Fantasy Authors

"All knowledge is sacred, but it should not be secret."

"No, he is not of the Dark. But he is very useful. A man so wrapped in his own ill-will is a gift to the Dark from the earth. It is so easy to give him suitable ideas...Very useful, indeed."

"“For remember,” he said, “that it is altogether your world now. You and all the rest. We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands—your hands and the hands of the children of all men on this earth. The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.” His voice rang out over the mountain, more impassioned than any of them had ever heard a voice before, and they stood quiet as standing stones, listening. “For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy this world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvellous joy.”"

"Nothing is what it seems, boy. Expect nothing and fear nothing, here or anywhere. There’s your first lesson."

"(Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?) Katherine Paterson’s books — which were almost traumatizing to me as a kid, but which I appreciate now for challenging me and my worldview."

"Trotter its all wrong. Nothing turned out the way it was supposed to." "How do you mean supposed to? Life ain't supposed to be nothing, 'cept maybe tough." [..] "If life is so bad, how come you're so happy?" "Did I say bad? I said it was tough. Nothing to make you happy like doing good on a tough job, now is there?"

""Why don't we change our clothes and watch TV or something over at your house?" He felt like hugging her. "I'll make us some coffee," he said joyfully. "Yuk," she said smiling and began to run for the old Perkins place, that beautiful, graceful run of hers that neither mud nor water could defeat."

"Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts."

"If there was anything her short life had taught her, it was that a person must be tough. Otherwise, you were had."

"He was angry, too, because it would soon be Christmas and he had nothing to give Leslie. It was not that she would expect something expensive; it was that he needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry. [...] She wouldn't laugh at him no matter what he gave her. But for his own sake he had to give her something he could be proud of."

"When Leslie spoke, the words rolled out so regally, you knew she was a proper queen. He could hardly manage English, much less the poetic language of a king."

"Even a prince may be a fool"

"She just took off running to the old Perkins place. He couldn't help turning to watch. She ran as though it was her nature. It reminded him of the flight of wild ducks in the autumn. So smooth. The word "beautiful" came to his mind, but he shook it away and hurried up to his house."

"He felt there in the teachers' room that it was the beginning of a new season in his life, and he chose deliberately to make it so. He did not have to make any announcement to Leslie that he had changed his mind about her. She already knew it."

"I beg of you to take this warning seriously, even though these people may be crazies. Since the invention of gunpowder, crazies have been bad news."

"Dickerson watched the telephone like a man looking at a sleeping cobra. It could spring into virulent life at any moment, bite him with its hollow fangs, flood his system with the intellectual equivalent of poison, force him to leave the tried-and-true path of safe routine and jump into the dangerous and unpredictable unknown."

"Then the red telephone rang. Dickerson’s heart gave a tremendous lurch. He closed his eyes, composing himself by reciting the mantra Dr. Mensch had given him: “Om mane padme hum, I smell the blood of an Englishmun.”"

"There was a moist, fertile, decaying sort of odor in the air. Florida was the sort of place that always seemed to be threatening to slip out of time and go back to the Paleozoic where it belonged. The light was a tawny gold filtered through a fragmented wall of green."

"He was the sort of man the essence of whose presence is absence."

"Population growth and the multifarious forms of pollution: the human animal was overgrazing his range. The human animal had destroyed everything in sight, killed off the other big animals, used up millions of years of deposits of fresh water, oil, coal, and minerals. Fragile ecosystems had been pushed to the limit, some of them beyond recovery. The death of the earth was undramatic, but it was happening, and fast. And the governments continued to squabble and defend their various economic, religious, and social doctrines. The wealth of nations large and small was bled into the continuing efforts to increase the size, ingenuity, and ferocity of the armed forces. The humans were killer ants, devoting all their time to breeding more powerful mandibles. Something had to be done immediately to preserve and maintain the great interlocking global system of ecosystems that sustained all life upon the earth. Only by managing the entire earth as a single unit could the basis of life continue on beyond the next century or two. But twentieth-century civilization was locked into its self-destructive groove. Nothing could be officially done until the various threats became much more threatening. But by the time that stage had been reached, it would probably be too late to do anything."

"We of the Hunt are part of the solution. We offer voluntary murder as a substitute for war. You know that mankind will never be satisfied unless it is killing something. People can’t even properly enjoy a landscape unless there’s something moving across it that can be shot at."

"It might have meant something, or it might not have. That was the thing about uncertainty, you were never sure."

"It was the sort of atmosphere of good humor which so often accompanies a total absence of good taste."

"It was an eccentric sort of event, even for Esmeralda, and needed a special kind of person to volunteer to do it. Luckily, the human race has never thought up anything so ludicrous, dangerous, and frivolous that it won’t attract many willing volunteers."

"“Michelangelo,” Teresa said, “you shouldn’t blaspheme.” “Who’s blaspheming? I’m praying.”"

"“I’m proposing to pay you five thousand dollars to do something you’ll find quite enjoyable.” “Make it ten,” Foote said, “and I’ll enjoy it even more.”"

"Outside the curtained windows, Paris stewed in its miasma of self-congratulation and diesel fumes."

