — Tim Pratt

But you know me-I'm an information magpie, always interested in shiny bits of intel. I've never gotten in trouble because of knowing too much. — Tim Pratt

She sat in her chair and looked around the room. What should she take with her? The antique chatrang board her predecessor had given her? Her mummified baby alligator, which she had on the theory that every sorcerer's lair should have a mummified reptile of some kind? — Tim Pratt

Marla cursed--though her profanities we less destructive than Rondeau's, they were more heartfelt. — Tim Pratt

I almost drowned in a hot tub at a writing workshop once after I had some drinks without accounting for how the high elevation would impact my tolerance. — Tim Pratt

Marla had always been better at tearing things apart, at least in a physical level (though she liked to think she was good at building more theoretical things, like the complex structure of loyalty, fear, and obligation that kept things running back home). — Tim Pratt

I love drafting like I love eating ice cream or having sex; I love revising like I love doing logic puzzles; I love line-editing like I love perfectly organizing a bookshelf; I hate reviewing copyedits and the second round of proofreading because, by then, I'm getting pretty tired of my own words. They all have their own challenges, though. — Tim Pratt

Puns are the E. coli of humor, — Tim Pratt

Life is full of borders. Some of them, once crossed, can never be crossed again in the other direction. But there are new countries to discover across every one. — Tim Pratt

Fictional realms are usually terrible places to vacation, as they tend to be full of monsters and conflicts - Narnia and Middle-earth would both be good places to get killed - but I wouldn't mind visiting the worlds of Iain M. Banks's 'Culture.' You'd just have a hard time getting me to leave. — Tim Pratt

He gestured at himself. "You see this, Bekah? This whole package here? It contains multitudes." "I knew you were full of something." "Iron — Tim Pratt

The loss of memory is the loss of identity, Rebekah. If you can't remember who you are, you are at risk of becoming someone else. — Tim Pratt

Stories are really important to people and can really change the way they understand, and even live, their lives. As such, I don't agree much with people who say, 'Calm down, it's just a story.' — Tim Pratt

It got to the point where most of my time went toward writing novels. I would still occasionally write short stories, but only when I was commissioned by an editor to write for a themed anthology or special issue. — Tim Pratt

Contrails. Also helicopters. Skydivers. Basically everything — Tim Pratt

Full value for your soul wouldn't get you a cup of coffee at a convenience store. — Tim Pratt

When I was working on a Victorian-era novel, to get in the mood, I read several historical novels set in approximately the same period and place, and really enjoyed the detective novels of John Dickson Carr. — Tim Pratt

we went over to one of my favorite pizza places for a few slices of deep-dish, which Trey appallingly did not appreciate: "This isn't pizza. This is basically lasagna with no noodles. — Tim Pratt

B looked down the shaft, at a metal ladder and darkness beyond. "Me first?"
Of course. You're the apprentice, so you always go first into the unknown. If anyone's going to be eaten by a grue, it should be you."
Tough job. But at least the hours are terrible. — Tim Pratt

If there is one thing I've learned from the years in the criminal enterprises, it's that anyone can do almost anything to anybody else for any reason, and villainy and treachery doesn't have a thing to do with race, sex, species, or creed. — Tim Pratt

I miss that thing I used to do when I first started out where I would just spontaneously generate ideas and try things and see where they'd go. — Tim Pratt

I'm a competent novelist. I'm getting better. But I'm a really good short story writer. — Tim Pratt

lost much. The thought of my body's chirality — Tim Pratt

I know I felt like I was ready to be an adult long before the rest of the world agreed. I'd already realized that a lot of grown-ups didn't know any more than I did, and some of them were even dumber than I was, and even the ones who were smarter weren't using their smarts for things I necessarily considered worthwhile. — Tim Pratt

Family lore says I was named after the song 'Timothy' by The Buoys, a lovely little ditty about three guys who get trapped in a cave-in and resort to cannibalism; they eat Timothy. — Tim Pratt

Summoning up the images in my imagination was easy. Getting them out of my head and onto the canvas was harder. The hardest thing. Sometimes, I thought, the impossible thing. Often, I thought, the only worthwhile thing. — Tim Pratt

thousand miles away and — Tim Pratt

I didn't grow up on any sort of border; more in the middle of nowhere, in rural eastern North Carolina. — Tim Pratt