Gavriel Quotes & Sayings

forefinger, pointing right, parallel — Gavriel Savit

To keep yourself from becoming an instrument of death, you kill? — Gavriel Savit

Be careful," Aidan called from the bed. "You don't know what he might do."
"We all know what you'd do, though, don't we? — Holly Black

And Shalhassan of Cathal realized in that moment, standing between the fair brother and the dark, that he was not going to lead this war after all. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Ambitions and dreams put you at a drinking table with unexpected companions. Cups were filled and refilled, making you drunk with the illusion of changing the world. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Full moon is falling through the sky.
Cranes fly through clouds.
Wolves howl. I cannot find rest
Because I am powerless
To amend a broken world.
Sima Zian added, I love the man who wrote that, I told you before, but there is so much burden in Chan Du. Duty, assuming all tasks, can betray arrogance. The idea we can know what must be done, and do it properly. We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is. — Guy Gavriel Kay

We will pick our way through the shards of broken objects folly leaves behind. And some of what breaks will be very beautiful. — Guy Gavriel Kay

And in the dark of that room, notorious for the woven patterns of desire it had seen, Ammar ibn Khairan held the woman beloved of the man he'd killed, and offered what small comfort he could. He granted her the courtesy and space of his silence, as she finally permitted herself to weep, mourning the depth of her loss, the appalling disappearance, in an instant, of love in a bitter world. — Guy Gavriel Kay

A river goes wherever the riverbank does. It never had to ask which way, but only flows along. Yes? — Gavriel Savit

Not all men are the same, you know. With someone such as Gavriel, I would suggest appearing aloof, not chasing too much. He might see that as suffocating rather than charming.
Her words are sharp, but her voice is sweet, like honey on the edge of a blade, and meant to be cutting. I comfort myself with the knowledge that if Duval ever feels smothered by me, it will be because I am holding a pillow over his face and commending his soul to Mortain. — R.L. LaFevers

It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us. — Guy Gavriel Kay

I'm happier not pretending I know anything about El Cid in Spain. He's a Spanish national hero. I'd rather invent a character inspired by him but clearly not identical to him. And then I feel liberated creatively. — Guy Gavriel Kay

She had been a solitary child, and then solitary as a woman, drawn into an orbit of her own that took her away from others, even those who would be her friends. — Guy Gavriel Kay

You have to be afraid for it to count as bravery. — Guy Gavriel Kay

When you didn't say a lot, he thought, you said the important things. — Guy Gavriel Kay

As many have noted, the peril for authors is that our work space is too easily our play space. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Each man is the steward of his own soul. — Gavriel Savit

The world as it exists is a very, very dangerous place. — Gavriel Savit

It's the simple truth that mortal men cannot understand why the gods shape events as they do. Why some men and women are cut off in fullest flower, while others live to dwindle into shadows of themselves. Why virtue must sometimes be trampled and evil flourish amidst the beauty of a country garden. Why chance, sheer random chance, plays such an overwhelming role in the life lines and fate lines of men. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Irritation for some men was their response to strain. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Some writers later, describing the events of that night and day, wrote that Wan'yen of the Altai had seen a spirit-dragon of the river and become afraid. Writers do that sort of thing. They like dragons in their tales. — Guy Gavriel Kay

You touched people's lives, glancingly, and those lives changed forever. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Weariness, sometimes more than anything else, can bring an end to war. — Guy Gavriel Kay

most hated by the dark, for their name is light. — Guy Gavriel Kay

It is not easy, she thinks, to make your way in the world while insisting on a new path. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay's 'Tigana' is, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best fantasy novel ever written. It's beautifully written, the characters are unforgettable, the worldbuilding is exquisite. — David B. Coe

The very best way I can make any reader believe in the nuts and bolts of an art form ... is to know the mechanics, to make the characters grounded in convincing detail. — Guy Gavriel Kay

When I am reading for research and making notes, I use a cleverly designed curved lap-desk, and I sit up dutifully, mindful of ergonomics and suchlike concepts. When reading for pleasure, I take advantage of the 'recline' in recliner. — Guy Gavriel Kay

There was some sadness in how that could happen, Tai thought: falling out of love with something that had shaped you. Or even people who had? But if you didn't change at least a little, where were the passages of a life? Didn't learning, changing, sometimes mean letting go of what had once been seen as true? — Guy Gavriel Kay

