Fantasy Authors

"At most, the gods gave only a little happiness; the rest was merely existence."

"Why do people in this age think their own impoverished lives must be the norm of the universe?"

"And never forget: any planet is a world, as complex and mysterious in its own right, as full of its patterns and contradictions and histories, as Earth ever was."

"You cannot imagine how wearisome existence grows, alone and immortal."

"“But your sign says you can conjure up ever-filled purses,” Holger began. “Advertising,” Martinus admitted. “Corroborative detail intended to lend artistic verisimilitude.”"

"As evil waxes, the very men who stand for good will in their fear use ever worse means o’ fighting, and thereby give evil a free beachhead."

"They were not plagued that night, which Hugi said was without doubt because something worse was being prepared. Holger was inclined to share the dwarf’s pessimism."

"Holger wished he had read the old tales more closely; he had only a dim childhood recollection of them."

"“You are much too kind,” said Holger, overwhelmed. “Nay.” Alfric waved his hand. “You mortals know not how tedious undying life can become, and how gladly a challenge such as this is greeted. ’Tis I should thank you.”"

"It was lonely, not even knowing yourself."

"On our Earth, we’ve perforce learned all the knavery there is to know."

"“Your son was in your own tradition.” “Better, I hope,” said the old man. “There would be little sense to existence, did boys have no chance to be more than their fathers.”"

"“At least we can put a little sense into life.” “I don’t know whether we do or whether we find what was always there,” he replied. “Nor do I care greatly. To me, the important thing is that the purpose—order, beauty, spirit, whatever you want to call it—does exist.”"

"I’m afraid I’m not a convert or anything. I still see the same blind cosmos governed by the same blind laws. But suddenly it matters. It matters terribly, and means something. What, I haven’t figured out yet. I probably never will. But I have a reason for living, or for dying if need be. Maybe that’s the whole purpose of life: purpose itself. I can’t say. But I expect to enjoy the world a lot more."

"You can have more adventure in an hour’s walk through a forest than in a year on a spaceship."

"Li-Tsung of Krasna would have told him to live at all costs, sacrifice all the others, to save himself for his planet and the Fellowship. But there were limits. You didn’t have to accept Dave’s Calvinism—though its unmerciful God seemed very near this dead star—to swallow the truth that some things were more important than survival. Than even the survival of a cause. Maybe I’m trying to find out what those things are, he thought confusedly."

"I’ll give you one thing to mull over, though. If the body’s such a valueless piece of pork, and we’ll all meet each other in the sweet bye and bye, and so on, why’re you busting every gut you own to get back to your wife?"

"“Do you know,” said Maclaren, “there is one sin which is punished with unfailing certainty, and must therefore be the deadliest sin in all time. Stupidity.”"

"Life was too short for anything but amusement at the human race."

"Hard to say whether personal immortality would be a good thing or not. Not for the masses, surely! Too many of them as it was. But a select few, like Terangi Maclaren—or was it worth the trouble? Even given boats, chess, music, the No Drama, beautiful women and beautiful spectroscopes, life could get heavy."

"Pioneering is an unlimited chance to become the biggest frog, provided the puddle is small enough."

"I do not think the coerced mind ever really learns an art."

"Winter lay among the Outer Hebrides. Day was a sullen glimmer between two darknesses, often smothered in snow. When it did not fling itself upon the rocks and burst in freezing spume, the North Atlantic rolled in heavy and gnawing. There was no real horizon; leaden waves met leaden sky and misty leaden light hid the seam."

"Her rank was higher than his, so high that no one in her family worked productively."

"Then they died. And other men came after them. Wars flamed up and burned out; the howling peoples dwelt in smashed cities and kindled their fires with books."

"People usually take for granted that the way things are is the way things must be."

"It sounds rather silly, doesn’t it? One little man thinking he can change history all by his lonesome. A lot of trouble has been caused by that delusion."

"For the ordinary man, instability—change—means dislocation, war, uncertainty, misery, and death."

"I am a peaceful man, captain. I rely more on my cerebral cortex than my guns."

"It isn’t possible to have equality. It’s been tried again and again in history, giving everybody a vote, and it’s always failed—always, in a few generations, the worse politicians drove out the better. Because by definition, half the people always have below-average intelligence; and the average is not high."

