Garth Nix Quotes

#1. Keys to the Kingdom Mister Monday Garth Nix BOOK ONE

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#2. Be careful..you're all I've got left, to remind me who I really am.

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#3. Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.

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#4. Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

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#5. Continue to love each other, something I discover is not an automatic state but must be worked at, like an ever-changing tactical problem, though I would never describe it that way to my beloved

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#6. Sometimes it is easier to see the light when you stand partly in the darkness.

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#7. Waiting feeds fear. Courage comes with deeds.

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#8. She fought back the tears in her eyes, because though she no longer felt she was one of the Clayr, she still felt she was a librarian and always would be, no matter what else she had become as well.

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#9. If only one in 1,000 people that I talk to goes on to write a good book, that's one more good book that I've helped along ... and maybe it will be a book I love myself five or 10 years down the line.

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#10. You'd better take over here as temporary Mistress, Joan, he said to Professor Aiken.

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#11. Who or what are you? Besides insufferably rude?

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#12. Since being a prisoner was a definite improvement over being dead, which was what she thought was going to happen when the Loundergs had attacked, Suzy was quite cheerful.

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#13. Why, Yrael?" it said, as the last of the dark gave way to silver, and the shining sphere of metal sank slowly to the ground. "Why?"
"Life," said Yrael, who was more Mogget than it ever knew. "Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon.

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#14. I tend to think of stories and books as being for everyone, just with an 'entry reading age' rather than an age range.

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#15. Just like the Perimeter! It never rains but it pours, declared the Major.

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#16. It's always better to be doing.

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#17. What Great Beast will have their solitude pierced by your grasping little voices?

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#18. They might refuse the evidence of their own eyes and continue blindly on over the ridge, driven by optimism and hope that finally they would find somewhere to call home.

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#19. A Kiss," said Mogget sleepily. "Actually, just a breath would do. But you have to start kissing someone sometime, I suppose."
"A breath?" she asked. She didn't want to kiss just any wooden man. He looked nice enough, but he might not be like his looks. A kiss seemed too forward.

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#20. I loved publishing; I loved working in the book industry, but I've been writing pretty much nonstop since I was 19. I realized very early on that I would need a day job, and I wanted one that was in books.

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#21. If she had been in a pointing competition, she would have lost points.

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#22. Maybe if I act well enough, I'll come to believe it myself.

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#23. Unhand my tail!" squealed the Will.

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#24. He was obviously a very arrogant ragamuffin, and younger than she was, to boot. And he was wearing a necromancer's bells! Apart from that, he was quite handsome, which was another black mark as far as she was concerned.

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#25. When the dead do walk seek water's run,
for this the Dead will always shun.
Swift river's best or broadest lake
to ward the dead and have and make.
If water fails thee, fire's thy friend,
if neither guards it will be thy end.

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#26. Might have been and could have done, neither worth thinking on.

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#27. I suppose you could call me ... Soot," said the thing. "Yes ... Soot. I have breathed it, lived in it, and eaten it for so long that it is a fitting name."
"Eaten it?" asked Suzy. "Why eat soot?"
"Boredom," said Soot.

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#28. This? It's a feather-coin. I made it.'
'What is it for?'
'It isn't for anything. It's a toy.'
'It's for annoying people,' said Mogget from Sam's pack. 'If you don't put it away, I shall eat it.

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#29. Mogget's voice. Sam whirled around. "Mogget? Is that you? Where are you?" "Here, and regretting it as per usual," replied Mogget, and a small white cat sauntered out from behind a fern tree.

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#30. Midnight Visitors,' whispered Suzy fearfully. 'With nightmare-whips and night-gloves.

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#31. ...I don't expect to need rescuing. I'm not that kind of princess.

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#32. But think of how much worse it would be to sit here, not knowing. Until the Dead choke the Ratterlin and Hedge walks across the dry bed of the river to batter down the door.

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#33. Clearly the Old One had the capacity to kill - or easily deliver some sort of final ending that sounded remarkably like death.

