The Kings and Queens of Roam Quotes

“A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“He believed in himself, believed in his quixotic ambition, letting the failures of the previous day disappear as each new day dawned. Yesterday was not today. The past did not predict the future if he could learn from his mistakes.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“Magic is dangerous: it's neither good nor bad, right nor wrong; it can be both a blessing and a curse. It takes strength, the strength of a man, to make the magic his own, to make it serve him, and not the other way around.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“How do you know when it's me?"
"Your footsteps are apologetic?"
"What does that mean?"
She turned, smiling wiping her hands on her long, black skirt. "It doesn't mean anything," she said. "Everybody else here just does what they want to do and doesn't think twice about it. But you're never sure.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“You're a good man," Fang said. "You're the last good man in this whole town. All the good that could be squeezed out of this forsaken place was used to make you. That's why you're so small, my friend: there just wasn't that much left." Fang laughed. "and that's why you can see us, you know, and nobody else can. You see everybody, even that lumberjack.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“You lie to her, you lie to me, you lie to yourself. Blind girl blind you.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“Rachel tried to slap Mrs. Samuels when she said this, but she wasn't really sure where her face was and she missed, terribly.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“I don’t want to suggest that I was listening to or even overhearing the conversation the two of you were having. I am not the sort of man to eavesdrop. I would say, however, your words did seem almost to float on the air from your table across to my own, which in any case is a short distance, and, having arrived, they were, I would say, impossible not to hear, just as one would have no choice whether to hear a car backfire, or a bird sing. Very difficult not to hear, if one can hear, if one has ears; it’s involuntary, you see. We hear things whether we want to or not, and in this way the words you were speaking to one another entered my ears”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel

“It was laid out much like any other town—thoughtlessly, and in haste. Here is where the rich people lived, and here the workers. This is where the white people shopped, and here was the special store for the Chinese, which had everything they could ever want, as long as they didn’t want that much.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel

“The journey wasn't even about being happy, or happier, here or there. It was simpler than that. It was more like, If there's something here, there's something there, and I've been here, now let's see what's there. It's how people came to the valley in the first place. It's how anybody gets anywhere.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“There were so many dead their spirits could no longer be contained in the darkness, and, like deer, their population had spilled over into parts of the town reserved for the living.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel

“There is no greater grief than that of a man with a broken heart who only just learned he had a heart at all.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel

“For Ming Kai’s nose—which, like so many Chinese organs, was advanced beyond the reckoning of his Caucasian brother—”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel

“What good is always being happy? Sadness hints at the possibility of a future reward.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“Ming Kai gasped for air, a breath he didn’t seem to exhale, and his eyes fluttered shut. “He’s dead,” his replacement wife said, not without a little sadness. “He’s dead.” A moment passed, that silent moment when the soul leaves the body. Or, rather, when it’s supposed to. “No,” Ming Kai said, eyes still closed. “Not dead. Sleeping so I can dream.” “Damn you,” said his replacement wife. “Damn damn damn you.”
― Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel