Quotes

Science Fiction writers treat with people, things and events in terms of possible consequences. In the Middle Ages we might have been theologians, and we probably would have been burned as heretics.

I see myself as a novelist, period. I mean, the material I work with is what is classified as science fiction and fantasy, and I really don't think about these things when I'm writing. I'm just thinking about telling a story and developing my characters.

I'm very taken by mythology. I read it at a very early age and kept on reading it. Before I discovered science fiction I was reading mythology. And from that I got interested in comparative religion and folklore and related subjects. And when I began writing, it was just a fertile area I could use in my stories.

How does a man come to climb mountains? Is he drawn by the heights because he is afraid of the level land? Is he such a misfit in the society of men that he must flee and try to place himself above it? The way up is long and difficult, but if he succeeds they must grant him a garland of sorts. And if he falls, this too is a kind of glory.

Nicotine is a very ersatz form of divinity.

On being remembered: I don't tend to look at my stuff that way. I just look at it a book at a time. I try not to anticipate. I don't know what I'll be writing a few years from now. I have some ideas - I have lots of different things I want to try. I almost don't really care what history thinks. I like the way I'm being treated right now. (1994)

I didn't say anything because I didn't have anything to say.

Such is the essence of valor: an unthinking moment, a spark along the spinal nerves, predetermined by the sum total of everything you have ever done, wished to do or not to do, and wish you had done, or hadn't, and then comes the pain.

To end, hurled from the heights to the depths in hideous ruin and combustion down, is a fitting climax for the loser-for it, too, shakes mountains and minds, stirs things like thoughts below both, is a kind of blasted garland of victory in defeat - and cold, so cold that final action, that the movement is somewhere frozen forever into a statue-like rigidity of ultimate intent and purpose thwarted only by the universal malevolence we all fear exists.

People never pay attention to weather reports; this, I believe, is a constant factor in man's psychological makeup, stemming probably from an ancient tribal distrust of the shaman. You want them to be wrong. If they're right, then they're somehow superior, and this is even more uncomfortable than getting wet.

An aspirant saint or hero who lacks some necessary virtue may still qualify as a martyr, for the only thing that people will really remember in the end is the end.

People haven't changed. They are as rational-and irrational-as they were in the old days. They are as moral and law-abiding-and not-as ever. Many new things have been learned, many new situations evolved, but I do not believe that the nature of man has altered significantly in the time you've slept. Nothing you do is going to change that.

You may be able to alter a few features of the times, but would it really be proper to meddle? Everything is so interdependent today that even you would not be able to predict all the consequences of any actions you take. You might do more harm than good; and whatever you do, man's nature will remain the same.

The longer I lived the more difficult it became to determine what was a wrong and who was wicked. Make it clear to me again and I may go back into business.

He was a misguided idealist - the most dangerous morality of all.

At the end of the season of sorrows comes the time of rejoicing. Spring, like a well-oiled clock, noiselessly indicates this time.

The garden of life never seems to confine itself to the plot philosophers have laid out for its convenience. Maybe a few more tractors would do the trick.

Even the most heartening of philosophical vistas is no match for, say, a toothache, if it happens to be your own.

You cannot trick me into applying my principles to a hypothetical situation which will only work out the way that you want it to. Not when I am certain that it will not arise.

The passage of time does bring changes, yea and alas; but still, I would recognize myself anywhere.

Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game.

While pleasure and pain are rooted in biology, they are conditioned by society: thus are values to be derived.

I call greed a desire for security.

It took the Enlightenment, it took science, it took the industrial revolution to provide new sources of idea that, pushed, poked, inverted and rotated through higher spaces, resulted in science fiction. When the biggest, the most interesting ideas began emerging from science, rather than from theology or the exploration of new lands, hindsight makes it seem logical that something like science fiction had to be delivered.

Between the black of yesterday and the white of tomorrow is the great gray of today, filled with nostalgia and fear of the future.

The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe.

Any human experience should be describable and interpretable - by a good enough writer.

Be warned that one does not go to hell to light a cigarette.

He who sleeps well enters the day somewhere in the middle of the second act. Myself, I usually come in around intermission and ask someone for a synopsis.

Diagnosis: Bitch. Prescription: Drug therapy and a tight gag.

Can life be counted upon to limit itself? No, it is the mindless striving of two to become infinity. Can death be counted on to limit itself? Never, it is the equally mindless effort of zero to encompass infinity.

This day she'll off across the sky on her own wild ways to show.... There, in the worlds of the Life and the Death, the worlds that she used to know. / Now, some say her name is Mercy and others say it's Lust. / Her secret name is Isis. Her secret soul is dust.

Life is a thing that reminds me quite a bit of the beaches around Tokyo Bay. Anything goes. Strange and unique things are being washed up all the time. I'm one of them and so are you.

Dwelling beside a body of water is tonic for the weary psyche. Sea smells, sea birds, sea wrack, sands-alternately cool, warm, moist and dry-a taste of brine and the presence of the rocking, slopping blue-gray-green spit-flecked waters, has the effect of rinsing the emotions, bathing the outlook, bleaching the conscience.

When a fairy tale blows up and the dream dust settles and you find yourself standing there, knowing that the last line will never be written, why not omit any exercises in futility?

It isn't really paranoia if there really are people out to get you.

Anyone who rushes toward an unknown peril simply to satisfy a desire for excitement is a fool.

When it comes to matters of security the laws are considerably relaxed.

It makes no difference to an old woman the things a young girl believed.

Do not speak to me of souls when you have never seen one, man.

Is not love itself a form of a spell, where one is loved and the other loves, and the one who loves is compelled to do the other's bidding? Of course. It is the same thing.

There are circumstances under which the anomalous should be courted. Ignorance is one of them.

I sat down and made a list of everything I felt I should know more about. Astrophysics, oceanography, marine biology, genetics... Then when I'd finished the list I read one book in each of these areas. When I'd finished I went back and read a second book until I'd read ten books in each area. I thought that it wouldn't turn me into a terrific, fantastic expert but I'd at least have enough material there to know if I was saying something wrong. And I'd also know where to turn to get the information I want to make it right.

Never trust a cat, anyway. All they're good for is stringing tennis racquets.

After a while the business end of writing takes too much of the writing time. Better to pay someone ten percent and find that you're still more than ten percent ahead in the end. (1995)

No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you're an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. Whatever you know about their true natures is rafted on top of that.

Air isn't very glamorous, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I'd hate to be without it, but it's invisible and so long as it behaves itself it can be taken for granted and pretty much ignored.

Prophets very seldom predict the wrath of the gods in terms of landslides and hurricanes. No. Floods and fires are what you get for the rottenness of your ways. It is coincidence that we've filled hells with fires and oceans with monsters? Fire and Water are mobile, which is generally a sign of life. Both are mysterious and possess the power to hurt or kill. It is no wonder that intelligent creatures the universe over have reacted to them in a similar fashion. It is the alchemical response.

The trouble with earth is that it endures. Solid objects tend to persist with a monotonous regularity.

Now I just want to sleep the sleep of ages, to know again the Great Rest, the perpetual bliss, to hear the songs the stars sing on the shores of the great sea.