The Pale King Quotes & Sayings

He was tall and trim, with the build of a young man proficient in warfare. His dark hair was straight and styled in a manner suggesting a desire for order in all things. As she strode onto the dais, she looked up at him, refusing to balk, even in the face of her king. His thick eyebrows raised a fraction. They framed eyes so pale a shade of brown they appeared amber in certain flashes of light, like those of a tiger. His profile was an artist's study in angles, and he remained motionless as he returned her watchful scrutiny. — Renee Ahdieh

The king is always watching her out of his pale eyes, wondering what she is, and the king's son wounds himself with loving her and wonders who she is. And every day she searches the sea and the sky, the castle and the courtyard, the keep and the king's face, for something she cannot always remember. What is it, what is it that she is seeking in this strange place? She knew a moment ago, but she was forgotten. — Peter S. Beagle

It was the furthest thing in the world from the rosy-fingered dawn of poetry and old Technicolor movies; this was an anti-dawn, damp and as pale as the cheek of a day-old corpse. — Stephen King

Pale death knocks with impartial foot at poor men's hovels and king's palaces. — Horace

In The Pale King, David Foster Wallace has his narrator remark that "it was a little bit like a for-profit company, my family, in that you were pretty much only as good as your last sales quarter. — William Deresiewicz

Gentlemen- by which I mean, of course, latter adolescents who aspire to manhood gentlemen, here is a truth: Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is. Such endurance is, as it happens, the distillate of what is, today, in this world neither you nor I have made, heroism. Heroism — David Foster Wallace

Thingumy and Bob sighed contentedly and settled down to contemplate the precious stone. They stared in silent rapture at it.
The ruby changed colour all the time. At first it was quite pale, and then suddenly a pink glow would flow over it like sunrise on a snow capped mountain
and then again crimson flames shot out of its heart and it seemed like a great black tulip with stamens on fire. — Tove Jansson

The librarian, whom I had never seen before, presided over the library like a watchdog, one of those poor dogs who are deliberately made vicious by being chained up and given little to eat; ot better, like the old, toothless cobra, pale because of centuries of darkness, who guards the king's treasure in the Jungle Book. Paglietta, poor woman, was little less than a lusus naturae: she was small, without breasts or hips, waxen, wilted, and monstrously myopic; she wore glasses so thick and concave that, looking at her head-on, her eyes, light blue, almost white, seemed very far away, stuck at the back of her cranium. She gave the impression of never having been young, although she was certainly not more than thirty, and of having been born there, in the shadows, in that vague odor of mildew and stale air. — Primo Levi

When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy, over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. — William Shakespeare

You do look a little pale," the army woman said. "I thought maybe it was air sickness."
"Pure hunger"
She gave him a professional smile. "I'll see what I can rustle up."
Russel? the gunslinger thought dazedly. In his own world 'to russel' was a slang verb meaning to take a woman by force. Never mind, food would come. — Stephen King

Pale death with an impartial foot knocks at the hovels of the poor and the palaces of king. — Horace

Here is the truth - actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.
- David Foster Wallace, from The Pale King — David Foster Wallace

Faith in the king comes easily in lovely times, but be faithful now and endure, pale lover. — Rumi

Well, that's the thing about dressing up in an outfit, isn't it?" His smile was gone. Now he looked pale and grim. Like everyone else in Derry, in other words. "When you put on a clown suit and a rubber nose, nobody has any idea what you look like inside." 4 — Stephen King

When something large and oncoming passed, the windshield's big rectangle was for a moment incandesced and opaque with water, which the wipers heaved mightily to displace. — David Foster Wallace

We are suffering today from a species of Christianity as dry as dust, as cold as ice, as pale as a corpse, and as dead as King Tut. We are suffering not from a lack of correct heads but of consumed hearts. — Vance Havner

And elsewhere in the woods, there is another party, one taking place inside a hollow hill, full of night-blooming flowers. There, a pale boy plays a fiddle with newly mended fingers while his sister dances with his best friend. There, a monster whirls about, branches waving in time with the music, There, a prince of the Folk takes up the mantle of king, embracing a changeling like a bother, and, with a human boy at his side, names a girl his champion. — Holly Black

One little boy, and he a bastard,' Anne said thoughtfully.
'One little girl of six, one elderly Queen and a King in the prime of his life.' She looked up at the two of us, dragging her gaze away from her own pale face in the water. 'What's going to happen?' She asked. 'Something has to happen. What's it going to be? — Philippa Gregory

Her that I will double my people in the Tower and that I swear to her, on my honor, that I will protect them. Remind her that the uprising will start next month. As soon as we defeat Richard the king, we will set the boys free. Then, when she is reassured, when she is in her first moment of relief, when you see the color come to her face and you have convinced her - in that moment quickly ask her if she has her son Prince Richard in safety already. If she has him hidden away somewhere." He nods, but he is pale with fear. "And are they safe?" he asks. "Can I truly assure her that those poor boys — Philippa Gregory

And so he came at last to the high seat of Guslav the fifth, High King of the Union. His head was slumped sideways, squashed down under the sparkling crown. His pasty pale fingers twitched on his crimson silk mantle like white slugs. His eyes were closed, chest rising and falling gently, accompanied by gentle splutterings as spittle issued from his slack lips and ran down his chin, joining the sweat on his bulging jowls and helping it to turn his high collar dark with wet. Truly, Jezal was in the presence of greatness. "Your — Joe Abercrombie

Purple with rage, the king lashed out, a vicious backhand blow to the side of the head. She stumbled against the table and fell hard, yet Cersei Lannister did not cry out. Her slender fingers brushed her cheek, where the pale smooth skin was already reddening. On the morrow the bruise would cover half her face. "I shall wear this as a badge of honor," she announced. "Wear it in silence, or I'll honor you again," Robert vowed. — George R R Martin

I am thoroughly satisfied that smoking is detrimental to the intelligence of Australians who I notice now are beginning to look sickly, pale and intellectually destitute. — King O'Malley

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.
Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.
And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW. — Percy Bysshe Shelley