Top 140 Garth Nix Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “So I’ll do that, and I’ll do my best and if my best isn’t good enough, at least I will have done everything I could, everything that is in me. I don’t have to try to be someone else, someone I could never be.”

— Garth Nix

2. “Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”

— Garth Nix

3. “No mother, no father, no Sight.”

— Garth Nix

4. “Sometimes it is easier to see the light when you stand partly in the darkness.”

— Garth Nix

5. “There is always a choice, even if the alternatives don’t appear to be equal.”

— Garth Nix

6. “Choosers will be beggars if the begging’s not their choosing.”

— Garth Nix

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

— Garth Nix

8. “But we survived, didn’t we? That makes it an adventure. If you get killed it’s a tragedy.”

— Garth Nix

9. “It’s always better to be doing.”

— Garth Nix

10. “For everyone and everything, there is a time to die. Some do not know it, or would delay it, but its truth cannot be denied. Not when you look into the stars of the ninth gate.”

— Garth Nix

11. “Time and death sleep side by side.”

— Garth Nix

12. “It is better to do something than nothing, even if the cost is great.”

— Garth Nix

13. “I have never known what to tell anybody. Except that it is better to do something than nothing, even if the cost is great.”

— Garth Nix

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

— Garth Nix

15. “There were also very special or dangerous items that had to be fetched in person, or even by large parties of armed librarians.”

— Garth Nix

16. “Let this be my final lesson. Everyone and everything has a time to die.”

— Garth Nix

17. “There is never one absolutely right thing to do. All you can do is honor what you believe, accept the consequences of your own actions, and make the best out of what happens.”

— Garth Nix

18. “Five Great Charters knit the land Together linked, hand in hand One in the people who wear the crown Two in the folk who keep the Dead down Three and Five became stone and mortar Four sees all in frozen water.”

— Garth Nix

19. “The most important thing is to be true to yourself, however you feel, and not try to feel or behave differently because you think you should, or someone has told you how you must feel. But do think about it. Unexamined feelings lead to all kinds of trouble.”

— Garth Nix

20. “I am not going to change who I am. I am human and I know how to love, and be kind, and be compassionate to those who are weaker than me. Just because I have power doesn’t mean I have to use it!”

— Garth Nix

21. “Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon.”

— Garth Nix

22. “More advice. Don’t go near the Old One. Do go near the Old One. Don’t stay past twelve. Trust the Will. Don’t trust the Will. I wish someone would tell me something straightforward for once.”

— Garth Nix

23. “Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.”

— Garth Nix

24. “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.”

— Garth Nix

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

— Garth Nix

26. “Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn’t surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen.”

— Garth Nix

27. “Double, treble, quadruple bubble, watch the stock market get into trouble...”

— Garth Nix

28. “If an action must be taken that will benefit the majority at the cost of the minority, is it morally indefensible? If an action taken for the benefit of a majority occurs at the expense of a minority, is it moral action?”

— Garth Nix

29. “Charity is a very labour-intensive virtue.”

— Garth Nix

30. “Maybe if I act well enough, I’ll come to believe it myself.”

— Garth Nix

31. “Yet when ancient forces stir, many things are woken.”

— Garth Nix

32. “Who or what are you? Besides insufferably rude?”

— Garth Nix

33. “So are you saying that somebody went to all the trouble to make you a crypt a thousand years ago on the off chance that you might turn up one day, walk in, and have a convenient heart attack?”

— Garth Nix

34. “He was obviously a very arrogant ragamuffin, and younger than she was, to boot. And he was wearing a necromancer’s bells! Apart from that, he was quite handsome, which was another black mark as far as she was concerned.”

— Garth Nix

35. “Bee stings are very educational.”

— Garth Nix

36. “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.”

— Garth Nix

37. “I hope you find some stories here that you will enjoy, or wonder about, or that linger uncomfortably in the mind when you wish they didn’t.”

— Garth Nix

38. “Being published is not a necessary validation or a path everyone wants to take with their work. Writing – and finishing – a novel is a great thing in itself, whether or not the book is published, or becomes widely-read or not.”

— Garth Nix

39. “Clearly the Old One had the capacity to kill – or easily deliver some sort of final ending that sounded remarkably like death.”

— Garth Nix

40. “May I say that I approve of a piece that tries to remake the entire puzzle?”

— Garth Nix

41. “I certainly have had experiences of a sense of wonder at the world and a feeling that even though it could all be explained rationally, it still feels that there is more to it.”

— Garth Nix

42. “Often, I get the feeling that the story is really happening somewhere and all I’m doing is trying to work out the best way to tell it.”

— Garth Nix

43. “Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?’” Sabriel quoted, the words, redolent with echoes of Charter Magic, twining around her tongue like some lingering spice.”

— Garth Nix

44. “The ‘rob from the rich, give to the poor’ is more of a general overview than a specific thing we have to do every time. It really means making sure those who have too much do some sharing with those who have too little, and it isn’t always just about valuables or money or even basic things like food. It is also about sharing power and opportunities.”

— Garth Nix

45. “I have walked in Death to the very precipice of the Ninth Gate,” Abhorsen said quietly. “I know the secrets and horrors of the Nine Precincts. I do not know what lies beyond, but everything that lives must go there, in the proper time. That is the rule that governs our work as the Abhorsen, but it also governs us. You are the fifty-third Abhorsen, Sabriel. I have not taught you as well as I should – let this be my final lesson. Everyone and everything has a time to die.”

— Garth Nix

46. “Will you turn me back to myself, please, Frogkisser?”

— Garth Nix

47. “A year ago, I turned the final page of The Book of the Dead. I don’t feel young any more.”

— Garth Nix

48. “A tree is strong But the wind is stronger A stone is strong But the sea is stronger The sun is strong But sorrow is stronger.”

— Garth Nix

49. “The Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker made me, the King quenched me, the Abhorsen wields me so that no Dead shall walk in Life. For this is not their path.”

— Garth Nix

50. “You know what they say: ‘The cats and the owls and the better type of raven, know more of what is doing than any human maven.”

— Garth Nix