The Ropemaker Time Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

She didn't expect to sleep, but lay for a while wondering at the strangeness of what was happening, far stranger, she thought, than anything else in her adventure [...]—this business with time. Suppose in the wild hurtle of the start of their flight she had fallen out of the litter, but landed unhurt, what would have happened? Would the roc have stuck in its flight between wing beat and wing beat? Or would Faheel have found the strength to wear his ring again? And if neither of them had been able to do that, what then? Would she have been stuck, moving and breathing, in a world forever still? (11.177)

Tilja feels a bit out of her element—meddling with time isn't something she's used to. How can she make sure everything goes according to plan if she doesn't really know how this type of magic works? She's presented with a potential dilemma that she can't do much about—our girl can't work that kind of magic—and has to remain in a state of unknowing, trusting, just as her ancestor Dirna did, in the power of Faheel.

Quote #5

"Time, I tell you, is a great rope. Wearing the ring, I have stood outside it and seen how its strands weave into other strands, back and forth, far beyond the instant in which we all live." (12.29)

When Tilja asks Faheel what would have happened if she had fixed the men's dice game, he tells her that she could have ruined the world—or saved it. One small action can affect the whole flow of life. Faheel has observed such things by standing outside the world of men—and, to some degree, outside time itself.

Quote #6

"I may be a fool,' he said, 'but I think I am not as old as I was."

"Nor me," said Meena. "My, I'm sorry I didn't get to know your Faheel a bit better. He's really a thoughtful old gentleman—unlike some I could name. Now I'll be walking back to the Valley, after all." (14.44-45)

Meena calls Alnor an old fool, and he genially replies that he's not as old as he used to be. By eating Faheel's grapes, they have been transformed into their younger selves—Meena is more vivacious than she used to be, while Alnor relishes his ability to see. The most precious gift they receivedfrom Faheel—other than, you know, the Valley's future survival from the Ropemaker—is this reversal of time.