Poets From The United States

"“The power to hurt,” he said, snapping on a lapel microphone and activating his recorder, “has evolved in a direct relationship to technological advancement.”"

"“Statistics aren’t the same thing as destiny, Bennie. Everybody makes his own.” “Statistics or destiny?” “Both, I guess.” “I think that if something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.” “I don’t. I happen to think that the human will, backed by a sane mind can exercise some measure of control over events. If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t be in the racket I’m in.”"

"The fact remains that you would be dealing, and dealing constantly, with the abnormal. The power of a neurosis is unimaginable to ninety-nine point et cetera percent of the population, because we can never adequately judge the intensity of our own — let alone those of others, when we only see them from the outside. That is why no neuroparticipant will ever undertake to treat a full­blown psychotic. The few pioneers in that area are all themselves in therapy today. It would be like driving into a maelstrom. If the therapist loses the upper hand in an intense session he becomes the Shaped rather than the Shaper. The synapses respond like a fission reaction when ner­vous impulses are artificially augmented. The transference effect is almost instantaneous."

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

"You don’t know what it’s like to be cut off from a whole area of stimuli! To know that a Mongoloid idiot can experience something you can never know—and that he cannot appreciate it because, like you, he was condemned before birth in a court of biological happenstance, in a place where there is no justice—only fortuity, pure and simple."

"“I sank Atlantis,” he said, “personally. “It was about three years ago. And God! it was lovely! It was all ivory towers and golden minarets and silver balconies. There were bridges of opal, and crimson pennants and a milk-white river flowing between lemon-colored banks. There were jade steeples, and trees as old as the world tickling the bellies of clouds, and ships in the great sea-harbor of Xanadu, as delicately constructed as musical instruments, all swaying with the tides. The twelve princes of the realm held court in the dozen-pillared Coliseum of the Zodiac, to listen to a Greek tenor sax play at sunset.”"

"My feelings are that science fiction, with its rational, quasi-documentable approach to existence, springs from the well-lighted, well-regulated areas of our private universes, whereas fantasy, in the tradition of its historical origins, has its roots in the dark areas. Somewhere, I already hear voices raised in objection to my implication that fantasy springs from ignorance and science fiction from enlightenment. In a way it is true, and in a way it is not."

"According to John Pfeiffer, author of The Human Brain, “There is an entire universe packed inside your skull, a compact model of your surroundings based on all the experiences you have accumulated during the course of a lifetime. Of necessity such a model is limited by the range of one’s perceptions and the nature of one’s experiences. Thus, the world about which I write, the world to which I hold up my distorting mirror, is not the real world in any ultimate sense. It is only my limited, personal image of the real world."

"I wonder what Hokusai would have done in contemporary times? He is silent on the matter."

"“And what is imagination?” “A thing born of feeling and reason.”"

"Mirror, mirror, why does the real world so seldom cooperate with our aesthetic enthusiasms?"

"There is a part of me which likes to see things through allusions and touched with mystery. And the American part never trusts anything and is always looking for the real story behind the front one."

"But I remember that Ernest Hemingway told Bernard Berenson that the secret of his greatest book was that there was no symbolism. The sea was the sea, the old man an old man, the boy a boy, the marlin a marlin, and the sharks the same as other sharks. People empower these things themselves, groping beneath the surface, always looking for more."

"We revisit the mental landscape of childhood in times of trouble."

"But I believe it was the Rilke who said that life is a game we must begin playing before we have learned the rules. Do we ever? Are there really rules? Perhaps I read too many poets."

"Faith is beyond me. I will settle for hope."

"I know, too, that death is the only god who comes when you call."

"I have no intention of climbing Fuji and accounting for myself, to God or to anything else. Only the insecure and the uncertain require justification. I do what I must. If the deities have any questions they can come down from Fuji and ask me. Otherwise, this is the closest commerce between us. That which transcends should only be admired from afar."

"But love can mean many things. It can be an instrument of aggression or a function of disease."

"If I had just done something decent and noble, why did I feel so stupid about it? Probably because it was out of character."

"I was, at one level, still plagiarizing my earlier self. Nothing wrong with that, if some growth has occurred in the meantime."

"The important thing for me is the development and refinement of one’s perception of the world, the experimentation with viewpoints. This lies at the heart of storytelling, and all of the mechanical techniques one learns are merely tools. It is the writer’s approach to material that makes a story unique."

