Detective Fiction Authors

"Here priests and prophets are doing what priests and prophets have always done, forbidding their people to become anything except what they already are! No interference. God, what foolishness!"

"Jory continued in a lecturer’s tone. “Old women like us, Cafferty, are left here to die. It would not be fitting for them to die where men who don’t own them might look upon them—and of course their owners don’t want to look at them—so they die here, where none see them. The religion of Thrasis prohibits murder. They are merely given no food or water and left to the mercy of the Thrasian God.”"

"“If we can.” “No matter if you can or not. You must.” Anger bested her. “That’s not logical. That’s completely arbitrary. To demand that someone do something he may not be able to do.” “We have consulted Files.” The voice bubbled with hideous laughter. “Gods often demand that people do things they cannot do or things that are dangerous or onerous or hateful. And when the people fail, gods punish them. Should I be less a god than they?”"

"“The show,” Aunt Sizzy was want to say, “may not have to go on, but we don’t buy groceries unless it does!”"

"Think of how much time and effort it would have saved if we’d only known what man’s destiny actually was. Think of our time, all the fundamentalist fascists versus the civil libertines; all the liberals throwing our money at the poor versus the conservatives throwing our money at themselves; all the male versus female controversies, all the revolutions, sexual, political, and economic. How marvelous if we’d only known what was important and what wasn’t!"

"“As good Catholic children, our destiny was to be guilty over sex, to have lots of babies, and to partake of the sacraments sufficiently often to assure that we’d go to heaven when we died.” “Right,” said Bertran. “And in the fundamentalist church down the block, they learned their destiny was to be guilty over sex, to worship the flag (in defiance of the first and second commandments), and to be born again sufficiently often to assure they’d go to heaven when they died, though I’m not sure whether it was the same heaven or not. In fact, the only real difference between us and them was whether we ranked sperm or the flag slightly ahead of god.”"

"“Oh, yes,” murmured Nela. “The only excuse we had for overpopulating our world was that it wouldn’t matter in heaven.” She tried to laugh but couldn’t manage it. The laugh turned into a sob."

"“We Enforcers have a saying: ‘the right help helps, and enough help helps, but help that’s in time helps most.’”"

"Orimar Breaze also considered his godhood. His followers would be called Breazians. He would demand behaviors and customs peculiar to himself. He would make rules, complicated rules, and many of them, that would take a lot of time and trouble and pain to keep. The only way he could know that his people truly loved him would be if they obeyed many onerous rules. There should be many rituals, also, rituals for everything. Much crawling. He liked the idea of crawling. Slithering, even. Also, abstentions from…from anything pleasurable. He tried to remember what things were pleasurable. What were they? It had been such a long…so many…so… Was it sex? He seemed to remember it was sex. And food. Food had been pleasurable. So, he would make many rules about sex, many rules about food. If the rules were difficult enough, they would because for much backsliding, and that, and its turn, would be cause for much reproval! He would force…He would make people…He would punish them until they… Though he could not remember the taste of food or wine, the feel of love, the joys of human movement, he felt a surge of pure pleasure at the idea of power. He would conduct himself properly as a god, using sweet and seductive words at first; then, if that failed, using power and pain to teach his people to adore him."

"Afar, Legless God Orimar Breaze howled rage and resentment of this nonsense. There were only two classes of beings: adorers or persecutors."

"“I was a free person.” “Free to what?” “To…to do anything I wanted to.” Jory laughed, shaking her head. “Weren’t you told as a child that one way was better than another, one belief better than another? Weren’t you told some things were higher and some lower? That some things were suitable for women, others for men? That your God was more powerful? That your religion was truer? That your language was more expressive? That your customs had more heart, or more soul? That your cooking tasted better? That your way of child-rearing was preferable? That all your ways were so much better than others ways that you would die to keep yours as they were, or die to destroy others if they seemed threatening? Weren’t you taught not to change, not to adapt, not to become anything different? Weren’t you taught the word ‘loyalty’? The word ‘tradition’? Didn’t they tell you that animals were higher than vegetables, mammals were higher than other animals, man was higher than other mammals, and your kind of man was higher than other men? “You think you weren’t enslaved by that? You think you had freedom of choice? I have said this to Fringe, I say it to you: A man’s choice becomes his son’s duty and his grandson’s tradition! Thus men assure enslavement of their progeny.”"

