"I have called these animals destriers, borrowing an old word for war-horses. I've given them clawed feet instead of hoofs because I think the genetic engineers will give them claws too. The horse's hoofs seem to be an evolutionary mistake. To speak in Lamarckian terms, the horse has lengthened its legs by standing on its toes until it has ended up standing on one toenail. [...] Cheetahs, wolves, and greyhounds all have nonretractile claws that serve them as their spikes serve runners and baseball players. Racehorses could not run as fast as they do if they did not wear aluminum or magnesium shoes."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Fantasy authorsScience fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesShort story writers from the United StatesCatholics from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"Cavalry in the Age of the Autarch", in Castle of the Otter (1982), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Gene Wolfe
Gene Rodman Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He has won many awards in the field, and is hailed by prominent critics and writers as one of the best and most important then-living science fiction authors.
98 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Gene Wolfe →
Related Quotes
"A child, not knowing what is extraordinary and what is commonplace, usually lights midway between the two, finds inte…"
"It doesn't move because he has fastened it in place until he finds out why it doesn't move."
"No man has a home unless he is master of a place where he must please no one—a place where he can go and lock the doo…"
"“That the environment should respond to human thought. That is the core of magic and the oldest dream of mankind.”"
"It will help her if she wants to be helped; if she insists on clasping her illness to her it will not."
"Evolution teaches us, Nicholas, that the original purpose of language was to ritualize men’s threats and curses, his …"
"When a tree is very old, yet still lives, sometimes the limbs are strangely twisted."
"One of the questions whose answers we seek is why we seek."
"Of the nature of Death and the Dead we may enumerate twelve kinds. First there are those who become new gods, for who…"
"We're going to fight to the end. But it's better if you fight to somebody else's end."