"Of the three basic elements of any fiction—plot, character, and setting—it is the setting that requires extra attention in science fiction and fantasy."

"Do you know what happens to artists who fall in love with their models? They come to a bad end. The same applies to scientists."

"There is some thing vulnerable about Dorothy, times when she lapses into such a strong dependence that he feels oddly moved. Other times, it just irritates the hell out of him. Perhaps this is the closest he can come to love now, an occasional ambivalent response to being needed."

"Anyway—as I was saying—there are for me stories of character, stories of idea and stories of image. These refer to the portals by which they enter my universe. The completed product, in the best of all possible worlds, should contain all three elements. But two is okay. And I’ll even settle for one on a bad day when I need the money."

"The Hellenic world did not view the passage of time as we do. History was considered in an episodic sense, as the struggles of an unchanging mankind against a relentless and unchanging fate. The slow process of organic evolution had not yet been detected, and the grandest model for a world view was the seeming changeless patterning of the stars. It took the same processes that set the stage for science fiction—eighteenth-century rationalism and nineteenth-century science—to provide for the first time in the history of the world a sense of historical direction, of time as a developmental, nonrepetitive sequence. This particular world view became a part of science fiction in a far more explicit fashion than in any other body of storytelling, as it provided the basis for its favorite exercise: extrapolation. I feel that because of this, science fiction is the form of literature least affected by Aristotle’s dicta with respect to the nature of the human condition, which he saw as immutable, and the nature of man’s fate, which he saw as inevitable."

"True epics of course are few and historically well spaced, but that slightly more mundane ingredient, the speculative impulse, be it of Classic, Christian or Renaissance shading, which ornamented Western literature with romances, fables, exotic voyages and utopias, seemed to me basically the same turn of fancy exercised today in science fiction, working then with the only objects available to it. 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."

"“Yes, I can understand greed.” “I call it a desire for security.”"

"He is the Angel of Death. Life lasts long, save for him; populations would rise up like tidal waves and inundate worlds, save for him; criminals would require trials and sentencing, save for him; and of course history might reflect unnecessary twisting and turnings, save for the Angel of Death."

"Do not preach to me of progress. Change is not desirable for its own sake, but only if it offers improvement."

"The function of criticism should not be confused with the function of reform."

"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."

"I had troubles of my own—and even the most heartening of philosophical vistas is no match for, say, a toothache, if it happens to be your own."

"“No,” he said. “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.”"

"Times have changed since the Good Book was written, and you can’t hold with a purely Fundamentalist approach in complex times."

"“Cute,” she said, smiling. “If the liberal arts do nothing else they provide engaging metaphors for the thinking they displace.”"

"I decided that the devil finds work for idle hands and thanked him for his suggestion."

"On the water, aboard the Proteus, the crowding, the activities, the tempo, of life in the cities, on the land, are muted, slowed—fictionalized—by the metaphysical distancing a few meters of water can provide. We alter the landscape with great facility, but the ocean has always seemed unchanged, and I suppose by extension we are infected with some feelings of timelessness whenever we set out upon her."

"Robots are nice to work with. They mind their own business, and they never have anything to say."

"“It is no shame to lose to me, mortal. Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game.” “I am pleased that you were not wholly bored,” Martin said. “Now will you tell me what you were talking about concerning the destruction of my species?” “Oh, that,” Tlingel replied."

"A bizarrerie of fires, cunabulum of light, it moved with a deft, almost dainty deliberation, phasing into and out of existence like a storm-shot piece of evening; or perhaps the darkness between the flares was more akin to its truest nature — swirl of black ashes assembled in prancing cadence to the lowing note of desert wind down the arroyo behind buildings as empty yet filled as the pages of unread books or stillnesses between the notes of a song."

"All of these things considered, it is not surprising that one can detect echoes, correspondences and even an eternal return or two within the work of a single author. The passage of time does bring changes, yea and alas; but still, I would recognize myself anywhere."

"Freedom of expression must also bow to the necessity for clear communication, as many of science fiction’s failed experiments of the sixties demonstrate."

"The burden of proof is on the moralist. Your judgment is no longer sufficient for me."

"“And your oath? To right wrongs, to punish the wicked…?” “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.”"

"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."

"“He never struck me as evil.” “Nor was he. His was the most dangerous morality of all. He was a misguided idealist.”"

"“It was an assassination attempt, wasn’t it?” “Who knows? Yesterday’s politics are not worth the paper wasted on its promises, its threats.”"

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