Greg Bear

"The hardest theme in science fiction is that of the alien. The simplest solution of all is in fact quite profound—that the real difficulty lies not in understanding what is alien, but in understanding what is self. We are all aliens to each other, all different and divided. We are even aliens to ourselves at different stages of our lives. Do any of us remember precisely what it was like to be a baby?"

"We're not prophets. We're not here to inform the rich people of the world on how to make more money, or to inform governments on how to direct themselves. We are here to allow you to dream your dreams and make them happen, and have your nightmares a little in advance so you can prevent them from happening."

"You deserve whoever governs you … Everyone is responsible for the actions of their leaders."

"There is nothing finer in the world than the telling of tales. Split atoms if you wish, but splitting an infinitive—and getting away with it—is far nobler. Lance boils if you wish, but pricking pretensions is often cleaner and always more fun."

"“Being scared is nothing,” the old woman said. “Being bored, or ignorant—now that’s a crime.”"

"The battle was over. There were no victors."

"To fight an enemy properly, you have to know what they are. Ignorance is defeat."

"“We must know our enemy, at least a little.” “That’s dangerous,” Prufrax said, almost instinctively. “Yes, it is. What you know, you cannot hate.”"

"When evenly matched, you cannot win against your enemy unless you understand them. And if you truly understand, why are you fighting and not talking?"

"She saw that in all wars, the first stage was to dehumanize the enemy, reduce the enemy to a lower level so that he might be killed without compunction. When the enemy was not human to begin with, the task was easier."

"We’ve been fighting for so long, we’ve begun to lose ourselves. And it’s getting worse."

"There is no war so important that to win it, we must destroy our minds."

"“I’m going to take you out tonight,” he said. “Another Heisenberg dinner.” “What’s that?” “Uncertainty,” Edward said crisply. “We know where we are going, but not what we are going to eat. Or vice versa.” “Sounds wonderful. Which car?” “The Quantum, of course.” “Oh, Lord. We just had the speedometer fixed.” “And the steering went out?” “Shh! It’s still working. We’re cheating.”"

"Around her gulps of water, she repeated her prayer, until the monotony and futility silenced her."

"Can’t own a woman, Mike. Wonderful companions, can’t own them."

"“You’re a romantic, aren’t you?” she said. “I suppose I am.” “I am too. The silliest people in the world are romantics.”"

"He may not have had time, but even allowing him the time, Vergil simply did not think such things through. Brilliant in the creation, slovenly in the consideration of consequences. But wasn’t that true of every creator? Didn’t anyone who changed things ultimately lead some people—perhaps many people—to death, grief, torment?"

"Nothing will ever be the same again. Good! Wonderful! Wasn’t it all badly flawed anyway? No, perhaps not. Not until now."

"Information can be stored even more compactly than in molecular memory. It can be stored in the structure of space-time. What is matter, after all, but a standing-wave of information in the vacuum?"

"“Very evocative. He seems to be confirming what I said last year—that the universe really has no underpinnings, that when a good hypothesis comes along, one that explains the prior events, the underpinnings shape themselves to accommodate and a powerful theory is born.” “Then there is no ultimate reality?” “Apparently not. Bad hypotheses, those that don’t fit what happen on our level, are rejected by the universe. Good ones, powerful ones, are incorporated.”"

"Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten. It was in the blood, the flesh, And now it is forever."

"Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount, but I sure as hell don’t understand everything."

"“That’s insane,” Lanier said. “Not very. It’s politics.”"

"Grief is not productive. It simply represents an inefficiency in accepting change of status."

"Having one’s eyes opened doesn’t make one grateful."

"“We’d like to agree with you.” He glanced at Arthur. “We can’t, however,” Arthur said. “For the moment, then, amicable disagreement and open minds.”"

"Apocalypse could not be repealed by the democratic process."

"“It’s not impossible,” Minelli said. “No,” Edward admitted, “but it’s paranoid as hell, and that’s the last thing we need, more fear.”"

"I sometimes think we deserve to die, we’re all so goddamned stupid."

"Life on earth is hard. Competition for the necessities of life is fierce. How ridiculous to believe that the law of harsh survival would not be true elsewhere, or that it would be negated by the progress of technology in an advanced civilization..."

"Altruism is masked self-interest. Aggressive self-interest is a masked urge to self-destruction."

"A Stellar’s jay hopped along behind him, watching closely for dropped crumbs. “It’s dark,” he told the bird. “Go to sleep. I've eaten already. Where were you? No food now.” The bird persisted, however; it knew humans were liars."

"More and more I am nothing without someone. To be alone is to be in bad company."

"Conflict of the sexes is not a disease; it is an unavoidable byproduct like the smoke and water from a fire."

