Grendel Quotes

Quote 1: "Not that I fool myself with thoughts that I'm more noble." Chapter 1, pg. 6

Quote 2: "Bulls do such things, though they don't even know that the calves they defend are theirs." Chapter 2, pg. 20

Quote 3: "I create the whole universe, blink by blink." Chapter 2, pg. 22

Quote 4: "It was slightly ominous because of its strangeness--no wolf was so vicious to other wolves--but I half believed they weren't serious." Chapter 3, pg. 32

Quote 5: "I clamped my palms to my ears and stretched up my lips and shrieked again: a stab at truth, a snatch at apocalyptic glee." Chapter 3, pg. 45

Quote 6: "My heart was light with Hrothgar's goodness, and leaden with grief at my own bloodthirsty ways." Chapter 4, pg. 48

Quote 7: "He told of an ancient feud between two brothers which split all the world between darkness and light. And I, Grendel, was the dark side...I believed him! Such was the power of the Shaper's harp!" Chapter 4, pg. 52

Quote 8: "Why not frighten them?" Chapter 5, pg. 61

Quote 9: "You want the word. That's what you've come for. My advice is, don't ask! Do as I do! Seek out gold--but not my gold--and guard it!" Chapter 5, pg. 62

Quote 10: "It was unfair. For all I knew he might be telling me gibberish on purpose. I sat down. Let him babble." Chapter 5, pg. 70

Quote 11: "something will come of all this." Chapter 5, pg. 73

Quote 12: "I had become, myself, the mama I'd searched the cliffs for once in vain." Chapter 6, pg. 80

Quote 13:"Enough of that! A night for tearing heads off, bathing in blood!" Chapter 7, pg. 93

Quote 14: "Impossibly, like roses blooming in the heart of December, she said, 'That's past.' And it was. The demon was exorcised." Chapter 7, pg. 104

Quote 15: "a hero who'd killed a girl's old father out of love for the girl, and how the girl; after that had both loved and hated the hero and finally had killed him." Chapter 7, pg. 107

Quote 16: "So much for meaning as quality of life! I would kill her and teach them reality." Chapter 7, pg. 110

Quote 17: "Any action (A) of the human heart must trigger an equal and opposite reaction (A1)." Chapter 8, pg. 113

Quote 18: "The law of the world is a winter law, and casual." Chapter 8, pg. 115

Quote 19: "If the Revolution comes to grief, it will be because you and those you lead have become alarmed at your own brutality." Chapter 8, pg. 117

Quote 20: "All systems are evil." Chapter 8, pg. 120

Quote 21: "How, if I know all this, you may ask, could I hound him--shatter him again and again, drive him deeper and deeper into woe? I have no answer, except perhaps this: why should I not?" Chapter 8, pg. 122

Quote 22: "The image clings to my mind like a growth. I sense some riddle in it." Chapter 9, pg. 127

Quote 23: "He is the eternal urge of desire establishing the purposes of all creatures." Chapter 9, pg. 132

Quote 24: "So it goes," Chapter 10, pg. 142

Quote 25: "I will forget, tomorrow, so her pain is a matter of indifference." Chapter 10, pg. 147

Quote 26: "Nihilo ex nihilo," Chapter 10, pg. 150

Quote 27: "Only in a world where everything is patently being lost can a priest stir men's hearts as a poet would by maintaining that nothing is in vain." Chapter 11, pg. 159

Quote 28: "Time is the mind, the hand that makes (fingers on harpstrings, hero-swords, the acts, the eyes of queens.) By that I kill you." Chapter 12, pg. 170

Quote 29: "If you think I created that wall that cracked my head, you're a fucking lunatic." Chapter 12, pg. 171

Quote 30: "Poor Grendel's had an accident. So may you all." Chapter 12, pg. 174