Top 80 Piers Anthony Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Have a working spouse, because you won’t earn a living from writing – not at first, if ever. My wife worked for years to support us.”

— Piers Anthony

52. “Happy children do not seem to grow up to be writers.”

— Piers Anthony

53. “I wish my readers took less of my time – about a third of my working time goes to them – but I love and need them all.”

— Piers Anthony

54. “Hell hath little fury like that of a critic who sees a writer make it big.”

— Piers Anthony

55. “Writers pay a lot of attention to wordage, because some publishers seem to care more about length than about quality and will automatically reject novels that don’t fit their narrow standards of length – or will chop out extra wordage to make a novel fit.”

— Piers Anthony

56. “I have, as may be apparent, not much respect for editors as a class.”

— Piers Anthony

57. “At the time I wrote Xone I had never been on the Internet.”

— Piers Anthony

58. “But I don’t read or listen for pleasure. I have too much else to do.”

— Piers Anthony

59. “When you have something you would die to protect it ceases to be a matter of courage.” Niobe explained, “You just know what you have to do and you can’t afford fear.”

— Piers Anthony

60. “It would be easier to write a novel without reader input, but I feel the fiction is richer for it.”

— Piers Anthony

61. “Dor wondered whether, if he should ever happen to be a ghost for eight hundred years, zombies might begin to look good to him. He doubted it.”

— Piers Anthony

62. “A mortal person’s mind is like a wilderness, with a tremendous volume of decaying constructs and half-understood experience forming natural harbors for wild animal effects.”

— Piers Anthony

63. “I don’t want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.”

— Piers Anthony

64. “But I have so much to learn!” Zane cried plaintively. “Then get to it, Death,” she said, closing the door behind her.”

— Piers Anthony

65. “Not any more. Not according to Glory Goblin or Brontes the Cyclops. Imbri merely confirms that Hugo has perfected his talent, and is now a good deal smarter and handsomer than before. A woman has to be responsible.”

— Piers Anthony

66. “May those who feel Xanth is sexist have pleasure in this novel, where Mundania is shown to be worse.”

— Piers Anthony

67. “It is not how long one lives, but how well one lives that is important.”

— Piers Anthony

68. “Nuts grow on trees?” the spider inquired dubiously.”

— Piers Anthony

69. “The manifest mind of a woman, he realized, made a great deal of difference in her appeal. Lesson for the day.”

— Piers Anthony

70. “Oh, yeah?” Grundy cut in. “I happen to know that someone leaked copies of several of those texts to Mundania, including that one, so a whole bunch of people must have seen it!”

— Piers Anthony

71. “Only in Xanth would parents see a dragon looming over their children and depart with confidence.”

— Piers Anthony

72. “And the worst of it was, Irene could not claim with any certainty that this savage retribution was wrong. She had always thought other people would and should suffer for their callousness, but had never realized that she was as guilty as they and deserved similar treatment.”

— Piers Anthony

73. “Had he known of this on the way over – but of course that was the thing about information. Without it, a person suffered enormous complications.”

— Piers Anthony

74. “He is a parrot legal, one of the few creatures the volcano tolerates near its cone. Perhaps because they are very good at arguing their cases.” “Arguing cases?” she asked blankly. “Parrots are talkative birds, and these ones like to perform legal tasks, though they are neither secretary-birds nor lawyer-birds. They are merely paralegals.”

— Piers Anthony

75. “Our men have aversion spells on their hats,” Gnifty continued. She was really quite talkative, now that the ice had been broken. “So that no big monsters come near, just creatures small enough to be hunted at night. When a dragon is near, they cry, ‘Hang onto your hat!”

— Piers Anthony

76. “What do you mean, he?”

— Piers Anthony

77. “It is possible to differ politically, socially, religiously, or in many other ways, yet to be friends.”

— Piers Anthony

78. “At any rate, they got the lead out – but paid a hideous price.”

— Piers Anthony

79. “Magic was magic. It had no rationale except its own.”

— Piers Anthony

80. “But the text recorded it as ‘Hell, you’re in my hand’ – an H instead of a W.” Irene grimaced. “You mean everyone who sees that text will believe my husband swore at his sword?” “I’m afraid so,” Chem said apologetically.”

— Piers Anthony

81. “The Magician charges a year’s service. You – would not want to pay.” The Good Magician was male, and Wynne had only one obvious coin. No one would be interested in her mind.”

— Piers Anthony

82. “Of course. MAN – an acronym.” The mouth on the screen quirked with obscure humor. “Oh? What do the letters stand for?” “Multi-Appendaged-Numbskull, of course. Every creature who is worthy of the title of sapience knows that.”

— Piers Anthony

83. “A few are addicted to mud. They wallow in it constantly.” “They can’t have many friends.” “That’s the funny thing! They have almost as many friends as the clean people. The trouble is, the friends are all the same kind of people.”

— Piers Anthony

84. “If a thing could not be accomplished honestly, probably it wasn’t worth accomplishing at all.”

— Piers Anthony

85. “The Black Plague!” Niobe exclaimed. “What good did that do?” “It alleviated the European population pressure, decimated the labor force, and-so paved the way for the end of the feudal system,” Satan said. “You can’t keep workers in peonage when there are so few that their value is great.”

— Piers Anthony

86. “What splendor nature proffered to the eye of any man who had half the wit to appreciate it!”

— Piers Anthony

87. “How do you like me now?” she inquired archly. He was cautious. “I thought you didn’t really care for me. Why are you making yourself so lovely?” She grimaced prettily. “I told you my deepest sins, and you didn’t reject me. That’s worth something.”

— Piers Anthony