Fantasy Authors

"Life moves towards life, you know. That’s the trick."

"I'm thinking about abolition all the time, trying to understand how we bring it to pass: How do we defund policing? How do we defund the prison system? How do we actually break those patterns in ourselves in order to break them in the larger world? So a lot of it for me is connected to that."

"Afrofuturism, I will say, is a thrilling — to me, a thrilling arena. And now there’s African futurism. There’s Black speculative fiction. There’s all these arenas where, basically, Black people and people of African lineage are saying, “We were almost erased from the lineage. Right? People wanted to erase us and have us just be labor. We’re writing ourselves back in. We’re writing ourselves back in. We’re creating stories that are rooted in African heritage and that articulate an African future.” So, it’s an exciting place. It’s an exciting arc to be inside of as a creator."

"So much has changed there because of the work of Octavia, because of the work of Nnedi Okorafor, because of the work of Tananarive Due."

"If we were able to unshackle our imaginations in this moment, I think our compatibility with the Earth would become possible."

"Writing fiction allows us to dream aloud, to dream onto pages that we hope others will read, and to craft worlds we hope others will visit. We are already dreaming beyond this current moment, these crises, these norms. Dreams are the foundation for what we attempt to turn into reality. Democracy was a dream (and some might argue it still is in most places, even for those who claim to be practicing it); the abolition of slavery was a dream (and some should argue it still is, while the prison industrial complex thrives); every garden we find nourishing was first a dream."

"The work of decolonizing the future is the work of decolonizing our imaginations. We have to tell stories in which the protagonists are those whose stories are least often told, recentering our attention away from the elite, the celebrities, the influencers."

"When I imagine the world in a right relationship, it's a love story between our species and this Earth and amongst us."

"Some of the things that have most astounded me that have come to pass in our recent history have been the ways we have galvanized and changed the culture and conversation around sexual harassment, harm, assault, and violence through the #MeToo movement and understanding that that change was made possible because of a lot of people at a relatively small scale being willing to tell their stories, tell their truths, and begin to make interventions for themselves by stepping out into the light. Concurrently, we've seen a major shift in the culture and the conversation around abolition and prison systems and the preciousness of Black life through the work of Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives. And with both movements there have been massive learning edges."

"how do we start to retune our attention towards things that are solution-oriented, things that help us build? And this is a hard time for that. We've been immersed in a culture of destruction for such a long time."

"I think we're in this really important, beautiful phase where we're learning so much can happen even at a distance. But it's a double-edged sword because so much of what is happening is happening on platforms that were not necessarily designed for us to use them to foment change and to bring down systems of harm. They were designed to serve capitalism, which means they want as many clicks and likes and as much engagement as possible. And what gets a lot of engagement is drama."

"Imagination is a muscle that, for many of us, will atrophy if we don't use it, especially under the pressure of constant fear. Fear and imagination often can't be in the same room. So, one of the things I think to strengthen that muscle is, first of all, reading. Reading visionary fiction, reading visionary texts. I often recommend Octavia Butler to people because it's reading things that are hard. Walidah Imarisha always says, "It's realistic and hard, but it's hopeful that change is possible." How do we be with what is and keep our eyes up?"

"Thanks to my work, I know the type all too well. A malcontent, a refusenik. A grievance monger, quick as a scampering lemur to take offense. Such people make little sense to me."

"And so he nattered on, like an old woman fretting over the fraying of her prayer rug, not realizing the ceaseless nervous fidgeting of her fingers was the cause of its fraying."

"Bureaucracies are dullards’ tools of revenge on men of action. Sputtering machines filled with blinkered human cogs, they respond glacially to signals issued by their political masters, rather like ponderous dinosaurs whose tiny brains required an auxiliary neural center within the hip region to re-transmit commands all the way to their tail."

"“The wall will always be there to protect us,” they said. I later came to understand that it is merely a tangible, universally visible symbol of the far more important invisible walls separating the seventy-thousand subcommunities—or is it eighty-thousand now? One day, I firmly believe, there will be as many subcommunities as there are residents in the City."

"Would it be riding the wave, or stepping over a puddle?"

"People will believe what they want most to believe, what they yearn to be true. Nothing is more readily accepted than the seeming confirmation of an already established prejudice."

"Please understand, Schisms occur within subcommunities frequently and with relative ease. Mergings of subcommunities, on the other hand, are more like comet sightings… very rare indeed."

"Instead of gathering the lost Sparks of holiness and restoring the unity of mankind and the world, the whole point of our existence has become an ever more rigid purification, a sifting out of dissenting views, the banishment of anything which threatens to challenge our customs and ingrained ways of thinking, or which makes us uncomfortable or uncertain—"

"Psychologists claim the mind is incapable of imagining itself not existing, of mentally inhabiting its own extinction. Yet I can sense obliteration’s lackeys nibbling away at my edges, hungry mice eating the brown crusts of the bread of my being."

"William Shakespeare has one of his characters propose, Let’s kill all the lawyers. He forgot to include the bureaucrats."

"“That’s…that’s a nightmarish scenario. Do you really think people would just… attack one another, as soon as the fences were gone? That they’d throw aside civil society so easily?” “What ‘civil society,” Leah? Your eight million inhabitants have never learned how to exist and thrive in a civil society—all they’ve known are clans, sheltered clans.”"

