Sheri S. Tepper

"The only people who have the long view are some scientists and some science fiction writers. I have always lived in a world in which I'm just a spot in history. My life is not the important point. I'm just part of the continuum, and that continuum, to me, is a marvelous thing. The history of life, and the history of the planet, should go on and on and on and on. I cannot conceive of anything in the universe that has more meaning than that."

"So I learned that people may be kind enough while not caring a rather."

"This led me to the thought that it might be easy to pretend to be a Seer. After all, if one pretended to have visions of the far distant future, how would anyone know if they came true or not?"

"“I tell you, lad, that men will believe if one says, ‘The Gods say…’ They will believe if one says, ‘I had a Vision…’ They will believe if one says, ‘It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold…’ But, if one says, ‘History teaches,’ then they will not believe.”"

"“My son, be schooled by me. If your people taught you when you were a child that there are monsters in the wood, you would have believed them. Then, later, if a woodsman had come and said to you, leading you among the trees, ‘See, there is nothing here but shadow and light, leaf and trunk, bird and beast. See, I show you. Look with your own eyes.’ Though you would look and see nothing, still you would believe there were monsters there. You would believe them invisible, or behind you, or hiding beneath the stones, or within the trees somehow. No matter what the woodsman said, you would believe your fear. Men always believe their fear. Only the strong, the brave, the curious—only they can overcome their fear to peer and poke and pry at life to find what is truly there…”"

"You’ve been too long in the nursery, boy. Too long with lads and dreamers and cooks. Come out, come out wherever you are! The cock crows morning, and the Great Game is toward! Play it or be swept from the board."

"“You would advise us not to worry?” “Oh, worry by all means,” said Windlow. “By all means. Yes. It sharpens the wits. A good worry does wonders for the defensive capabilities of the brain. However, I should not advise you to do without sleep.”"

"Perhaps, Someday…well. All time is full of somedays."

"Every time I began to take myself seriously, he let me know how small a vegetable I was in his particular stew."

"We of Betand do not change our laws readily, so says my father, but we interpret them to our needs."

"I trusted him as far as I could kick him up a chimney."

"“We have simply been too fearful to go into that place.” “You? Fearful?” I doubted this. “Do not mistake my arrogance for courage, my son. It is true that I am renowned for what I can do. But I am afraid of the unknown, as are most men, Gamesmen or pawns alike.”"

"They considered me a treasure beyond price until it came time to listen to me, and then I might as well have been a froglet going oh-ab, oh-ab, oh-ab in the ditches. I would like to have been involved at the center of things, but—well. It would have done no good to talk to Mavin about it. She was a tricksy one, my mother, and though I would have trusted her implicitly with my life, I would not trust her at all with my sanity."

"The knife of conscience twisted, and the serpent of guilt writhed under the knife."

"I reflected that a little taste of power could take a reasonably sensible person and make some kind of groveling, cringing thing of him."

"“I can’t believe he’s an evil man.” “Well, if you won’t believe him evil, then think of a reason why he’s not.”"

"I often have these good ideas which are as often ignored."

"He told us that nations of men fell into disorder, so nations of law were set up instead. He told us that nations of law then forgot justice and let the law become a Game, a Game in which the moves and the winning were more important than truth. He told us to seek justice rather than the Game. It was the laws, the rules which made Gaming. It was Gaming made injustice. We can only try something new and hope that it is better."

"There are those who must find fault somewhere, among the dead if they cannot find enough among the living."

"“Forgive my mentioning it. If you are like most young men, you hate having it mentioned.” Mavin could not help laughing. “I hate having it mentioned. Yes. Perhaps…” She paused a moment before going on, “it is because young people are not that sure they are competent.” “There is always that,” agreed the Seer. “But that feeling does not necessarily diminish with age. It is merely challenged less frequently. When one has over sixty years, as I do, then the world assumes we would not have survived without competence. With someone your age, it could always be sheer luck.”"

"You have not reared him to care what others do, or think, or say. How then should he care for education, for is that not the study of what others care about?"

"“Wisdom,” growled the Agirul. “Painful, isn’t it? We assume so much and resist learning to the contrary.”"

"If one may not sleep and one may not act, then what use is there sitting about?"

"“It is hard to do good,” the voice whispered. “Nonsense,” she muttered. “You only have to do it.”"

"“Parasites,” hissed Aunt Six, just loud enough that he could not fail to hear. “No skills of their own, so they must live by preventing others from using common sense.”"

"There is a kind of animal frenzy can be whipped up sometimes among fools and children, often using religion as an excuse for it. When it happens, it is wise to be elsewhere."

"I’ll tell you, nothing is so dangerous as ambition in a man who cares not who stands in his way."

"Mavin shook her head, but withheld any judgment. If there was anything she had learned in long travels here and there, it was that to most people in the world, every unfamiliar thing was considered unacceptably strange."

