City of Golden Shadow Quotes

“...Coca-Cola and fries, the wafer and wine of the Western religion of commerce.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“He had once thought it was strange to have a friend you'd never met. Now it was even stranger, losing a friend you'd never really had”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Confident. Cocky. Lazy. Dead.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“There is no such thing as an accident. That's what science is all about. (...) There are only patterns we don't yet recognize.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“All people know the Greater Hunger...It is the hunger for warmth, for family, for connection to the stars and the earth and other living things..."

"For love?" Renie asked.

"Yes, I suppose that could be true.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“... Humans turn the places they live into great crowded piles of mud and stone, like the nests termites build--but what happens when in all the world there are only termite hills left but no bush?”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Never trust people that like to call things by initials, that's my philosophy.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Go down." It seemed obvious. "You have to go down before you can come out - that's how these things always work.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“So that's what--one "yes," one "not sure," and one "I had had a dream about a bug.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“The world was all mud and wire. The war in the heavens was only a faint imitation of the horror men had learned to make.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Im Schlamm fing es an, wie so vieles.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Ho! We are being taunted by some sort of otherworldly fireflies. Someone fetch me my rifle!”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“I try to choose the happier way of saying things, so that my own words will not weigh me down like stones.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Welcome to the Information Jungle.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“...a proud man who could do more than he is asked to do. It is not good for the spirit.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Falling to a low estate can do that—you see so much more of the world than you did before. You become very aware of how thin the line is, of how little safety exists.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“This has not been a particularly good time, these past few months. I wonder sometimes why I picked a career with so much sadness in it.” Doctor Chandhar turned at the doorway. “But it is good to make a difference, and sometimes I do. And sometimes, Ms. Sulaweyo, there are wonderful moments of happiness. I hope you and I can share one of those when Stephen comes back to us.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“If you rely solely on my honor to protect you, you are not the servant in whom I wish to place my trust.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Johnny’s Café was crowded. Most of the customers were truck drivers starting their hauling day on the Durban-Pretoria route, big friendly men in sunglasses and bright-colored shirts. Too friendly, some of them—in the time it took to squeeze through to an empty booth, Renie received a proposal of marriage and several less honorable offers. She clenched her teeth, refusing to smile at even the most harmless and respectful of the flirts. If you encouraged them, it just got worse.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“To her embarrassment and horror, she realized she had lost control, that she was having a helpless crying fit on a public bus bench.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“He smiled. “The school was closed.” “Of course.” She made a face and pulled a cigarette from her coat. “The bomb threat. It’s a bad sign when they get so common that I don’t even remember we had one until someone mentions it. And you know something? No one else did until you. Just another day in the big city.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Sometimes people need reasons for things, even when there are no reasons. That’s what makes people believe in conspiracies or religions—if there’s any difference. The world is just too complicated, so they need simple explanations.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“What brings you here, pot urchin?”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“She told him it was not necessary, but it was like arguing with a cat.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Susan smiled. “You didn’t have to wait until you were being chased by VR terrorists to come visit me, you know.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“He was over by the wallscreen with the usual bunch of men, some his age, some younger. They were watching a football match being played on green grass somewhere, a contest between well-paid professionals in one of the commercial sportsground Neverlands that only existed on broadcasts; she couldn’t help thinking about the real game in the street only a short distance away. What brought the young men in out of the sunshine and turned them into the only slightly older ones here—slow of speech but quick to argue, shallow-swimming, content to sit and nurse a few beers through a long afternoon in a steamy warehouse? How could men start out so strong, so vital, and then turn so sour?”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“She had always had her doubts about his back injury. Unless he had been bowed down so long by hard work piled on hard work, and then by the added, almost impossible burden of losing wife and mother-in-law and being left as sole parent to two young children, that he had just reached a point where he could not straighten up anymore. That, too, could be called a back injury of sorts.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“He looked up at her, sullen and a little frightened. “I don’t know what to say either, Irene. I hate to be hoping that my daughter is crazy in the head, but I don’t like that other idea very much.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“I am doing something, Papa, she wanted to say, but Renie knew that she was not the kind of somebody he had in mind.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow

“Anyway, dear, that’s it. Just wanted to let you know I was working on it. I haven’t forgotten. And I hope you haven’t become so wrapped up in this yourself that you’re skipping meals or sleep. You used to have a very bad habit of trying to make up for initial laziness with last-moment diligence. Not a good plan, Irene.”
― Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow