Absurdists

"I simply like Chuang Tzu because he is what he is and I feel no need to justify this liking to myself or to anyone else. He is far too great to need any apologies from me. If St. Augustine could read Plotinus, if St. Thomas could read Aristotle and Averroës (both of them certainly a long way further from Christianity than Chuang Tzu ever was!), and if Teilhard de Chardin could make copious use of Marx and Engels in his synthesis, I think I may be pardoned for consorting with a Chinese recluse who shares the climate and peace of my own kind of solitude, and who is my own kind of person."

"Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse."

"For all men strive to grasp what they do not know, while none strive to grasp what they already know; and all strive to discredit what they do not excel in, while none strive to discredit what they do excel in. This is why there is chaos."

"Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education."

"And so in the days when natural instincts prevailed, men moved quietly and gazed steadily. At that time, there were no roads over mountains, nor boats, nor bridges over water. All things were produced, each for its own proper sphere. Birds and beasts multiplied; trees and shrubs grew up. The former might be led by the hand; you could climb up and peep into the raven's nest. For then man dwelt with birds and beasts, and all creation was one. There were no distinctions of good and bad men. Being all equally without knowledge, their virtue could not go astray. Being all equally without evil desires, they were in a state of natural integrity, the perfection of human existence. But when Sages appeared, tripping people over charity and fettering with duty to one's neighbour, doubt found its way into the world. And then with their gushing over music and fussing over ceremony, the empire became divided against itself. ... Destruction of the natural integrity of things, in order to produce articles of various kinds,—this is the fault of the artisan. Annihilation of Tao in order to practise charity and duty to one's neighbour,—this is the error of the Sage."

"Away then with wisdom and knowledge, and great robbers will disappear!"

"Great truths do not take hold of the hearts of the masses...And now, as all the world is in error, I, though I know the true path,—how shall I guide? If I know that I cannot succeed and yet try to force success, this would be but another source of error. Better, then, to desist and strive no more. But if I strive not, who will?"

"Duke Huan was in his hall reading a book. The wheelwright P’ien, who was in the yard below chiselling a wheel, laid down his mallet and chisel, stepped up into the hall, and said to Duke Huan, ‘This book Your Grace is reading—may I venture to ask whose words are in it?’ ‘The words of the sages,’ said the duke. ‘Are the sages still alive?’ ‘Dead long ago,’ said the duke. ‘In that case, what you are reading there is nothing but the chaff and dregs of the men of old!’ ‘Since when does a wheelwright have permission to comment on the books I read?’ said Duke Huan. ‘If you have some explanation, well and good. If not, it’s your life!’ Wheelwright P’ien said, ‘I look at it from the point of view of my own work. When I chisel a wheel, if the blows of the mallet are too gentle, the chisel slides and won’t take hold. But if they’re too hard, it bites in and won’t budge. Not too gentle, not too hard—you can get it in your hand and feel it in your mind. You can’t put it into words, and yet there’s a knack to it somehow. I can’t teach it to my son, and he can’t learn it from me. So I’ve gone along for seventy years and at my age I’m still chiselling wheels. When the men of old died, they took with them the things that couldn’t be handed down. So what you are reading there must be nothing but the chaff and dregs of the men of old.’"

"You cannot speak of ocean to a well-frog."

"He was a poet, first, last, always. His words sang. He was a storyteller without peer. He created worlds as colorful and exotic and memorable as any our genre has ever seen."

"Sadly, at least two wonderful "untold tales" of the Sleeper were lost when Roger Zelazny passed away. I know that Roger had always intended to bring back Croyd's boyhood friend Joey Sarzanno, and tell the story of the crystallized woman that Croyd kept in his closet. But he never had the chance, and now he never will. Croyd will continue to be a part of Wild Cards — Roger deliberately crafted the character so he would be easy for the other writers to use, and always delighted in seeing what we did with him — but it would take an unusual amount of hubris for any of us to attempt to write either of those two stories, and it is not something I would encourage. They were Roger's stories. No one else could do 'em justice."

"He always seemed to come at a subject through a perspective slightly askew, as if he viewed reality through a glass lightly."

"Zelazny likes to develop different systems of magic, but his emphasis is on systems. He feels the magic should be worked out and contain no contradictions. It should run more like science and not be too supernatural in which anything goes. That route leads to magic being a crutch to move the plot along. He also likes to use the mystery plot. He feels that there is an elegance to having a puzzle overlaid on a fantasy or SF novel. The mystery helps build the mythic elements in fantasy, but is also akin to the process of discovery in science."

"Zelazny, telling of gods and wizards, uses magical words as if he himself were a wizard. He reaches into the subconscious and invokes archetypes to make the hair rise on the back of your neck. Yet these archetypes are transmuted into a science fictional world that is as believable — and as awe-inspiring — as the world you now live in."

"His stories are sunk to the knees in maturity and wisdom, in bravura writing that breaks rules most writers only suspect exist. His concepts are fresh, his attacks bold, his resolutions generally trenchant. Thus leading us inexorably to the conclusion that Roger Zelazny is the reincarnation of Geoffrey Chaucer."

