Michael Moorcock

"“We fight for our beliefs, Queen Medhbh,” said Amergin, “just as much as we fight for our lives. We must continue to conduct our affairs according to those beliefs. If we do not then we have no justification for living. Let us question these people fairly and listen to their answers before we judge them innocent or guilty.”"

"“Once such a strength of illusion is introduced into a world,” said Goffanon, “then it is hard to be rid of it. It will cloud the Mabden minds for many millennia to come. I know that I am right.”"

"Paternalism and centralism, the bane of capitalist as well as socialist politics, are for me the permanent enemy of democracy."

"It’s what they call a “theocracy”—priest-ridden in the extreme, full of dark superstitions and darker myths and legends, where all gods and demons are honoured, doubtless to be on the safe side. The people are cruel, ignorant, dirty and proud—they look down their noses at all other races."

"“I was wondering what made a decent English army officer turn into a desperate revolutionist overnight,” I smiled. “It happens to many like that,” he said. “I have seen them. But you have to show them so much injustice first... Nobody wants to believe that the world is cruel—or that one’s own kind are cruel. Not to know cruelty is to remain innocent, eh? And we should all like to remain innocent. A revolutionist is a man who, perhaps, fails to keep his innocence but so desperately wants it back that he seeks to create a world where all shall be innocent in that way.”"

"In an infinite universe, all may become real sooner or later. Yet it is always up to mankind to make real what it really wishes to be real."

"“Violent men believe only in such concepts as ‘weakness’ and ‘cowardice’. They are so deeply cynical , so rooted in their own insane beliefs, that they cannot even begin to grasp the concept of ‘pacifism’.”"

"There is less danger, gentlemen, in living according to a set of high moral principles than most politicians believe."

"Gandhi had been right. There was only one way to behave, even if it seemed, in the short term, against one’s self-interest. Surely it was in one’s self-interest in the long term to exhibit generosity, humanity, kindness and a sense of justice to one’s fellow men. It was cynicism of Beesley’s kind which had, after all, led to the threatened extinction of the whole human race. There could be no such thing s a “righteous” war, for war was by its very nature an act of injustice against the individual, but there could be such a thing as an “unrighteous” war—an evil war, a war begun by men who were utterly corrupt, both morally and intellectually. I had begun to think that it was a definition of those who would make war—that whatever motives they claimed, whatever ideals they promoted, whatever “threat” they referred to, they could not be excused—because of their actions they could only be of a degenerate and immoral character."

"It’s all a question of power and rarely a question of justice."

"I knew that it was human nature which lay at the root of History and that no matter where I found myself I was bound to discover superficial similarities expressing and exemplifying that nature. It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce these terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called “History”. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination."

"“To me politics is just a matter of getting the engineering right. If you have a machine which functions properly without much attention, then it’s obviously a good machine. That’s what politics should be about. And if the machine has simple working parts which any layman can understand, then it’s, as it were, your democratic machine. Am I right or am I wrong?” “Crazy,” said Makhno, and scratched his nose. “What?” “You’re not right or wrong. You’re crazy.”"

"The sentient may perceive and love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentient."

"The problems for which I could find no solution in fact had no solution."

"Here, I thought, I had found the human race in its final stages of decadence—perverse, insouciant, without ambition. And I could not blame them. After all, they had no future."

"All Empires fall, All ages die, All strife shall be in vain. All Kings go down, All hope must fail, But Tanelorn remains— Our Tanelorn remains..."

"Because I had sought to challenge Destiny, Destiny had taken vengeance."

"Time is at once an agony of the Present, a long torment of the Past and the terrible prospect of countless Futures. Time is also a complex of subtly intersecting realities, of unguessable consequences and undiscoverable causes, of profound tensions and dependencies."

"“Evil flourishes best in disguise,” said Otto grimly. His companions nodded in assent. “And the best disguise is simple” said the youth, Federit Shaus. “Honest patriotism. Joyful idealism.” “You’re a cynic, lad,” von Bek smiled at him. “But sadly my own experience would support your view. Show me a man who cries ‘my country right or wrong’, and I’ll show you one who’d cheerfully murder half his own nation in the name of patriotism.”"

"“Women are always underestimated by men,” said Alisaard, a note of satisfaction in her voice, “and this enables them sometimes to gather far more power to themselves than the men suspect.”"

"By acting as they would act, we become what they are. And if we are what they are, then there is little point in resisting them!"

"Let us say that those who do insist on a hearing will be silenced soon enough. There is a monotonous pattern to the rise of tyrants which, I suppose, is reflected in the general pattern of human folly. Depressing though it is, we must accept the fact."

"Knowledge ceases to be wisdom when one has no method for making sense or use of what one learns."