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#34. I'm not going," he said. He held up the Third key like a weapon. Sensing his mood, it grew longer and sharper, till he was holding a trident as long as he was tall ... "And anyone who tries to make me is going to suffer."
"Twice," added the voice under the table.

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#35. Be assured that any hurt to your spirit will pass in time. It is the nature of Death to take, but the nature of Life to give.

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#36. I can understand the natural anxiety of readers when waiting for another installment of a favourite series, but I think it is much more important to get a book right than it is to have it appear on time.

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#37. I am not afraid," he said to himself.

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#38. What do you mean? I am Mogget, of course. The one and only Mogget. Though I have had other names.

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#39. What's too late?" asked Mogget. "Hold

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#40. The most important thing is to be true to yourself, however you feel, and not try to feel or behave differently because you think you should, or someone has told you how you must feel. But do think about it. Unexamined feelings lead to all kinds of trouble.

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#41. Lirael left in a daze of happiness. She had survived the ordeal. She had been accepted. She was going to be a librarian!

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#42. Unlike the stereotypical author, I've never had a job as a short-order cook, but I love cooking hot breakfasts for lots of people, juggling the eggs and the bacon and the tomatoes and the fried potatoes and so on.

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#43. May I say that I approve of a piece that tries to remake the entire puzzle?

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#44. Millennia of servitude, Abhorsen. Chained by trickery, treachery ... captivenin a repulsive, fixed-flesh shape ... but there will be payment, slow payment - not quick, not quick at all!

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#45. Some were Charter Mages, and there would not be time to argue rights and wrongs, so any aggressive magic he used would be countered or negated by these others, as was the nature of Charter Magic.

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#46. There is never one absolutely right thing to do. All you can do is honor what you believe, accept the consequences of your own actions, and make the best out of what happens.

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#47. Double, treble, quadruple bubble, watch the stock market get into trouble ...

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#48. Time and death sleep side by side.

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#49. With the 'Old Kingdom' trilogy, at least half the readers were older adults rather than younger adults. I wrote them for myself with no particular audience in mind.

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#50. So I'll do that, and I'll do my best and if my best isn't good enough, at least I will have done everything I could, everything that is in me. I don't have to try to be someone else, someone I could never be.

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#51. As per usual, trouble comes in several directions at once.

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#52. If an action must be taken that will benefit the majority at the cost of the minority, is it morally indefensible?
If an action taken for the benefit of a majority occurs at the expense of a minority, is it moral action?

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#53. As if they were crazed stoats that had to be got rid of before they killed again.

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#54. One thing I did learn early on was not to put all my trust in magic. If it can be done without magic, it's better done without magic.

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#55. Cats never liked to admit to names. Being named might lead to being held responsible for something.

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#56. Five Great Charters knit the land
Together linked, hand in hand
One in the people who wear the crown
Two in the folk who keep the Dead down
Three and Five became stone and mortar
Four sees all in frozen water.

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#57. There is a very big difference between writing for children and writing for young adults. The first thing I would say is that 'Young Adult' does not mean 'Older Children', it really does mean young but adult, and the category should be seen as a subset of adult literature, not of children's books.

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#58. Don't look, part of his mind said. If you don't see trouble, it doesn't exist.
But it does, thought Arthur, fighting down the fear. Keep breathing slowly. You have to confront your fears. Deal with them.

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#59. Both of them often turned to gaze at Sabriel.

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#60. Prepare a crossing party," snapped Horyse. "A single person to cross. Miss Abhorsen, here. And Sergeant, if you or Private Rahise so much as talk in your sleep about what you may have heard here, then you'll be on gravedigging fatigues for the rest of your lives!

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#61. I am not going to change who I am. I am human and I know how to love, and be kind, and be compassionate to those who are weaker than me. Just because I have power doesn't mean I have to use it!

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#62. And I've never been wicked,' said the Witch firmly. 'Least, not by my measure. Just independant-minded.'

'Wickedness depends on where you're standing, doesn't it?' said Jenny.

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#63. A passion thwarted will often go astray.

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#64. Please," said Lirael ... "I think I would like to work in this Library."
"The Library," repeated Sanar, looking troubled. "That can be dangerous to a girl of fourteen. Or a woman of forty, for that matter.