"“I’ve never been able to understand that custom.” “Not all customs have to have a reason.”"

"The trip to South Lake took another three hours. Blackwell stared out the window the whole time looking at nothing, which is to say, New Jersey."

"“My dear Dahl, the first, the primary, task is to bring the earth back into ecological balance. That’s your task, you and the Bahamas Corporation. Ours is to give people something exciting to do other than war while that is going on. Without us and our Hunt, you and your high-minded scientists will just be another group of dreamers living in an imaginary kingdom of sweet reason while the madness of real politics rages all around you. Be practical, Dahl, let’s do something together.” “There is something in what you say,” Dahl admitted. “I’ve been aware for some time of the shortcomings inherent in the sane, dispassionate thinking that we scientists advocate. People don’t pay any attention. Unless there’s an emergency like Love Canal or Chernobyl, the idea of maintaining and upgrading the earth and its ecosystems is not exactly box-office.”"

"After many centuries we have rediscovered nature’s way of keeping populations in hand. Nature does it the old-fashioned way, by killing people."

"Nobody says any longer, “When will the killing stop?” Now we know that the killing will stop only when life itself stops."

"“This is a shopping mall,” the Professor said. “At one time it was the central artifact of American life. It was to the Americans what the atrium was to the Romans or the plaza to the Spaniards, the great place of assemblage where one comes and ritually buys food and tries to arrange romantic assignations with attractive members of the preferred sex, whichever that might be.”"

"“Could he be an imposter?” the venerable priest mused. “No, I suppose not. So he must be from some other universe. That’s the usual explanation for the inexplicable.”"

"It wouldn’t be so bad. There was, after all, a certain joy in hard, dedicated work, a sort of pleasure in denying oneself pleasures, and a sour happiness to be found in steadiness, circumspection, dependability… To hell with that!"

"Words, in the final analysis, are just about as futile as actions, and much less fun."

"He said, “Don’t you think that pleas based on upon the assumption of one’s own objectivity are somewhat disingenuous, to say the least?” The crowd nodded. The tall man said easily, “Granted that all personal judgments are inherently biased. Still, judgment is the only instrument of discrimination at our disposal, and it is our work as living, developing creatures to make discriminations, from which value-judgments inevitably flow. This must be done despite the subjectivity paradox implied in making an ‘objective’ statement. That is why I say unequivocably that you were in the wrong, and no amount of reference to the observer observed dichotomy is going to change that.”"

"The new city of Esmeralda was not the usual steel-and-glass rabbit warren that the modern world had developed in its long struggle to free itself from any hint of good taste."

""We have sympathized with the misplaced obsessive emotionality you have thrown into your delusional activities.” “What do you mean, ‘delusional’? I know what I’m doing!” The priest shook his head gently. “Whatever you think is wrong. I suppose you feel that you live your own life and strive to achieve your goals?” “Well, of course!” “But that is not the case at all. Actually, you have no independent life of your own. You do not live, you are lived! You are a completely automatic mechanism with a built-in I-reflex. Your life has no meaning, since you are not even a person. You are nothing more than a short-lived, inconsistent, and accidental collection of tendencies. Your only possible relevance is as the unwitting vehicle for the purpose of bringing forth the Avatar.”"

"People who live in glass psyches shouldn’t cast words."

"Blount’s face registered psychopathic amazement, idiot incredulity, moronic disbelief."

"Not even the thought of death can upset the man who is going into space for the first time. The journey into the unknown transcends the framework of anxiety, at least for a while."

"Sarah Daubray was opposed to the entire Huntsworld philosophy. She had said on several occasion that only they poor should kill each other, since the wealthy were too valuable to sacrifice. Louvaine, however, was a liberal; he believed anyone had the right to kill anyone else, rich or poor."

"Like the man who set fire to his friend’s overcoat upon hearing the command, “Light up a Chesterfield.”"

"But the description is not the described, as Amirra Tauba remarked as he chewed up the map of the galaxy!"

"You must not live as though your life were a preparation for a living. Preparation is an illusion. What you thought you were preparing for is what you are doing right now, which is preparing."

"“If they worked governments on earth like you run a ship it’d be clear sailing for the human race.” “None of that, now,” the captain said with gruff, old-fashioned modesty. “I just follow the rules, use plain common sense, temper justice with mercy, and treat every person as an entire world-system and end unto himself despite social differences imposed by a functional ranking system.”"

"“But I was just about to explain,” Mishkin said. “Never explain anything,” the robot told him. “Avoid bummers. Don’t go on other peoples trips.” “What is my trip?” Mishkin asked. “That would be telling,” said the robot."

"The robot children said, “Sure, Grandfather,” and went away laughing behind his back. They were smooth and sharp and bright, and they thought that they were the only ones who had ever been modern, and it never occurred to them that others had been so before them and that others would be so after them. And if they had been told that someday they would be put back on the shelf with other pieces of discarded merchandise they would have laughed all the harder. That is the way of young robots and no amount of programming seems able to change it."

"If you don’t dig chromosome damage buy better chromosomes."