“We shouldn't have to go around congratulating each other for behaving with basic human dignity.”

“It is by studying the Sphinx that we realize all wonder is seasoned with dread, all courage is tinctured with fear, all wisdom is the fermentation of folly.”

Love your books, Josiah. I hope all is going well with the little one. :)

“Never let a rigid itinerary discourage you from an unexpected adventure.”

"Senlin did not believe in that sort of love: sudden and selfish and insatiable. Love, as the poets so often painted it, was just bald lust wearing a pompous wig. He believed true love was more like an education: it was deep and subtle and never complete."

"Never forget, you stand at the end of a long line of short lives."

From Senlin Ascends:

"The simplest way to make the world mysterious and terrifying to a man is to chase him through it."

"Never let a rigid itinerary discourage you from an unexpected adventure." 🎒

“The Commissioner is as good humored as a guillotine.”

“Mirrors are not so honest as one might think. They can be mugged at, bargained with, and one can always ferret out a flattering angle. Really, there is nothing like the expression of a long-lost friend to reflect the honest state of your affairs.”

"Don't worry, whatever happens to me, your coat will survive. Long live fashion!"

“The gaps are a part of the set, too,” she’d said. “You can’t replace them. I know how each piece was broken or lost. I broke a plate myself when I was nine. Now I’m an immortal part of the pattern. I’ll take my gaps, thank you.” Senlin Ascends, Josiah Bancroft

“History is a love letter to tyrants written in the blood of the overrun, the forgotten, the expunged!”

"I’m counting on greed and egotism, forces that are as reliable as gravity"

"Having never been very good at emoting, Senlin worried that Ogier might mistake his reserve for indifference."
I actually wrote that down at the time because I could relate.

Gossip was the theater of the uneducated

I was really hoping you'd say that we needed a bit of rope and a sausage.

“We shouldn't have to go around congratulating each other for behaving with basic human dignity.”

"I admit, your lordship, to having had my doubts about boarding spiders and spider-eaters in a public park. It seemed to my admittedly meager imagination a bit like inviting rats into your home and then adopting tigers to keep them in check."

"The cat has just batted me twice on the nose. It was necessary, if humiliating. At least I feel more composed."

"The Everyman’s description of the Tower of Babel hadn’t really prepared Senlin for the enormity of the structure. It made the ziggurats of South Ur and the citadels of the Western Plains seem like models, the sort of thing children built out of sugar cubes. The Tower had taken a thousand years to erect. More, according to some historians."

Talk about some amazing imagery with some delicious foreshadowing.

It's a popular one, and one many people will probably pick, but I'm a sucker for a quote about Love that isn't just fairytales and impossible-to-believe perfectionism.

“Senlin did not believe in that sort of love: sudden and selfish and insatiable. Love, as the poets so often painted it, was just bald lust wearing a pompous wig. He believed true love was more like an education: it was deep and subtle and never complete.”

“History is a love letter to tyrants written in the blood of the overrun, the forgotten, the expunged” Arm of the Sphinx

"The truth, when finally told, will often sound strange, while a lie is so often familiar."

"Senlin did not believe in that sort of love: sudden and selfish and insatiable. Love, as the poets so often painted it, was just bald lust wearing a pompous wig. He believed true love was more like an education: it was deep and subtle and never complete."

“I’m going to feel very weak and you’re going to feel very dumb. But that’s how it always is in the beginning. Learning starts with failure.”

"She half expected the elevator doors to open and for Tom to shriek at the sight of her. Though she knew he wouldn't. As much as she dreaded the inevitable conversations, she was looking forward to seeing him. Befuddled or not, he had always been on her side."

"We are, each of us, a multitude. I am not the man I was this morning, nor the man of yesterday. I am a throng of myself queued through time. We are, gentle reader, each a crowd within a crowd."

Brilliant - like the whole book!

“It is easier to accept who you’ve become than to recollect who you were.”

"Because they can keep us here forever, and I can’t stay here. Do you want to die like this? I don’t. I want to die some day in the far future working my land with my feet on the ground. And you… you need to find a fireplace to stand by.” She said the last with a sad, resolute smile.”

"The handkerchief is the universal utensil of the seasoned traveler. It can be a sanitizing device, a seat cover, a dust mask, a garrote, a bandage, a gag, or a white flag. One may feel well-prepared with nothing but a pocket square."

"Never let a rigid itinerary discourage you from an unexpected adventure"

So here I am at 4:00am, on 12/09, and I've just finished Arm Of The Sphinx and immediately click over to download The Hod King and run smack into this "January 2019" nonsense!

Oh well, at least there's this contest...
"Books are seldom more than an author elaborating upon their obsession with the grammar of self-doubt."

"An ancient and beloved teacher once told me that a journal is the only book a man can undertake and know for certain he will one day finish"

Thanks for doing these competitions!