David Gemmell
David Gemmell was born on 1 August 1948 in London, a city with deep literary traditions that formed the cultural setting for a writer who would go on to work extensively in the fantasy genre. A citizen of the United Kingdom, Gemmell wrote in English throughout his career, producing fiction rooted in the conventions and possibilities of heroic fantasy.
Gemmell worked as a writer, and among the works associated with his name, Legend stands as a notable example of his output. The novel represents his engagement with the fantasy genre, a form he returned to across his career. His writing in English placed him within a broad tradition of British genre fiction, and the specific character of his work was shaped by the demands of heroic and epic fantasy narratives.
Gemmell died on 28 July 2006 in Hastings. He had been born in London and spent his working life as a writer of fantasy fiction, with Legend remaining among the works most closely identified with his name.
Quotes by David Gemmell
David Gemmell's insights on:
I am a stranger. You do not need to lie to me or pretend. Only with friends do you need masks...
Once I was a lamb, playing in a green field. Then the wolves came. Now I am an eagle and I fly in a different universe.
Less of a Galahad than a Lancelot, thought Archer. A flawed knight in a flawed world, unstable yet unyielding.
I don’t know yet whether I fully believe in fate, but certain things do happen in a man’s life that he cannot explain.
I would have offered you a forest of truth, but you wish to speak of a single leaf.
It is said a man doesn’t get old while his mother lives. I think it’s true. You are always a child in her eyes. It is irritating in the extreme. But you know, when they have gone, you’d give the earth just to hear them treating you like a child once more.
I am not going to talk about patriotism, duty, liberty, and the defense of freedom because that’s all dung to a soldier.
It is the nature of men to build walls around themselves. They think it will protect them from hurt. It does the opposite. The hurt still gets in, but now it rattles around the walls, unable to get out. So you build more walls. You are now seeing the world without walls. You are free, Ro. Free to hurt and free to heal.
An enemy is like a man’s most prized flower. It brings him joy to see it buried in the ground.