Garth Nix Quotes

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

“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

“You may call me Mogget. As to what I am, I was once many things, but now I am only several.”

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

He growled and grimaced as they came to him, and clenched his fists in pain and anger. “Unusual name,” commented Mogget. “More of a bear’s name, that growl.

“A Kiss,” said Mogget sleepily. “Actually, just a breath would do. But you have to start kissing someone sometime, I suppose.”

I am Abhorsen...” He looked at the baby again and added, almost with a note of surprise, “Father of Sabriel

“Touchstone watched, suddenly conscious that he probably only had five seconds left to be alone with Sabriel, to say something, to say anything. Perhaps the last five seconds they ever would have alone together. I am not afraid, he said to himself. “I love you,” he whispered. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Prepare a crossing party,” snapped Horyse. “A single person to cross. Miss Abhorsen, here. And Sergeant, if you or Private Rahise so much as talk in your sleep about what you may have heard here, then you’ll be on gravedigging fatigues for the rest of your lives!”

“Astarael, the Sorrowful,” whispered Sabriel. Astarael was the banisher, the final bell. Properly rung, it cast everyone who heard it far into Death. Everyone, including the ringer.”

“Our parts now -- which perforce we must play -- are not father and daughter, but one old Abhorsen, making way for the new. But behind this, there is always my love.”

“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.”

“Your spirit was somehow preserved just beyond the border of Death, and your body preserved as the wooden figurehead. Both necromantic and Free Magic would have been involved. Very powerful magic, on both counts. I am curious as to why it was used on you.”

“I had hoped there was another reason for you to carry his sword.”

“Instantly, she turned on her left heel and began racing back to the border with Life, drawing her sword. [...] Sabriel reached the border and, with a furious thrust of will, her spirit emerged back into Life.”

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

“And though my powers wane with the ebb of time, I always know when one Abhorsen falls and another takes their place. [...] Even if he has not passed the Final Gate, he will walk in life not more.”

“Not really. I remember what I would not, and forget what I should not. Forgive me.”

“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.”

“Be inside by nightfall. Lock all doors and windows. Deny entry to strangers. Shed light inside and out. Prepare candles and lanterns fro when the electricity fails. Wear silver. If caught outdoors, find running water.

“Abhorsen is mine. You will leave her to me.”

While waiting for help, Arthur notices two strange-looking men materializing out of thin air. They discuss a key and whether or not to give it to Arthur.

One of the men, Monday, doesn’t want to give it up because he needs the key in order to continue his reign, but the other man, Sneezer, convinces him to as the Will states Monday must give the key to a suitable heir but after Arthur dies, Monday will once again regain control of the Key.

Arthur Penhaligon’s first days at his new school don’t go too well, particularly when a fiendish Mister Monday appears, gives Arthur a magical clock hand, and then orders his gang of dog-faced goons to chase Arthur around and get it back.

That means getting past Monday’s henchmen and journeying to the Dayroom itself. Thankfully, Arthur is up to the challenge, but as he finds out, his fight seems to be only one-seventh over.

But when the confused and curious boy discovers that a mysterious virus is spreading through town, he decides to enter an otherworldly house to stop it.

On Earth, a boy named Arthur Penhaligon (the main character) is at a new school. He collapses during an outdoor cross country run during gym because of his severe asthma. Two of his schoolmates, Ed and Leaf, stop to help him use his inhaler before running to get help.

Persuaded, Monday agrees to relinquish control of the key, which is shaped like the minute hand of an old clock, although he quickly becomes suspicious of Sneezer, who apparently never showed much intelligence before. Sneezer and Mister Monday then fight and disappear in a flash of light.

With a weapon-wielding hero and a villain who doesn’t make Mondays any nicer, Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom launch is imaginative and gripping. After an action-packed crescendo to the book’s middle -- when Arthur finally learns his destiny -- Nix keeps the drama going and doesn’t let it fall.

After meeting Suzy Blue and the first part of “the Will” (a frog-looking entity that knows everything about the House), Arthur learns that he’s been selected as Rightful Heir to the House and must get the other part of the clock hand in order to defeat Monday.

It’s just a run of the mill mid-grade fantasy quest Arthurian/Christian symbolism story. And to make matters worse, for me anyway, is that it is just so whimsical and overly descriptive.