"“Oh, but I am soiled beyond all cleansing.…” “Nonsense,” said Mavin impatiently. “You are silly beyond all belief, but that is your sole sin I am aware of, young man.”"

"Merced flushed. “You mock me, Messenger.” “I instruct you, Priest. Pay heed. When you believe that messengers arrive from God, it is wise to listen to everything they say, not merely when they recite accepted doctrine.” She was ashamed of herself almost immediately. He turned so pale, so wan. Well. It was only as she had suspected from the beginning. Many men had a strong tendency to tell God how to behave, and religious men were more addicted to this habit than most."

"“He is a Seer,” Mavin said sullenly, aware of her lack of logic. “Poof. Seers. Sometimes they know everything about something no one cares about. Often they know nothing about something important.”"

"“How is that possible?” “To a Wizard, anything is possible,” the Dervish said with more than a hint of scorn. “Or so they lead themselves to believe.”"

"“Every promise is like that,” she whispered to herself as she stopped counting strides for a moment. “Every promise has arms and legs and tentacles reaching off into other things and other places, strange bumps and protrusions you don’t see when you make the promise. Then you find you’ve take up some great, lumpy thing you never knew existed until you see it for the first time in the light of morning.”"

"His understanding is not great, but his sense of power and treachery is unfailing."

"I have discovered something else, Throsset of Dowes. And that is that men give women jewels when they have absolutely no idea what might please them and are not willing to take time to think about it."

"Mother, though of Gamesman caste, seemed to have no Talent of any kind. She was so beautiful she did not need to be anything else."

"Learning more was merely ordinary to me, but traveling—that was a wonderful treat. At least so I thought until we had done some of it. Then it turned out that traveling was doing everything one had to do at home with none of the conveniences for doing it."

"Mendost is not long on thinking, but he has a clear picture of himself as he believes he is."

"“And now you must decide which pain you will bear. That of being as you were. Or that of being as you are.” I brought myself up to my knees. That was as far as I could get. The hand that had held the tea cup appeared again, a full cup in it, the steam rising into my nose. I gulped it, interrupting the gulps with sobs. “Pain of being as I am? I don’t understand.” “But of course you do. The pain of curiosity unsatisfied, of ambition unfulfilled. The pain of love unreturned, of devotion undeserved. The pain of friendship rejected, of leadership ridiculed. The pain of loneliness and labor. Silly child. Did you think living was easy?”"

"“I do not like the thought of compulsion.” He shook his head at me. “Not compulsion, Jinian. Information, more like. It is as though I had been given a map which showed both the good roads and the swamps. Is it compulsion to avoid the swamps if one knows they are there?”"

"“Well, why didn’t the silly Bloomians think of that?” “Religion, I imagine, friend Chance. Religion serves to prevent thought in many cases, and I’d say it had done so here. They started with the presumption that anything as complex as the mill must exist for a good reason. Then they spent all their time inventing a good reason—and some god to be responsible for it—rather than looking for a sensible solution to their problem.”"

"This is the problem with too much Schooling. One learns to manipulate the labels in a way that the Gamesmistresses approve, and one doesn’t realize that things do not always act in accordance with the labels in the real world. One doesn’t realize that the labels, come to that, are often wrong."

"“The old ones, Ganver and the rest, they pretend it has significance. Oh, I recall that pretense, Seer. In my youth I was shown many things. ‘Watch and learn,’ they said to me. ‘Bao,’ they said to me. So I watched, but it was only nonsense. They showed me this and showed me that, but it meant nothing. It was only pretense, done to mystify us young ones and keep us subservient. The sign has no power. It is nothing. A symbol only; a symbol of our degradation.”"

"Why are we wondering why the world wishes itself dead when we are doing nothing to heal it?"

"There always has to be someone to see things first."

"“Better late than not at all,” came a voice from the ranked multitude. “Better a tardy lover than a lonely bed.”"

"We had what we thought was the answer and we troubled to look no further."

"We might be able to do something. If we were very lucky, it might even be the right thing."

"I have in recent years often reflected upon memory. One takes it so for granted. One remembers with such facile infallibility. And one finds with such shock – at least it was a shock to me – that memory isn’t true."

"To my mind, the expression of divinity is in variety, and the more variable the creation, the more variable the creatures that surround us, botanical and zoological, the more chance we have to learn and to see into life itself, nature itself. If we were just human beings, living in a spaceship, with an algae farm to give us food, we would not be moved to learn nearly as many things as we are moved by living on a world, surrounded by all kinds of variety. And when I see that variety being first decimated, and then halved — and I imagine in another hundred years it may be down by 90% and there'll be only 10% of what we had when I was a child — that makes me very sad, and very despairing, because we need variety. We came from that, we were born from that, it's our world, the world in which we became what we have become."