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#65. she still felt she was a librarian and always would be, no matter what else she had become as well. "We

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#66. Every Clayr is given the gift to See some portent of her death, though not the death itself, for no human could bear that weight. Almost twenty years ago I Saw myself and your little dog, and in time I realized that this was the vision that foretold my final days.

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#67. There were also very special or dangerous items that had to be fetched in person, or even by large parties of armed librarians.

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#68. Should have told you . . . betrayed . . . the Bile . . .

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#69. So are you saying that somebody went to all the trouble to make you a crypt a thousand years ago on the off chance that you might turn up one day, walk in, and have a convenient heart attack?

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#70. Often, I get the feeling that the story is really happening somewhere and all I'm doing is trying to work out the best way to tell it.

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#71. It's you I'm concerned about. You are letting your fear come between you and getting better.

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#72. Conor had volunteered to carry it, perhaps hoping it would make the others think better of him. Rollan

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#73. We're really going to ride rhinos?" asked Conor excitedly.

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#74. It was like someone far away calling someone else's name.

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#75. They had an instictive ability to love, so that when they encountered each other, they fitted together in a way that made the two of them more than each could ever be on their own

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#76. Stop! By the Keys I hold, I order the Nothing to stop! House, you must hold against the Void!

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#77. I 'ad a toy when I was little,' said Suzy. She frowned for a moment, then added, 'Can't remember what it was. It moved and made me laugh ...

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#78. Being published is not a necessary validation or a path everyone wants to take with their work. Writing - and finishing - a novel is a great thing in itself, whether or not the book is published, or becomes widely-read or not.

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#79. I wish I had adventures like you do," Leaf said as she traced her finger over the writing on the invitation.
"They didn't feel like adventures," said Arthur.

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#80. The visions are fragmented and a dark cloud spreads like spilt ink across the pages of possible futures.

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#81. You mortals arose from the possibility she made and, though she always liked to think so, are consequently not of her direct design.

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#82. Time plays tricks between here and home, said Mogget sepulchrally, frightening the life out of the telephone operator.

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#83. I grew up in a house full of books and parents who read, which led to me to reading from a very young age. And reading seemed to naturally progress to writing.

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#84. Everything is always better for a walk.

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#85. Is it a lack of faith to be thinking that we're all going to be slain or captured and sunk into the Hot Lake?" asked one of the four chosen archers.
"Yes," snapped the Carp.

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#86. Arthur sighed and barely managed to whisper, Key ... hold the Hour Hand for ... a minute ... a minute ...

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#87. In any genre you're working in, you can always find a way to tell a particular kind of story. I love fantasy; I love science fiction. I love all kinds of fiction, in fact.

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#88. Oh, fierce librarians, then? Tell you to shush and that sort of thing?

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#89. She was no longer a shy Second Assistant Librarian. She was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting.

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#90. Coils within coils," murmured the cat. "Fleas upon fleas, idiots begetting idiots - "

"What?"

"Mmm, just thinking," whispered Mogget. "You should try it sometimes.

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#91. Knowledge, like all things, is best in moderation," intoned the Will. "Knowing everything means you don't need to think, and that is very dangerous.

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#92. I can see time, whispered Mogget, so softly that his words were lost.

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#93. Authors are influenced by everything they've ever read. If you've read widely enough, it helps you create your own mix.

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#94. The most important questions - "What are you? Where did you come from?" - had a whole range of answers, starting with "I'm the Disreputable Dog" and "from elsewhere" and occasionally becoming as eloquent as "I'm your Dog" and "You tell me - it was your spell.

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#95. Yet when ancient forces stir, many things are woken.

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#96. Interestingly, it is often the younger members of the audience who ask the most sophisticated questions.

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#97. This is what it is, to be an Abhorsen.

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#98. But we survived, didn't we? That makes it an adventure. If you get killed it's a tragedy.

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#99. In all my books, I try to have a strong element of realism underlying the fantastic.

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#100. I am Abhorsen ... "
He looked at the baby again and added, almost with a note of surprise, "Father of Sabriel

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