Michael Moorcock

"“And thank you, also, for the joke.” “The joke?” “Why truly—the best joke is but a simple statement of truth.”… He mounted, flapped the reins, and, as the gray gelding broke into a trot he said to himself: “A joke indeed, but it is a pity that men do not laugh at it more often.”"

"The Dead God’s Book and the Golden Barge are one and the same. They have no real existence, save in the wishful imagination of mankind. There is, the story says, no Holy Grail which will transform a man overnight from bewildered ignorance to complete knowledge—the answer already is within him, if he cares to train himself to find it. A rather overemphasised fact, throughout history, but one generally ignored all the same."

"Again this is an old question, a bit trite from being asked too often, maybe, but how much of what we believe is true and how much is what we wish were true."

"“He was a fool,” said Willow calmly to Klein. “There are many who refuse their responsibilities. Fooling themselves they search for a ‘higher ideal’. He was a fool.” “What are responsibilities?” said Klein laconically. “He knows. Responsibility, my dear, is another word for self-interest. For survival.” She looked at Klein uncomprehendingly."

"The time has come for the dismantling of fantasies. That is already happening to our universe. Now that we have this one chance of survival we must finally rid ourselves of fantasies and seize that chance! For centuries our race has built on false assumptions. If you build a fantasy based on a false assumption and continue to build on such a fantasy, your whole existence becomes a lie which you implant in others who are too lazy or too busy to question its truth. In this manner you threaten the very existence of reality, because, by refusing to obey its laws, those laws engulf and destroy you. The human race has for too long been manufacturing convenient fantasies and calling them laws. For ages this was so. Take war, for instance. Politicians assume that something is true, assume that strife is inevitable, and by building on such false assumptions, lo and behold, they create further wars which they have, ostensibly, sought to prevent. We have, until now, accepted too many fantasies as being truths, too many truths as fantasies. And we have one last chance to discover the real nature of our existence. I am prepared to take it!"

"He existed in all the many dimensions of the multiverse. Yet he, in common with all others, was bound by the dimension of Time. He had cast off the chains of space but was tied, as perhaps all denizens of the multiverse would always be, by the imperturbable prowl of Time, which brooked no halt, which condoned no tampering with its movement, whether to slow it or to speed it. Time, the changer, could not be changed. Space, perhaps, the material environment, could be conquered. Time, never."

"Perhaps he was old and wise, perhaps he was just old."

"Any forthcoming dispute was likely to be a battle between ignorance of one sort and ignorance of another."

"A threat to free speech. It was marvelous how they accepted the principles of democracy and rejected them at the same time by talk of mob action!"

"Why ascribe meaning to all this? The further away from the fundamentals of life we go, the more we quest for their meaning. There is no meaning. It is here. It has always been here in some state. It will always be here. That is all we can ever truly know. It is all we should want to know."

"Listening to the conversation, his faith in the stupidity of human nature was fully restored."

"Alain left the cell, left Police Headquarters and stood for a long time by a splashing fountain, staring into the clear water and watching the darting goldfish swimming in the narrow confines of the pool. Did they understand just how narrow their little universe was? he wondered. They seemed happy enough, if fish could be happy. But if they weren’t happy, he reflected, neither were they sad. They had no tradition but instinct, no ritual but the quest for food and a mate. He didn’t envy them much."

"The society was the nearest thing to perfection that had ever existed; vital without being violent, stable without being stagnant. This society had resulted from a number of factors, the most important being a small population served by a sophisticated technology and an equally sophisticated administrative system. The arts were alive, there was universal literacy, the philosophies flourished."

"Fear was back and with it the old terrors, the old mental aberrations, the old superstitions, the old religions. He knew the pattern. He had studied it in the text books. He knew how little power rational argument had when faced with minds turned sick by fear. He knew how quickly a cult of the kind he had seen could proliferate and dominate a society and then split internally and become several warring sects."

"“An ethic is simply a system of survival,” Velusi said. “What does an ethic mean when there is no chance of survival?”"

"I have never had trouble with conflicting interpretations of my work. Once the story is published, it belongs to the reader."

"Everything dies eventually—but that shouldn’t stop us enjoying life while it is there to be enjoyed."

"“Is that what you are? An android?” “You could find out if you made love to me.” Faustaff smiled and shook his head. “Sweetheart, you’re just not my type.” “I thought any young woman was your type, doctor.” “So did I till I met you.”"

"Orelli smiled to himself. It was a wickedly introspective smile as if he looked into his own soul and was pleased with the evil he found there."