I don't know a writer who doesn't feel some sense of glamour and magic and a complex, wistful sadness emanating from the expats of the twenties in France. Some of the sadness, of course, is that we weren't there. — Guy Gavriel Kay

I spent many years writing and directing in radio drama, so I am comfortable with an audience or a microphone, but I do worry about the blurring of an author's public persona with the work itself. A good 'performer' can make a mediocre book sound strong, and a shy author can leave listeners missing the excellence of his or her writing. — Guy Gavriel Kay

All the roads are dark. Only at the end is there a hope of light. — Guy Gavriel Kay

We cannot know. But sometimes there is kindness, and sometimes there is love. — Guy Gavriel Kay

I know you two are old and up past your bedtime so ill keep this quick. — Sarah J. Maas

He didn't look back but he knew his wife and his brother's wife, all the women of the house, would be flying, as if into battle, to make East Slope as ready as it could ever be for what had arrived. — Guy Gavriel Kay

What I have learned from studying counterfactual history is that the law of unintended consequences always kicks in no matter how secure you are in your plan. We have to live with the historical record as it is, like it or not. — Gavriel David Rosenfeld

EVENTUALLY, MORNING CAME. Morning always comes. There are always losses in the night, a price paid for light. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Catriana sighed. "I'm hard to make friends with," she said at length. "I doubt it's worth your effort. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Sometimes you didn't really arrive at a conclusion about your life, you just discovered that you already had. — Guy Gavriel Kay

My privacy concerns have to do with the world, other people, technology intruding upon us - what Talmudic scholars once called 'the unwanted gaze.' Here I see major issues and concerns as society evolves, and I've written often on the subject. — Guy Gavriel Kay

But if you couldn't do everything, did that mean you did nothing? — Guy Gavriel Kay

I'm sorry,' she said to each of the dead as she unzipped and unfastened their things, 'I'm sorry Courtney. I'm sorry Marcus. I'm sorry Rachel. I'm sorry Jon. I'm sorry I'm alive and you're dead. I'm sorry I was asleep. I'm sorry I didn't save you and now I'm taking your things. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. — Holly Black

Battles are won en route, Shalhassan of Cathal though. A worthy thought: he raised his hand in a certain way, and a moment later Razeil galloped up, uneasy on a horse at speed, and the Supreme Lord of Cathal made him write it down. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Dave hung up. And unplugged the phone. With a fierce and bitter pain he stared at it, watching how, over and over again, it didn't ring. — Guy Gavriel Kay

A writer's brush is a warrior's bow, the letters it shapes are arrows that must hit the mark on the page. The calligrapher is an archer, or a general on a battlefield. Someone wrote that long ago. She feels that way this morning. She is at war. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Looking over at the lump of comforter and jackets and shadow where Gavriel was hiding, she took a deep breath. "I won't leave you," she told Aidan. "I promise."
No one else was going to get killed today, not if she could save them. Certainly not someone she'd once thought she loved, even if he was a jerk. Not some dead boy full of good advice. And she hoped not herself, either. — Holly Black

Fantasy is, at its best, the purest access to storytelling that we have. It universalizes a tale, it evokes wonder and timeless narrative power, it touches upon inner journeys, it illuminates our collective and individual pasts, throws a focus beam on the present day, and presages the dangers and promises of the future. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Devin wondered how often men did what they did, made the choices of their lives, for reasons that were clean and uncomplicated and easily understood as they were happening — Guy Gavriel Kay

It was the doing, he learned quickly enough - in the first inn that refused to serve him his requested flask of Senzio green wine - of the pinch-buttocked, joy-killing priests of Eanna. The — Guy Gavriel Kay

Bright star of Eanna, forgive me the manner of this, but you are the harbor of my soul's journeying. — Guy Gavriel Kay

For some moments the two men sat quietly, each wrapped in his own thoughts, then Ivor rose. 'I should speak to Levon about tomorrow's hunt,' he said. 'Sixteen [eltors], I think.'
'At least,' the shaman said in an aggrieved tone. 'I could eat a whole one myself. We haven't feasted in a long time, Ivor.'
Ivor snorted. 'A very long time, you greedy old man. Twelve whole days ... why aren't you fat?'
'Becaues,' the wisest one explained patiently, 'you never have enough food at the feasts. — Guy Gavriel Kay

It is always difficult, even with the best will in the world, to look back a long way and see anything resembling the truth. — Guy Gavriel Kay

The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Reading is a collaboration between the writer and reader. Both parties must keep that in mind when dealing with a work of fiction."

