Goblins Quotes

“Goblin tea resembles a nice cup of Earl Grey in much the same way that a catfish resembles the common tabby. They share a name, but one is a nice thing to curl up with on a rainy afternoon, and the other is found in the muck at the bottom of polluted rivers and has bits of debris sticking to it.”
― T. Kingfisher

“And the goblins--they had not really been there at all? They were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President Roosevelt, would say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They might return--and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall. Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up. He blew with his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were scattered. He brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the youth, the magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“You didn’t tell me living would be one decision after another, some easy, some difficult. You didn’t tell me living wasn’t a battle, but a war. You didn’t tell me that living was a choice, and that every day I choose to continue was another victory, another triumph.”
― S. Jae-Jones, Shadowsong

“The goblins have been after me ever since I helped the Coven drive them out of Essex. (They were gobbling up drunk people in club bathrooms, and the Mage was worried about losing regional slang.) I think the goblin who successfully offs me gets to be king.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Carry On

“Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy”
― Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market: A Tale of Two Sisters

“Real love may be a choice, but I plan to choose someone who steals the breath from my body and haunts my very dreams. That is the only kind of love worth having.”
― Renée Ahdieh, The Damned

“Orcs live in caves. Goblins live in shadows. It's the pain of distance versus the pain of proximity.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord

“Sir, come quick. They've found a body in the canal."
I blew out my breath. Saved by the corpse.
...The corpse in question was Nigel Nicabar.
The watchers had collected the bodies found in Nigel's house, garden, and canal, and put them in the greenhouse located at the back of the garden. The necromancer's talents weren't with living things, so the greenhouse's tables were pretty much empty - at least of plants. Dead goblins lay under sheets and tarps. I couldn't help feeling that Nigel would have approved. What he wouldn't have approved of was being included among them. Nigel wouldn't have been caught dead surrounded by goblins, yet that's exactly how and where he was. I don't think he would have appreciated the irony.”
― Lisa Shearin, Magic Lost, Trouble Found

“Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-
hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled
dwarves, when they take the trouble, though
they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers,
axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and
also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far. They did not hate dwarves especially, no more than they hated everybody and everything, and particularly the orderly and prosperous; in
some parts wicked dwarves had even made
alliances with them. But they had a special
grudge against Thorin’s people, because of the war which you have heard mentioned, but which does not come into this tale; and anyway goblins don't care who they catch, as long as it is done smart and secret, and the prisoners are not able to defend themselves.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“You don't pity a warrior for her scars, because scars are proof of survival and victory.”
― Chloe Jacobs, Greta and the Lost Army

“This is proof that Monday wants me dead...Wednesday wouldn't do this to me. It's laid back. Friday actually likes me! But Monday is a bitter, backstabbing treacherous day." - Thradly the Goblin.”
― Arthur Daigle, Goblin Stories

“A wanton women is ripened fruit,' Constanze intoned,'begging to be plucked by the Goblin King.”
― S. Jae-Jones, Wintersong

“You will come to the woods and choose your mate.”
― Molly Ringle, The Goblins of Bellwater

“Everyone knew you shouldn't go biting into fruit offered to you by magical creatures in the woods, even if you'd thought until just five minutes ago that such stories were, you know, only stories.”
― Molly Ringle, The Goblins of Bellwater

“All I ask,” the doctor said, “is that you keep in mind that all creations, all advances, all inventions, come with a price. They can be used for good or they can be used for evil. But in my philosophy, mine is not to determine politics or to decide if a certain advance should be created. Mine is to determine if it could be created. There’s no use in debating the morals when I don’t even know if something will work.”
― Colleen Houck, The Lantern's Ember

“I cried out to the fae to appear for me. It was my ill fortune that it was a goblin who answered.”
― Molly Ringle, The Goblins of Bellwater

“Isaac stopped her at the bottom of the stairs with a crooked smile. "I would wish you sweet dreams, but how can they be memorable if I won't be in them?”
― Chloe Jacobs, Greta and the Lost Army

“You are the best!"
He smiled. "Remember this always, and we will have no more problems between us in the future.”
― Chloe Jacobs, Greta and the Lost Army

“Where was I? O yes- I was not grabbed. I killed a goblin or two with a flash-"

"Good!" growled Beorn. "It is some good being a wizard, then.”
― J. R. R. Tolkien

“We're three people against a crazed faerie queen merged with a demon who controls an army of gnomes. What could happen?”
― Chloe Jacobs, Greta and the Lost Army

“Makenna's "He does" clashed with Cogswhallop's "She does."
They looked at each other, and she saw the love in his eyes -- but he saw the truth in hers.
"He does," she told the Hierarch firmly.”
― Hilari Bell, The Goblin War

“A man might as well say that millers and cats and princesses are fabulous animals, because they appear side by side with goblins and mermaids in the stories of the nursery.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Avowals and Denials - A Book of Essays

“Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work will they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Now certainly Bilbo was in what is called a tight place. But you must remember it was not quite so tight for him as it would have been for me or for you. Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people; and after all if their holes are nice cheery places and properly aired, quite different from the tunnels of the goblins, still they are more used to tunnelling than we are, and they do not easily lose their sense of direction under-ground - not when their heads have recovered from being bumped. Also they can move very quietly, and hide easily, and recover wonderfully from falls and bruises, and they have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly never heard or have forgotten long ago.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Faeries are twilight creatures, and I have become one, too. We rise when the shadows grow long and head to our beds before the sun rises. It is well after midnight when we arrive at the great hill at the palace of Elfhame. To go inside, we must ride between two trees, an oak and a thorn, and then straight in to what appears to be the stone wall of an abandoned folly. I've done it hundreds of times, but I flinch anyway. My whole body braces, I grip the reins hard, and my eyes mash shut.

When I open them, I am inside the hill.

We ride on through a cavern, between pillars of roots, over packed earth.

Then are dozens of the Folk here, crowding around the entrance to the vast throne room, where Court is being held- long-nosed pixies with tattered wings; elegant, green-skinned ladies in long gowns with goblins holding up their trains; tricksy boggans; laughing foxkin; a boy in an owl mask and a golden headdress; an elderly woman with crowns crowding her shoulders; a gaggle of girls with wild roses in their hair; a bark-skinned boy with feathers around his neck; a group of knights all in scarab-green armour. Many I've seen before; a few I have spoken with. Too many for my eyes to drink them all in, yet I cannot look away.

I never get tired of this- of the spectacle, of the pageantry. Maybe Oriana isn't entirely wrong to worry that we might one day get caught up in it, be carried away by it, and forget to take care. I can see why humans succumb to the beautiful nightmare of the Court, why they willingly drown in it.

I know I shouldn't love it as I do, stolen as I am from the mortal world, my parents murdered. But I love it all the same.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Goblins and grigs, pixies and elves all cavort in endless intertwined circle dances. Honey wine flows freely from horns, and tables are stacked with ripe cherries, gooseberries, pomegranates, and plums.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“It is not unlikely that they [goblins] invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Sheepfucker. Is that a sheep who’s a fucker, or a goblin that fucks sheep?”
― Wildbow, Pale

“Rachel giggled at the sight of her and Kirsty. They looked just like the goblins, and had trays of ice cream hanging around their necks. “We definitely look nicer as fairies than goblins!” she said.”
― Daisy Meadows, Esme the Ice Cream Fairy

“Old thug rules. First thug who dies loses!”
― Dexter Herron, Shard's Thugs