Grendel Quotes

“It's not easy to kill a mountain goat. He thinks with his spine.”

“I had a chance. I knew I had no more than that. it's all a hero asks for.”

“We can get you a throne with snakes. I’ll stand next to you and roar at anybody who fails to grovel. Fear Kate Daniels. She is a mighty and terrible ruler. Grendel can anoint the petitioners with his vomit. It’ll be great . . .”

“Go ahead, scoff, he said, petulant. Except in the life of a hero, the whole world's meaningless. The hero sees values beyond what's possible. That's the nature of a hero. It kills him, of course, ultimately. But it makes the whole struggle of humanity worthwhile.”

“So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age.”

“All order, I've come to understand, is theoretical, unreal — a harmless, sensible, smiling mask men slide between the two great, dark realities, the self and the world — two snake pits.”

“What do you call the Hrothgar-wrecker when Hrothgar has been wrecked?”

“Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see.”

“It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, an illusion of order for this one frail, foolish, flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity.”