Garth Nix Quotes

For all my longer works (i.e. the novels) I write chapter outlines so I can have the pleasure of departing from them later on.

Touchstone watched, suddenly conscious that he probably only had five seconds left to be alone with Sabriel, to say something, to say anything. Perhaps the last five seconds they ever would have alone together.
I am not afraid, he said to himself.
"I love you," he whispered. "I hope you don't mind.

My parents are going to kill me!"
"That seems rather harsh...

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.

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

Time and death sleep side by side.

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.

As it 'appens, I am Arthur's right-hand man," said Suzy. "Or left-hand girl, I can't remember where I stood last time. Anyhow, me and Arthur is like two fingers of a gauntlet. Or at least the thumb and the little finger. I mean, I'm his top General, and all. So if I say you're in, you're in.

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

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

Fear and realisation of ignorance, strong medicines against stupid pride.

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.

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

As for you, Private, if you mention a word of this to anyone, I'll feed you to the cat thing here. Understand?"
"Yum," said Mogget.
"Yes, sir!" mumbled the telephone operator, his hands shaking as he tried to smother the burning wreckage of his switchboard with a fire blanket.

Even now, she wished she could write a note, push it across the table, and go away to her room. But she was no longer a Second Assistant Librarian of the Great Library of the Clayr. Those days were gone, vanished with everything else that had defined her previous existence and identity.

‎"It always seemed somehow less real here... a really detailed dream, but sort of washed out, like a thin watercolor. Softer, somehow, even with their electric light and engines and everything. I guess it was because there was hardly any magic.

Our parts now - which perforce we must play - are not father and daughter, but one old Abhorsen, making way for the new. But behind this, there is always my love.

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

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.