"I’ve learned pogroms do not require much in the way of organization. Merely ample hate."

"“I have met Master Parthenius,” growled Thorolf. “He is the sort to whom, if he were drowning, I should be happy to throw an anvil.”"

"Some are true gentlemen everywhere; the problem is to pick them out of the mass."

"“Obeying its natural instincts, it would have snapped up a tasty citizen or two. Then nought would have dissuaded your thick-skulled military from slaying the beast, as if one mountain dragon were not worth a score of human beings. Thorolf raised his eyebrows. “How reckon you that?” “The mountain dragon is an endangered species, whereas the world swarms with humanity. Man is in no danger of extermination, unless it destroy itself any devilish novel weapons like those Serican thunder tubes I hear of. It would serve the species right.” Thorolf gave a quiet laugh. “I never thought of it thus. Doubtless being human has warped my thinking.”"

"In Viagens Interplanetarias, Sprague’s interstellar travel takes place in Earth's backyard, so to speak; among stars, that is, within a reasonable number of light-years from the sun. Further, his concept of interstellar travel has . This makes the stories harder to write. I once asked him why he did this and he explained that since travel faster than the speed of light was impossible, it would take far too long to reach the really distant stars. I pointed out that if he used “hyper-space” as most writers did, that wouldn’t matter. (Hyperspace is a mythical term among s.f. writers and can be used in a vague and foggy way to excuse any speeds up to infinity.) Sprague said he didn't believe in hyperspace. I said neither did I but I used it. He just put his pipe in his mouth and shook his head. "If I don’t believe a thing is possible," he said, "I don't use it.""

"For aught I know, he may have told that silly tale so oft that he’s come to believe it himself."

"A grudge makes a starveling diet."

"Gontran was a rancorous, vengeful man, who never forgave what he deemed a slight or let bygones be bygones. Hatred and grudges so filled his mind as to render him impervious to reason."

"“Ah! Here we be! ‘Human beings most readily love others of their species who, alpha, do services for them; beta, flatter them; gamma, refrain from reproaching them for errors; and delta, cultivate good nature and ease of manner.’”"

"There is nothing so dangerous as an ignorant and frightened man."

"All supernaturalism is simply a scheme to enable a class of magicians called priests to live without working."

"“We are a law abiding folk, sir. We do not permit private persons to indulge their feuds on their own, and we have some most ingenious penalties for homicide.” “Mean ye,” said Jillo, “that amongst you Pathenians, a gentleman may not avenge an insult by the gage of battle?” “Of course not! We are not bloodthirsty barbarians.” “Ye mean there are no true gentlemen amongst you,” sniffed Jillo."

"Let me tell you a little secret. A man’s ability as a swordsman of the other kind, to borrow your words, hinges much upon his health of body and peace of mind. If you’d fain cause his—ah—resolution to droop, you have but oft to berate him in harsh and wounding terms. If you’re fain to have him serve you with vigor, flatter and praise him; make him think himself worthier than in his heart he knows himself to be."

"“Then who were the Ancient Ones?” Halran shrugged. “There are as many interpretations of those myths as there are mythographers.”"

"“But your loss of honor—” “Honor is a subjective, intangible loss. Therefore our laws take no cognizance of it.”"

"“You Afkans seem like a grimly puritanical lot,” said Halran, “if you will excuse my saying so.” Ndovu beamed. “No apologies needed. What you say is high praise here.”"

"To be kind to the tiger is to be cruel to the lamb."

"A few years past I should have happily joined my sand thieves in their forays. But now I have come to see that true wealth is not the loot of a raid, nor even the trove of a treasure like that of Takarta—from which the king’s tax gatherers will speedily separate you if they catch you. It is, rather, a network of established trade routes and connections and satisfied customers, which if carefully fostered will yield a profit for aye."

"“It is a common belief that all paleskins are superhumanly lusty and incorrigibly lecherous.” “Now it is you who flatter us,” said Halran."

"I have deeply studied the female mind. Somewhat to my surprise, I found it, not the same as the male, but on balance quite as able."

"Men make promises according to their hopes and keep them according to their fears."

"If a man tell you that the streets of India are paved with pearls, cast the lie back in his teeth. Nor do pigs run about the streets ready roasted. To be sure, the kings and priests are rich, but that is the case in other lands, and the vulgus has as much ado to keep ahead of hunger as elsewhere."

"If the gods made man, which I doubt, they should have made him so he sometimes enjoyed what he has instead of forever yearning for what he has not."

"In the early years of his reign, everyone praised you-know-who to the skies. And indeed he did well at the outset. But I suppose the responsibilities and the temptations of kingship, acting together, in time break down the strongest character."

"“Why told you not the entire tale?” “It is foolish to entangle oneself, any more deeply than can be helped, in the struggles of the great. The man who is down today may be up tomorrow, and rancor outlasts gratitude as stone outlasts wood.”"

"That which seems but meet and proper to us may appear odd to our friends, eccentric to strangers, and barbarous to foreigners."

"While a hundred wives and concubines may satisfy the vanity of a king, you would search the wide world over ere you found a king who could satisfy a hundred wives and concubines."