{Guy Gavriel Kay} — Guy Gavriel Kay

We worship ... the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can't even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176] — Guy Gavriel Kay

What mortal knew the way their fate line would run? — Guy Gavriel Kay

You'd never killed anyone. Then you had. — Guy Gavriel Kay

We'll call him Maynard McSmollet and he can be from two towns over," said Aidan, snickering. "No one really knew him that well, kept to himself, but he was crashing the party because he could never resist a kegger - or how about Roderick Spoon? Roddy. The Rodster. He was in band and played electric keyboards but got kicked out of several schools for setting small fires. Yeah, that's better. What do you think, Gavriel? — Holly Black

It's their failure, my little Anna, not yours. Men who try to understand the world without the help of children are like men who try to bake bread without the help of yeast. — Gavriel Savit

I don't want to be a vampire' she told herself. But in her dreams, she kind of did. — Holly Black

Brightly woven, Diar,' Aileron said. And then dazzled them all with the warmth of his smile. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Is he going to- will he live?"
"No," said Gavriel. "No chance of that. He wants to die, so he will. But not tonight and not because of me."
"Oh," Tana said. "So he's okay? — Holly Black

If this was the world as the god-or gods-had made it, then mortal man, this mortal man, could acknowledge that and honour the power and infinite majesty that lay within it, but he would not say it was right, or bow down as if he were only dust or a brittle leaf blown from and autumn tree, helpless in the wind. — Guy Gavriel Kay

But there's nothing you like better than when it hurts a little, is there?" Lucien asked.
Gavriel's bloody mouth lifted in a voluptuous smile. "Sure there is. I like it when it hurts a lot. — Holly Black

Thunderstorms were common in Sarantium on midsummer nights, sufficiently so to make plausible the oft-repeated tale that the Emperor Apius passed to the god in the midst of a towering storm, with lightning flashing and rolls of thunder besieging the Holy City. Even Pertennius of Eubulus, writing only twenty years after, told the story this way, adding a statue of the Emperor toppling before the bronze gates to the Imperial Precinct and an oak tree split asunder just outside the landward walls. Writers of history often seek the dramatic over the truth. It is a failing of the profession. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Lazy poets try to elicit a reader's response with words designed to tug at the heart. — Guy Gavriel Kay

There are kinds of action, for good or ill, that lie so far outside the boundaries of normal behavior that they force us, in acknowledging that they have occurred, to restructure our own understanding of reality. We have to make room for them. — Guy Gavriel Kay

His wax-white skin was cool to the touch when she brushed his neck to find the knot of cloth. She'd never been this close to a vampire,never realized what it would be like to be so near to someone who didn't breathe, who could be as still as any statue. His chest neither rose not fell. Her hands shook. — Holly Black

We are the total of our longings, he had written. But Kevin was a song-writer, not a poet, and he never did use it. — Guy Gavriel Kay

I'm going to take off your gag. And if you try to bite me or grab me or anything, I'll hit you with this thing as hard as I can as many times as I can. Understood? — Holly Black

Writing is never, ever easy but I wake up every morning grateful for the gift of being able to do this. — Guy Gavriel Kay

He forgot Gavriel and Lorcan as he bolted for her - the gold and red and blue flames utterly hers, this heir of fire. Spying him at last, she smiled faintly. A queen's smile. — Sarah J. Maas

Human beings are the best hope in the world of other human beings to survive. — Gavriel Savit

What man would dare believe that all he planned might come to pass? — Guy Gavriel Kay

But what did one own if life, if love, could be taken away to darkness? Was it all not just ... a loan, a leasehold, transitory as candles? — Guy Gavriel Kay

Tell them I'm like you," Gavriel said as they began to slow down.
Aidan laughed. "I think they can see you're not like us anymore."
"No," he said. "Tell them you know me. That I'm like you, one of you. From the party. Tell them."
"Wait," said Winter. "Wait. Is he saying he wasn't at the party? Did you meet him by the side of the road? Did you pick up a hitchhiker who coincidentally turned out to be a vampire?"
Gavriel fixed his gaze on Winter. "You know me," he said, and a chill went up Tana's spine. "You've known me since outside the rest stop, when I turned and the light hit my face."
"What does he mean?" Midnight asked.
"I don't know," Winter said in an odd voice. "Nothing. — Holly Black