"Ours is an age of social anger."

"I explored new territory and described it. I did not create it. Don’t blame the conduit for the lightning."

"Poetry is dead and buried in a world of growing LitVid and illiteracy, vidiocy I’ve heard it called. Being dead, poetry has enormous freedom; being ignored, it can blossom like a rose in a manure heap. Poetry is risen. Poetry is the messiah of literature but the angel has not yet told anybody it is risen."

"Eccentricity is more than affectation to a poet. It’s a necessity."

"The feedback loop is half of the secret of existence."

"What he liked he despised for being likable."

"“From what we’ve been told, he wasn’t very humble, was he, Mr. Lascal?” Lascal shook his head. “I don’t know many writers who are.”"

"You can find nearly anything human in Los Angeles, good and bad. I don’t think it would be workable as a city without mental therapy."

"We have arisen as the result of purely natural processes; one of the great achievements of modern science has been the elimination of God or others teleologisms him as a necessity from our explanations."

"He wondered for a moment if they had stumbled onto something truly supernatural but dismissed that with a disgusted shudder."

"Some believe a superior being has guided humans. I see no compelling evidence for this. The human wish for guidance, for confirmation and external support, is an underlying theme in all they do and say, however. Very few stray far from this most fundamental of wishes: that they might have immortal and omniscient parents."

"Here was a creed without a coherent philosophy—a system without a sensible metaphysic. Here was puerile hypothesis and even outright fantasy masquerading as revealed the truth."

"There may be no such thing as prescience, but honed instincts are crucial in our game."

"We were innocent and did not know that the price of freedom—of individuality—is attention to politics, careful planning, careful organization; philosophy is no more a barrier against political disaster than it is against plague."

"“Maybe you administrators can work it all out in the council.” You administrators. That put us in our place. Paper pushers, bureaucrats, politicians. Cut the politics. We were the ones who stood in the way of the scientist’s goal of unrestrained research and intellection."

"That’s what politics is all about—coercion and lies."

"I felt myself growing older. I didn’t see it as an improvement."

"Whom could I blame? Ultimately, one man who had started a strangely secular church, attracting people good and bad, faithful and cynical, starting an organization too large and too well-financed and organized to simply fade: promulgating a series of lies become sacred truths. How often had that happened in human history, and how many had suffered and died?"

"Alienation without must be accompanied by alienation within; that is the law for every social level, even individuals. To harm one’s fellows, even one’s enemies, harms you, takes away some essential element from your self-respect and self-image."

"The sorrow never dies; it is merely nacred by time."

"“The train’s late. Fascists are supposed to make them run on time,” Diane said, still tapping her boot. “They never did on earth,” I said. “You mean it’s a myth?” I nodded. “So fascists aren’t good for anything?” Diane asked. “Uniforms,” I said. “Ours don’t even have good uniforms.”"

"That was the myth and I admit I found it attractive. I still do. It’s been said that a romantic is someone who never accepts the evidence of her eyes and ears."

"The slogan of those who advocated therapy was, “A sane society is a polite society.”"

"“Nobody’s ever satisfied with what they have?” “Not in human experience; not at the level of governments, nations, or planets.”"

"Equal in law is not equal in nature."

"Why does our sense of individuality prevent us from correcting our weaknesses?"

"My level of skepticism rose enormously; I’ve always bristled when people ask for, much less demand, trust."

"With a little ceremony, and not much in the way of clothing left to remove, we celebrated still being alive."

"Populists believed the people should dictate their needs to any individual who rose above the herd, and bring them low again—except of course for the leaders of whatever populist government took power, who, as political messiahs, would earn specific privileges themselves."

"Institutions, like any organism, hate to die."

"The universe stores the results of its operations as nature. I do not confuse nature with reality. At a fundamental level, reality is the set of rules the results of whose interactions are nature. Part of the problem of reconciling quantum mechanics with larger-scale phenomena comes from mistaking results for rules—they have been built into our brains, good for survival, but not for physics."

"The future seemed not just dangerous, not just bleak; it seemed incomprehensible."

"All states resort to force in the end."

"The Republic, despite the best efforts of the surviving government, was quickly being replaced by something worse than anarchy—passionate mob rule, directed by untutored but skilled opportunists."

"We are born in ignorance, we die in ignorance, but maybe sometimes we learn something important and pass it along to others before we die. Or we write it down in a little book."

"It's interesting how many science fiction writers get going when they are very young. I was on a program with Greg Bear, and he mentioned that he had gotten started writing when he was eight. And I began writing when I was ten."

"I remembered being so amazed by his stories from when my parents subscribed to OMNI magazine."