"“She is in other words a classic demagogue,” said von Bek...“It was Hitler’s secret that he could seem one thing to one group and an entirely different thing to another. That is how they rise so swiftly to power. These creatures are bizarre. They can virtually change shape and colour. They have an amophous quality and yet at the same time they have a will to dominate others which is unrelenting, almost their only consistent trait, their only reality.”"

"“For years my lady made her plans. And when the time came to put them into action, how wonderfully she was able to achieve her ambitions.” “Only because few rational people can ever begin to understand such a lust for power,” said von Bek feelingly. “There is nothing more puerile than the mind of a tyrant.”"

"“This is the stuff which some Nazis wished to put into our churches,” whispered von Bek. “Pagan objects of worship which they claim are the symbols of a true German religion. They are almost as anti-Christian as they are anti-Semitic. It is as if they hate every system of thought which in any way questions their own mish-mash of pseudo-philosophy and mystical claptrap!” He stared at the altar in disgust. “They are the worst kind of nihilists. They cannot even see that they destroy everything and create nothing. Their invention is as empty as any inventions of Chaos I have seen. It has no true history, no concrete substance, no depth, no quality of intellect. It is merely a negation, a brutal denial of all Germany’s virtues.”"

"How paltry is the thing they call science. We have something far superior! We have Faith. We have a Force greater than Reason! We have a wisdom beyond mere knowledge. We have the Holy Grail itself. The Chalice of Limitless Power!"

"Even ruin could not make it picturesque. The streets were awash with weather-stained postcards, bedraggled and muddy King Arthur tea-towels, broken plastic Holy Grails, Excaliburs carved from chalk, tiny Round Tables to hang on the wall, and polystyrene crowns. In the reign of one Elizabeth the ideal had reached perfection and, in the reign of another, it had achieved its ultimate degradation."

"Yesterday’s underdog is tomorrow’s tyrant."

"“There’s more to life than drugs and sex, Mr. Cornelius.” “There’s more than life to drugs and sex. It’s better than nothing.”"

"I was thinking of going into the assassination business. You know what a dreamer I am. Would it be too much of a hit and myth operation, do you think?"

"“I appreciate this quest for national identity,” she said, “but it does seem that most traditions were dropped for the good reason that they were revoltingly cruel and stupid.”"

"“Better the myth of happiness,” Harlequin murmured, “than the myth of despair.”"

"Some try to understand the world, while others seek to impose their understanding on it. Unfortunately, Mr. Smiles, these latter folk are those least equipped to perform the operation. Like Frankenstein, my dear Mr. Smiles, they produce a monster."

"What kind of chromosomes a person has is called his genotype, and the appearance of a person is called his phenotype. Thus, males have the genotype XY and the phenotype male. Women have the genotype XX and the phenotype female.… In every war in history there must have been a considerable flow of genes one way or another. Whether the genes of the victors or of the vanquished have increased most is a debatable point."

"As Barrington Bayley had pointed out in his book Structural Dynamism, man was not an intelligent animal. He was an animal with intelligence that he could apply to some, not all, of his activities."

"Irony, Lady Sue, is no substitute for imagination."

"Sometimes he would admit that one form of superstition was as good as another, but he still preferred to rely on the forms he knew."

"At last the computer had superseded the automobile as the focus for mankind’s hopes and fears."

"He realised that Law and Order were not particularly compatible."

"Time was the enemy of identity."

"Her face was now a mask of moral outrage. “You talk of fashion while I speak of morality.” It was true that Jerry had never been able to see much of a difference between the two."

"Somewhere you can hear them whimpering, as if the evidence of their own mortality were emphasised by the knowledge of other people’s happiness."

"“We can only be kind to one another,” she said, “there is scarcely any alternative if we are to resist chaos.”"

"To the fearful all things are chaotic. That’s how you get religion (and its bastard child, politics)."

"If the people at the top think that reaching for a gun will solve the problem, why shouldn’t the people at the bottom think the same?"

"I felt sorry for him at that moment. He only wanted what every man wanted—freedom from fear, a chance to raise children with a reasonable certainty that they would be allowed to do the same, a chance to look forward to the future without the knowledge that any plans made might be wrecked forever by some sudden act of violence."

"I stared at the water and saw the clouds reflected in it, saw them break to reveal the moon. It was the same moon I had known as John Daker. The same bland face could be made out staring down in contentment at the antics of the creatures of the planet it circled. How many disasters had that moon witnessed? How many foolish crusades? How many wars and battles and murders?"

"It’s getting late. I must return to my ship or my men will think I’ve drowned and be celebrating."

"The man called himself a wizard, but Corum would have called him a philosopher, someone who enjoyed exploring and discovering the secrets of nature."