His voice had a faint trace of an accent she couldn't place - one that made her pretty sure he was no local kid infected the night before. — Holly Black

They think you can't feel anything, because they've forgotten how. You're very, very dangerous, I get that, and you're prone to some very theatrical brooding, but don't let yourself mistake that for some kind of inner corruption. They see themselves in you and are blinded. — Holly Black

Most people experience history as one damn fact after another in high school. But if you can wonder, "Wow, what if the US hadn't gotten involved in World War II?", you can become enthralled by the imaginary possibilities. — Gavriel David Rosenfeld

Remember that I'm still a monster. I can listen to you scream and cry and beg and I still won't let you out. — Holly Black

Gavriel's son was bellowing Whitethorn's name. A gods-damned victory cry. Over and over, the men taking up the call.
Then Fenrys's voice lifted.
And Gavriel's.
And that red-haired queen.
The Havilliard king.
On into battle, on into bloodshed, they called the prince's name. — Sarah J. Maas

One didn't stop to talk with creatures from one's nightmares. — Guy Gavriel Kay

How we remember changes how we have lived.
Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Aidan pulled against his bonds. "They keep talking to him in a whole bunch of languages. A lot of French. Something about the Thorn of Istra. I think he's in trouble."
"Are you?" Tana asked.
"Not exactly," said Gavriel. — Holly Black

Maybe like the bat in the birdcage, Gavriel had been waiting for dark, waiting to get out of the chains, drink Aidan's blood, and escape. But when she showed up, he figured he could use them for a ride through daylight, so long as he seemed harmless enough to need saving. A chill crept up her spine. — Holly Black

He had a sense - honed by experience - that what he'd contrived might achieve something of the effect he wanted. That, Martinius had always said, was the best any man in this fallible world could expect. [p. 67] — Guy Gavriel Kay

Some paths, some doorways, some people were not to be yours, though the slightest difference in the rippling of time might have made it so. — Guy Gavriel Kay

He sang one whole verse directly to her, then, in fidelity to the song, he sent his vision inward to where his purest music was always found, and he looked at no one at all as he sang to Eanna herself, a hymn to names and the naming of things. — Guy Gavriel Kay

I'm still proud of the 'Fionavar Tapestry.' The fact I don't write the same way is as much as anything else the fact a man in his 50s doesn't write the way a man in his 20s does - or he shouldn't. — Guy Gavriel Kay

She lifted her hands and closed them around his head ... and it seemed to Catriana in that moment as if that newborn trialla in her soul began to sing. Of trials endured and trials to come, of doubt and dark and all the deep uncertainties that defined the outer boundaries of mortal life, but with love now present at the base of it all, like light, like the first stone of a rising tower. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Behind Tana there was the sounds of splintering wood, as though something very large had hot the door. "No," she said softly, "Oh no. No."
"Leave me," said Gavriel.
... "Shut up or I might," she told him. — Holly Black

In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone. — Guy Gavriel Kay

This was not a beauty that warmed one. It cut, like a weapon. There was no nuance of gentleness in her, no shading of care, but fair she was, as is the flight of an arrow before it kills. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Growing up? Gavriel, that was last week watching her recover from crashing out of that office window. She fell out of her wheelchair and broke her other arm." Caspian laughed along with his mate.
Gavriel pulled the phone back and stared at it in horror. — Alanea Alder

The practice of lying is concerned with attempting to overlay a thin paper substitute atop the world that exists in order that it seem to suit your purposes. But the Swallow Man didn't need the world to suit him. He could make himself suit whatever world it pleased him to agree existed. — Gavriel Savit

Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our souls. — Guy Gavriel Kay

We'll get you another day," Gavriel said, with such odd sincerity that she had to smile. — Holly Black

In times of uncertainty, we tend to move away from deterministic world views. And when we try to find moral footing for our actions, we compare ourselves to the foil of all foils, the Nazi period. It's a quest for moral certainty by saying, "Even if we're not doing great these days, at least we're not the Third Reich." Which can be consoling or alarmist. There's always a present-day agenda behind it. — Gavriel David Rosenfeld

She had come to accept, deeply, and with certitude, that she had been born into a world, a life, that would not let her be whole. — Guy Gavriel Kay

When I was 18 years old, in a more innocent time, my first backpacking trip through Europe, I sneaked into the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum after nightfall and spent several hours in there avoiding the guards patrolling. — Guy Gavriel Kay