"Roger Zelazny died as I completed the first chapter of The Wake and his memorial informed the second chapter."

"For absent friends — Kathy Acker and Roger Zelazny, and all points between."

"I'd had a long talk with Bob Silverberg, who was very influential on my early career. He'd, out of the kindness of his heart, at a convention told me that he thought I'd made several mistakes in the way I was disposing of my stories. And I said, "I don't understand what you mean, but I'll be glad to buy you a few drinks, if you'll tell me about it". So we adjourned to the bar and sat there a couple of hours. He was drinking Bloody Marys back then; I was drinking Black Russians. And he told me all sorts of things which carried me over the next several years; it was a lot of information for a couple of drinks. He told me that the first thing I should do if I wanted to write full-time was to get a really good agent. He said that after a while the business end of writing takes too much of the writing time. Better to pay someone ten percent and find that you're still more than ten percent ahead in the end. Which is true. My present agent says that he always feels that a good agent during the course of a year should earn back for his client at least the ten percent he takes by way of commission, so the client's really nothing out. And what he should ideally do is make him more money than the ten percent."

"I try to write every day. I used to try to write four times a day, minimum of three sentences each time. It doesn't sound like much but it's kinda like the hare and the tortoise. If you try that several times a day you're going to do more than three sentences, one of them is going to catch on. You're going to say "Oh boy!" and then you just write. You fill up the page and the next page. But you have a certain minimum so that at the end of the day, you can say "Hey I wrote four times today, three sentences, a dozen sentences. Each sentence is maybe twenty word long. That's 240 words which is a page of copy, so at least I didn't goof off completely today. I got a page for my efforts and tomorrow it might be easier because I've moved as far as I have"."

"When I started writing my first novel, ...And Call Me Conrad, they always say: "Write about what you know" and I said "Well, if I get a nice sort of combination SF and Fantasy with these resonances from Greek Mythology it might be pretty good. It would also give me a chance to start filling in my background on all those things I don't know much about but should if I want to be an SF writer." So I sat down and made a list of everything I felt I should know more about. Astrophysics, oceanography, marine biology, genetics... Then when I'd finished the list I read one book in each of these areas. When I'd finished I went back and read a second book until I'd read ten books in each area. I thought that it wouldn't turn me into a terrific, fantastic expert but I'd at least have enough material there to know if I was saying something wrong. And I'd also know where to turn to get the information I want to make it right. While I was doing this, to keep the words and cheques flowing I wrote books involving mythology. And once I started picking up things involving astrophysics I'd write stories that played with those sorts of things. So that's why I started out with mythology."

"Well, I decided that as a teenager that I really didn't know enough to describe character well and I was wasting my time. I'd learned as much as I could about story telling techniques and it wasn't a matter of technique any more. It was a matter of substance. As a result I said I was going to wait until I was a lot older and had more experience. So it was that after I got out of college I'd been away from SF for about four years. I'd read SF steadily from when I was eleven until I started college. When I started college I said, "I'm not going to read that while I'm here, I'm going to learn poetry and other things of that sort" in fact I wrote a lot of poetry then."

"I thought about the Elder Gods and wondered at how they might change things if the way were opened for their return. The world could be a good place or a nasty place without supernatural intervention; we had worked out our own way of doing things, defined our own goods and evils. Some gods were great for individual ideals to be aimed at, rather than actual ends to be sought, here and now. As for the Elders, I could see no profit in intercourse with those who transcend utterly. I like to keep all such things in abstract, Platonic realms and not have to concern myself with physical presences."

"It is a city of neat cottages and cobbled streets where wander cats without number, for the enlightened legislators of long ago laid down laws for our protection. A good, kind village, where travelers take their ease and pet the cats, making much of them, which is as it should be."

"“When you talk about being an ‘anticipator,’ of having a pretty good idea of when something’s going to happen—or how, or who will be there—isn’t that a kind of divination?” “No. I think it’s more a kind of subconscious knack for dealing with statistics, against a fairly well-known field of actions.”"

"Never trust a cat, anyway. All they’re good for is stringing tennis racquets."

"My favorite form is the short story. From an aesthetics stand point you really have to pare down to the bone. You can't write a throw-away scene."

"“And you, I take it, are Red Dorakeen?” “That is correct. Anything I can do for you?” “As a matter of fact, yes. You can die.”"

"After signing it, he added the postscript: By the time you read this, you will already be dead."

"“...And I have seen stranger things in a long and colorful career.” “Exactly. So what is the problem in believing my story?” “You’ve nothing to back it up with. Even if you’re right, I’m still right in not believing without evidence.”"

"I had no doubts as to the correctness of my own beliefs, that human nature could be altered, that man could be forced to evolve morally."

"Anyone who rushes toward an unknown peril simply to satisfy a desire for excitement is a fool."

"Life is seldom so pivotally crisis-conditioned a thing as novelists would have us believe. While it is true that we sometimes recover from shocks with a sense of the freshness of reality and the wonder of existence, this state of mind does pass away—and fairly rapidly, at that—leaving both reality and ourselves untransfigured once more."