"Chanthavar said that the Egyptian pyramids, part of the Sphinx, traces of buried cities, a couple of ruined dams in America and Russia, some hydrogen-bomb craters, were still around, otherwise nothing earlier than the Thirty-fifth century. Time went on, relentlessly, and one by one the proud works of man were lost."

"Do you think maybe I want power for myself? That’s for fools who want to command other fools."

"I was trying to avoid the cliché all too common in science fiction, even today, of a whole population feeling itself oppressed and waiting only for a leader to rise in a body against its overlords. No government for which that was actually the case could last a minute. There must always be a majority who have some stake in things as they are, whether that stake consist of wealth and power or simply of law, order, and predictability. Moreover, most people cannot really imagine any system working which is very different from the one they are used to. Hence they find rationalizations for it. Even slaves often do this."

"Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness which can see naught above or beyond itself."

"She rarely saw priest—and knowing her heart sinned, was glad of that. Dreary was a church after the woodlands and hills and sounding sea. She still loved God—and was not the earth His work, and a church only man’s?—but she could not bring herself to call on Him very often."

"’Tis colder outside than a well-born maiden’s heart."

"“I think you look on death as your friend,” she murmured. “That is a strange friend for a young man to have.” “The only faithful friend in this world,” he said. “Death is always sure to be at your side.”"

"I say that a God who would come between two who have been to each other what we have been, is not one I would heed."

"Over unforced love, the gods themselves had no might."

"You should pay no heed to what some yokel priest has prated of. What does he know?"

"For a space he faltered, when Goltan fell with a spear through him. “Now I am one friend poorer,” he said, “and that is a wealth not gained back.”"

"Men, whose span is cruelly short, rush nonetheless to death in their youth as to a maiden’s arms."

"There are three Powers in the world which not gods nor demons nor men can stay, against which no magic shall prevail and no might shall stand, and they are the White Christ, Time, and Love. From the first you may await only thwarting of your desire, and you must be careful that He and His in no way enter the struggle. This you can do by remembering that Heaven leaves lesser beings their free will, and thus does not force them into its own ways; even the miracles have done no more than leave open a possibility to men. The second, which has more names than I myself—Fate, Destiny, Law, Wyrd, the Norns, Necessity, Brahm, and others beyond counting—is not to be appealed to, for it does not hear. Nor can you hope to understand how it exists together with the freedom whereof I spoke, any more than you can understand how there are both old gods and new. But for the wreaking of the greatest spells, you must ponder on this until you know in your inmost being that truth is a thing which bears as many shapes as there are minds which strive to see it. And the third of the Powers is a mortal thing, therefore it can harm as well as help, and this is the one you must use."

"Hurry and hurry, autumn leaves hurrying on the rainy wind, snow hurrying out of the sky, life hurrying to death, gods hurrying to oblivion."

"“You have to have some kind of morality,” he said. “Sure. Like you have to have motives for doing anything at all. Still, I think we’re beyond that smug sort of code which proclaimed crusades and burned heretics and threw dissenters into concentration camps. We need more personal and less public honor.”"

"Too far a retreat from reality is insanity."

"The city was breaking state and national laws every day—it had to—and the governor was outraged. He wanted to bring the whole state back under his own authority. It wasn’t an unreasonable wish, but the times weren’t ripe; and when they eventually were, the old forms of government would be no more important than the difference between Homoousian and Homoiousian. But it was going to take a lot of argument to convince the Albany man of that."

"A little careful pushing, and they’ll bury the hatchet all right—in each other."

"The end of the world—was the sky going to open up, would the angels pour down the vials of wrath on a shaking land, and would God appear to judge the sons of men? He listened for the noise of great galloping hoofs, but there was only the wind in the trees. That was the worst of it. The sky didn’t care. The Earth went on turning through an endlessness of dark and silence, and what happened in the thin scum seething over its crust didn’t matter."

"And ninety-nine percent of the human race, no matter how smart they are, will do the convenient thing instead of the wise thing, and kid themselves into thinking they can somehow escape the consequences. We’re just built that way."