"He remembered his dismay at finding himself committed to a hand of cards without having honestly looked at the stakes, fourteen years ago. Had he been doing it again? But if the stakes were too frightening to consider, and the game was already lost, what value could there be in clear comprehension?"

Tim Powers Literature See all quotes by Tim Powers →

React to this quote

More by Tim Powers

See all

“How, he wondered forlornly, and when, did I become indistinguishable from the bad guys?”

“The wages of courage is death, lad, but it’s the wages of everything else, too.”

“Art, like a lot of things, is a lost art.”

“I’m not a joiner. Any time you work with people, they turn out to be inept clowns.”

“Sukie had always said that the Alice books were the Old and New Testaments for ghosts—which Pete had never understood; after all, Lewis Carroll hadn’t been dead yet when he’d written them.”

“It wasn’t fair, but fairness was something you had to go get; it wasn’t delivered like the mail.”

Resonant Thoughts

"There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice, that does not live by secrecy."

— Joseph Pulitzer

Politics1847–1911

#success

"I knew that even if I was able to call for help, I was in a place so remote that it wasn’t likely there would be anyone who could help me. And even if there were, it could take weeks."

— Abby Sunderland

1993

#kindness

"There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be."

— Doris Lessing

Literature1919–2013

#justice

"These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr. Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free with…"

— Al Gore

Politics1948

#freedom