"Breaze had decided that he would require his followers to believe illogical things as evidence of their faith. He would require them to believe that Breaze had created Elsewhere and all its people in one day, out of nothing, exactly one thousand years ago! But… (a master stroke) he would leave evidence in Files to contradict this! Thus they would have to disbelieve the evidence of their own senses in order to believe in Breaze! When he got to this point, a small voice asked why he had given men such senses in the first place? Why had he given them intelligence if he intended to forbid its use?"

"Things are as they are, and no amount of wishful thinking will change them!"

"Man has always tortured in the name of his gods and committed atrocities in the name of his culture."

"“Love cannot be owed,” said the retreating shadow. “It can only be given.”"

"The Ultimate Destiny of Man is to stop being only man."

"“If you are less uncontrolled, you won’t find yourself rolling around on the floor making infant noises and attracting the scorn and derision of your fellows.” “Damn motherfuckers ain my fellows.” “What did you say?” “I said I feel little collegiality for those sharing my conditions of servitude.”"

"“Go to the simul and slap people around, kill people, that’s what you want. Do it! But you can’t do it out here!” It sounded great, but nobody stayed dead in a simul! How could you get any satisfaction killing somebody who didn’t stay dead?"

"“Tell them they may go. I don’t approve of anything they’re doing.” Angered, the minister growled: “The Firster godmongers pray for you daily in your blindness, Majesty. Man is meant to procreate! We were given the universe to fill. What are a few animals, a few trees in the face of our destiny?”"

"Blind faith in somebody stepping in to fix things eliminates a lot of emotional stress, so blind faith is what most people have!"

"“The first rule of governance is never to choose who to sacrifice,” snarled the Procurator. “Or, at least, never to be seen to choose. Death and dismemberment must always be…inadvertent. Everybody’s fault or nobody’s fault!”"

"Fearful people develop their religions as protective devices, ways to manipulate hostile environments, formulas for identifying and defeating their enemies. The more fearful people are, the more enemies they have, the more adversarial language they use."

"Also, the god often resembles his followers in behavior and feelings. Angry people have angry gods and vindictive people have vindictive gods, and so forth."

"Does the worm on the hook expect to be rescued simply because the fish have eaten all the other worms?"

"Sex was pleasurable, sure, but survival was sweeter still."

"“An itchy man is prey to discontent; he’ll suage his flea bites with the blood of kings.” Surely the common man wouldn’t want that!” “What common men want most is beer and sex, without disturbances.”"

"“Even pain,” said the king, with no intention of being prophetic, “even pain is preferable to dying of unrelieved ennui.”"

"What he’d said wasn’t inaccurate; it was simply a ridiculous understatement."

"“He has brain waves!” she shouted. “He has the same kind of brain waves as chickens. As a matter of fact, his brain waves are virtually indistinguishable from those of chickens.” “He’s not a chicken. He’s a human being!” Leelson’s face was very pale, his mouth was hard. “Morphologically, he’s a human being. Mentally, he’s a chicken.”"

"Godmongers have always found it easy to pay for their beliefs with women’s lives.…"

"Despite Lutha’s undoubted intelligence, she was constantly exploding like fireworks, laughing or crying, passionate about every trifle. On Dinadh, we think of such behavior as typical of children, not serious adults."

"As the Gauphin taught, people are ridiculous! We have language and history, we have technology and philosophy, and we still have not achieved good sense and self-control!"