"Magic, as far as Faustaff knew, rejected reason. Religion accepted it, of course, but hardly encouraged it. Only science accepted it and encouraged it. Faustaff suddenly saw mankind’s social and psychological evolution in a clear, simple light. Science alone accepted man as he was and sought to exploit his full potential."

"“I shall not be killed!” The count smiled scornfully, as if death were something that only others suffered."

"Do not thank me for saving your life. You do not realize yet what I have saved it for."

"I would waste my rhetoric if I tried, for men are greedy and will not see the truth for the gleam of coin."

"The hardest compromise to make is when you decide to appear to compromise. Often the deception becomes the reality long before you realize it."

"“No denial would convince you,” D’Averc smiled, “so I will not offer you one.”"

"For this was the great power of the Lords of the Dark Empire, that they valued nothing on all the Earth, no human quality, nothing within or without themselves. The spreading of conquest and desolation, of terror and torment, was their staple entertainment, a means of employing their hours until their spans of life were ended. For them, warfare was merely the most satisfactory way of easing their ennui..."

"Only Bowgentle, the philosopher-poet, his old friend, had an inkling of what he meant and even then Bowgentle believed that it reflected not on the nature of the landscape but on the particular nature of Count Brass’s mind. “You’re exhausted, disorientated,” Bowgentle would say. “The ordering mechanism of the brain is working too hard, so you see a pattern to existence that, in fact, only stems from your own weariness and disturbance...”"

"Wild days, wild riders, and the stink of warfare across the world!"

"Machine-devoured, all his hours were given o’er to that insidious circuitry, and old grew he, unnoticing, in the service of his engines."

"“I have heard it said it is often safer to dwell in the lion’s lair than outside it,” Oladahn said. “Safer still to live in a land where there are no lions,” Count Brass retorted."

"“I think you serve a great purpose, Hawkmoon. I think your destiny is a noble one.” Hawkmoon laughed. “And yet I do not pine for a noble destiny—merely a secure one.”"

"And then he pursed his lips in disgust. “Doubtless that was the result of supernatural interference with our brains! How I hate the supernatural!”"

"Every court must have its fool, every great ideal must attract some who are motivated only by self-interest."

"“And is adventure and sensation all we should seek, Meliadus?” “Aye—why not? All is chaos, there is no meaning to existence, there is only one advantage to living one’s life and that is to discover all the sensations the human mind and body is capable of feeling.”"

"It is many years since I have wielded a weapon larger than a pen, borne anything weightier than a difficult problem in philosophy."

"“You fought well and you fought for justice.” “Justice?” Hawkmoon called after him as he left the room. “Is there such a thing?” “It can be manufactured in small quantities,” Fank told him. “But we have to work hard, fight well and use great wisdom to produce just a tiny amount.”"

"“Perhaps I should not say so, but it occasionally crosses my mind to wonder why, in all the mystic cosmologies, even in some of the modern so-called parasciences, our own age is always described as the age of chaos and contention. A comment, my logical side argues, on why people turn to mysticism. The past age was always better.” “Childhood is the happiest time of life except when you’re a child,” said Jerry. “I understand you. True.”"

"“You look ahead.” “I look around. Ahead’s here already.”"

"“Entropy’s setting in. Or so they say.” “Why should that be true?” “It’s Time—it’s all used up.” “This is metaphysical nonsense!” “Very likely.”"

"The poor man has sacrificed himself for others, but he could not help resenting them from time to time."

"“It’s like prostitution.” “It’s a lot like prostitution, isn’t it?” “You see nothing wrong…?” “The customer’s always right.” “And you have no,” she shuddered, “ethics?” “I give the public what it wants, if that’s what you mean.”"

"Time to be moving; moves to be timing."

"Technology is potential freedom from brutality."

"Is there anything sadder, I wonder, than an assassin with nobody left to kill?"

"“The schizophrenic condition finds its most glorious expression in Hinduism,” remarked Professor Hira. “Whereas Christianity is an expression of the much less interesting paranoid frame of reference. Paranoia is rarely heroic, in the mythical sense, at least.”"

"From beyond the door came the sound of people at prayer, led by the droning voices of the priests. Even the plane seemed to be praying. Una went to find a parachute before they reached Windermere."

"The barbarians don’t come from outside the walls any more, do they?"

"From the ceiling came the miserable, neurotic drone of the Everly Brothers. He let it play, deepening his mood. If a mood was worth having, he thought, it was worth having profoundly."

"Stagnation’s no substitute for stability."

"“I’ll be seeing you,” said Jerry. Koutrouboussis chuckled to himself. “At this rate you’ll be raising me, too.”"