"He was one of those scientist-artists who comes along every few centuries to justify the existence of that overworked word “genius.”"

"“Why do you tell me this?” “Perhaps because I am a cat and it amuses me to be arbitrary and do you a good turn.”"

"There are circumstances under which the anomalous should be courted. Ignorance is one of them."

"The work ... abounds in literary, historical and mythological allusions. The sensitivities revealed are far-ranging, capable of fine psychological and sociological analysis, and are as responsive to the contemporary as to the traditional... There is no other writer who, dealing with the struggle between life and death on such a fantastically rarefied level can evoke so much hunger for the stuff of living itself."

"“From the shape of a cloud I know that a man in a distant city will quarrel with his wife three seasons hence and a murderer will be hanged before I finish speaking. From the falling of a stone I know the number of maidens being seduced and the movements of icebergs on the other side of the world. From the texture of the wind I know where next the lightning will fall. So long have I watched and so much am I part of all things, that nothing is hidden from me.” “You know where I go?” “Yes.” “And what I would do there?” “I know that, too.” “Then tell me if you know, will I succeed in that which I desire?” “You will succeed in that which you are about, but by then it may not be what you desire.” “I do not understand you, Morningstar.” “I know that, too. But that is the way it is with all oracles, Jack. When that which is foreseen comes to pass, the inquirer is no longer the same person he was when he posed the question. It is impossible to make a man understand what he will become with the passage of time; and it is only a future self to whom a prophecy is truly relevant.”"

"So do not speak to me of souls when you have never seen one, man."

"“You were both correct,” said Morningstar. “It is the same thing that you both describe, although neither of you sees it as it really is. Each of you colors reality in keeping with your means of controlling it. For if it is uncontrollable, you fear it. Sometimes then, you color it incomprehensible. In your case, a machine; in theirs, a demon.”"

"There’s no need for your pretty lies now. It makes no difference to an old woman the things a young girl believed."

"“Then it is impossible to get an honest answer from you.” “If by ‘honest answer’ you mean for me to say what you want me to say, whether or not it is true, then I would say that you are correct.”"

"He doubted that his petition would be heard, however, since he did not feel that the gods would devote much attention to anything emitted from this particular portion of the world."

"Toward the bright stars, from the dark ground, he hurled another petition, for whatever it was worth."

"I have noted, too, that when it comes to matters of security the laws are considerably relaxed."

"Within the theater Agony on the stage of Delirium in the heat-lightning lit landscape of Night and Dream there go upon the boards the memories that never were, compounded of that which was and that which is not, that which is and that which can never be, informed with fleeting or lingering passions, sexless or sexful, profound or absurd, seldom remembered, sometimes coherent, beautiful, ugly, or mundane upon experience, generally inane in reflection, strangely sad or happy, colorfully dark or darkly light, and this is about all that can be said of them, save that the spark which ignites them, too, is unknown."

"Even if they had been real gods, what did it matter? What was it to me? Here I was still, right where I was born a thousand or so years before, in the middle of the human condition—namely, rubbish and pain. If the gods were real, their only relationship with us was to use us to play their games. Screw them all."

"I had wanted to go after her, to explain my part in what had happened. But I knew it would do no good, so why lose face? When a fairy tale blows up and the dream dust settles and you find yourself standing there, knowing that the last line will never be written, why not omit any exercises in futility?"

"“Buy into a rising market,” had always been his philosophy, not to mention his religion, sex, politics, and aesthetics."

"“Could Yarl the Omnipotent create a stone so heavy he couldn’t lift it?” Green Green asked him. ”No,” said Courtcour. ”Why not?” ”He would not.” ”That is no answer.” ”Yes, it is. Think about it. Would you?”"

"For me, I have seen worlds and people begin and end, actually and metaphorically, and it will always be the same. It’s always fire and water. No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you’re an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. Whatever you know about their true natures is rafted on top of that. So, when it comes to the day-to-day sensations of living, from mixing a cup of coffee to flying a kite, you treat with the four ideal elements of the old philosophers: earth, air, fire, water. Let’s face it, air isn’t very glamorous, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I’d hate to be without it, but it’s invisible and so long as it behaves itself it can be taken for granted and pretty much ignored. Earth? The trouble with earth is that it endures. Solid objects tend to persist with a monotonous regularity. Not so fire and water, however. They’re formless, colorful, and they’re always doing something. While suggesting you repent, prophets very seldom predict the wrath of the gods in terms of landslides and hurricanes. No. Floods and fires are what you get for the rottenness of your ways. Primitive man was really on his way when he learned to kindle the one and had enough of the other nearby to put it out. It is coincidence that we’ve filled hells with fires and oceans with monsters? I don’t think so. Both principles are mobile, which is generally a sign of life. Both are mysterious and possess the power to hurt or kill. It is no wonder that intelligent creatures the universe over have reacted to them in a similar fashion. It is the alchemical response."