"Don’t take me for a fool, lovely girl. We fat old things have not laid aside our brains with our silhouettes."

"Those who encounter chains of events at two disparate points, without observing the connections, think they have observed coincidence when they have, in fact, seen only consequence."

"Every hundred years they would be disillusioned, and each time they would swear to hide their disillusionment in order to retain their power. “We won’t tell anyone,” they’d say. “We won’t let anyone know. We’ll deny it. We’ll defend the traditional teachings!” Such things that happened before! Men in power had made mistakes or foolish claims and spent the rest of their lives and their successors’ lives defending the indefensible, or hiding it."

"“That’s different. That’s paradise. Like it was on Breadh.” “Were there many people on Breadh?” Snark laughed, abruptly joyous. “Hardly any! That’s what made it paradise!”"

"Pain and loss. Hope dimmed. Ambition quenched. Love becoming an unfunny joke on the lovers! Body saying aye; mind saying nay; now saying can; future saying can’t."

"The stories of Old-earth are shared among the people of Old-earth. Even I, Saluez, can identify elephant and whale, ostrich and eagle, serpent and wolf, though they exist no longer. I know that they were and now are not, because of mankind."

"“Most gods of most worlds have human faces.” “Because men make them in their image,” Lutha remarked, somewhat bitterly. “To grant mankind license to do what we would do anyway.”"

"“Will you go home again?” Would I go home again? To the lies the songfathers told? To the pain of the House Without a Name? To that terrible destiny for my daughters? To connivance at that evil by my sons? To sell truth and wisdom short in order to buy the false hope of immortality? Somehow I got to my feet. “No,” I cried. My voice was the cry of a small bird against that mighty thunder. Still I cried, “No. I will not!”"

"Some can see no farther than their mirrors. What wears another face must go unseen."

"Do not wish to live forever. Do not believe that every man-shaped thing is holier than something else. Do not look into the mirror to see the face of God."

"On that far horizon the Sandia Mountains stand behind their outliers in receding gradations of gray or blue or violet, paper cutouts against the lighter sky, vanishing into night when the lights of the city come on. Then the stars look down and the air is sweet with piñon smoke as centuries-old nut-bearing trees are burned for the momentary pleasure of those who, unlike the native peoples, never think of the food the trees produce."

"Another window to the outside opened on the first day of school, when an eager young teacher told the class they could find out anything in the world if they paid attention and learned to read. To Jake it came as a revelation, the missing piece of the puzzle of his life! Here was the secret of existence he had known must be somewhere! All the mysteries of his existence would come clear, all the things he wondered about, if he would only learn to read. He did learn, quickly, passionately, with the ardor many boys reserve for sports."

"Keepe pursed his lips, nodded. “We’re already in a very strong position in this country, of course. We’ve taken over all of the antigovernment militias, most of the religious groups who think of themselves as conservative, plus what’s left of the KKK and the American Nazi party, but they’re only pocket change. We now own the Republican party. Any moderates still hiding in there have been flushed out. We’ve been managing the press for over twenty years now, and the public is accustomed to our view of the world.” Jagger paid attention. “I didn’t realize...” “Oh, yes. People don’t want to absorb new information. They like predictability. So as long as we don’t surprise the public with the truth, we’re free to move as we like. Very shortly we won’t even have to be covert about it. And then, of course, people are sick of issues. Civil rights, human rights, women’s rights—people are tired of all that. You understand?”"

"One of the difficulties of being the good guys is that even open societies have to have secret police, and secret police turn toward repression as a compass points north."

"She needed more sleep and less aggravation."

"Fear needn’t be grounded in fact to cause problems."

"“Words? Not really. Mankind is a good word.” She set down her glass with a thump. “Or humankind. I’m afraid we’ve spent a lot of feminist energy on meaningless symbols rather than essential functions.”"

"Infanticide and infant neglect exist in inverse ratio to the accessibility of abortion services."