Weaveworld Quotes

“That which is imagined can never be lost.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Nothing ever begins.
There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any story springs.
The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and the tales that preceded that; though as the narrator's voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“To dream in isolation can be properly splendid to be sure; but to dream in company seems to me infinitely preferable.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Always, worlds within worlds.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Maybe the man had taken the wrong turning, but at least he'd travelled some extraordinary roads.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“..She had that brand of pragmatism that would find her the first brewing tea after Armageddon.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“True joy is a profound remembering; and true grief the same.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“And this story, having no beginning, will have no end.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Let the void come, and bring an end to the tyranny of hope.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“What is now proved was once only imagined.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Dawn was close. The weaker stars had already disappeared, and even the brightest were uncertain of themselves.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“All had this in common: that if they returned from the Empty Quarter - even though their journey might have taken them only a day's ride into that place - they came back changed men. Nobody could set his eyes on such a void and return to hearth and home without having lost a part of himself to the wilderness forever. Many, having endured the void once, went back, and back again, as if daring the desert to claim them; not content until it did. And those unhappy few who died at home, died with their eyes not on the loving faces at their bedside, nor on the cherry tree in blossom outside the window, but on that waste that called them as only the Abyss can call, promising the soul the balm of nothingness.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“As long as they could still be moved by a minor chord, or brought to a crisis of tears by scenes of lovers reunited; as long as there was room in their cautious hearts for games of chance, and laughter in the face of God, that must surely be enough to save them, at the last. If not, there was no hope for any living thing.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“One part of love is innocence, One part of love is guilt, One part the milk, that in a sense Is soured as soon as spilt, One part of love is sentiment, One part of love is lust, One part is the presentiment Of our return to dust.” Eight lines, and it was all over;”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Then we realized that your Kind like to make laws. Like to decree what's what, and whether it's good or not. And the world, being a loving thing, and not wishing to disappoint you or distress you, indulges you. Behaves as though your doctrines are in some way absolute.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Yet the stories moved her. She couldn’t deny it. And they moved her in a way only *true* things could. It wasn’t sentiment that brought tears to her eyes. The stories weren’t sentimental. They were tough, even cruel. No, what made her weep was being reminded of an inner life she’d been so familiar with as a child; a life that was both an escape from, and revenge upon, the pains and frustrations of childhood; a life that was neither mawkish nor unknowing; a life of mind-places - haunted, soaring – that she’d chosen to forget when she’d took up the cause of adulthood.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke — Aye, and what then? —S. T. Coleridge, Anima Poetae”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Sometimes, of course, the war required that he be cruel, but what cause worth fighting for did not require cruelty of its champions once in a while?”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs. The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that; though as the narrator’s voice recedes, the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making. Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys. Nothing is fixed. In and out the shuttle goes fact and fiction, mind and matter, woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden amongst them is a filigree which will with time become a world.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“I have been, I think, altogether disparaging about the ‘escapist’ elements of the genre, emphasizing its powers to address social, moral and even philosophical issues at the expense of celebrating its dreamier virtues. I took this position out of a genuine desire to defend a fictional form I love from accusations of triviality and triteness, but my zeal led me astray. Yes, fantastic fiction can be intricately woven into the texture of our daily lives, addressing important issues in fabulist form. But it also serves to release us for a time from the definitions that confine our daily selves; to unplug us from a world that wounds and disappoints us, allowing us to venture into places of magic and transformation.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke – Aye, and what then?’ S. T. Coleridge Anima Poetae”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“So let it do its worst, if that at the last was inevitable. Let the void come, and bring an end to the tyranny of hope.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Talk of Power and Might would always attract an audience. Lords never went out of fashion.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“And with that comprehension, so unlike the simplifications she’d been ruled by hitherto, she became even more certain that the carpet they carried was a last hope, while he — whose home the Weave contained — seemed increasingly indifferent to its fate, living in the moment and for the moment, touched scarcely at all by hope or regret.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Yes, fantastic fiction can be intricately woven into the texture of our daily lives, addressing important issues in fabulist form. But it also serves to release us for a time from the definitions that confine our daily selves; to unplug us from a world that wounds and disappoints us, allowing us to venture into places of magic and transformation.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“She’s got powers,” said de Bono, taking off his spectacles and surveying the terrain ahead. “Most women have, of course.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Suzanna had argued with zealots before — her brother had been born again at twenty-three, and given his life to Christ — she knew from experience there was no gainsaying the bigotry of faith.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“But he’d brought new wisdom from the high places. He knew now that things forgotten might be recalled; things lost, found again.”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld

“Who can call a man dead whose words still hush us and whose sentiments move?”
― Clive Barker, Weaveworld