Fantasy Authors

"“It’s just common sense,” Mari objected. “Help people realize that what they do matters, that their efforts count and that everyone needs to work together, and they’ll work and fight better.” Patila shook her head. “Such sense is far from common.”"

"My point is, things keep happening whether I want them to happen or not! Are all of my decisions already carved in stone somewhere and I’m just some puppet living out the script?"

"But Mari was quickly reminded that plans were what people made before they found out what the real world had in store for them."

"“You know so much,” Mari said softly. “You have kept so much knowledge safe. And yet there is still so much more to learn.” Coleen smiled. “Those things are the definition of happiness for a librarian. That and sharing the knowledge we have.”"

"It’s like forbidding horses to learn algebra. What’s the point?"

"Doubt about your wisdom can be the clearest sign of wisdom."

"How did the other Mechanics miss this? Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they chose to miss it. Maybe they didn’t see anything that didn’t match their own predetermined theories."

"Perhaps that is the only wisdom there really is, young Mage: that our choices matter."

"“We really have to work on your social skills.” “What are social skills?” “They’re…um…how people avoid saying what they really think.”"

"“It does not appear to be too difficult,” Alain agreed. “But I remember being cautioned that maps carry their own illusions, often making appear simple a journey which is actually far more difficult in practice.”"

"Maybe what this world needs is someone who won’t do whatever they think is necessary to make things be the way they want."

"Those who study legends never expect to actually meet one."

"“No one else could be just like you,” Alain said. “That had better be a compliment, but even if it isn’t I have to admit you’re probably right.”"

"“How will we do all these things? What is the plan?” “The plan?” Mari hesitated. “We don’t really have a plan. We’ll have to improvise.” “Improvise?” “That means making things up as you go along,” Mari explained. “But you told me earlier today that we need to have a plan before we begin anything complicated,” Alain objected. “Yes, I did, but— Fine. Our plan is to improvise.”"

"I think an unquestioned sense of entitlement and superiority is more likely to make someone inferior in spirit. No one should be certain that they are better than everyone else."

"(You’ve read SF/Fantasy since you were young, I believe. What do you think is the power of the genre? What attracts you now, still?) EM: Traditional storytelling values: interesting characters doing interesting things in a plot that satisfies the itch for Story. Beyond that, science fiction can present intriguing “what if?” scenarios, and fantasy can present “how did we get here?” scenarios."

"(What is your proudest achievement as a writer?) That the books have touched lives in a way that made a difference."

"I like it that order exists somewhere even if it shatters near me. (p242)"

"It is harder to imagine a different self now that I am an adult. As a child, I did imagine myself into other roles. I thought I would become normal, that someday I would be able to do what everyone else did so easily. In time, that fantasy faded. My limitations were real, immutable, thick black lines around the outline of my life. The only role I play is normal. (p165)"

""Autistic is different, not bad. It is not wrong to be different. Sometimes it is hard, but it is not wrong." (p319)"

"whether you consider a past maximal temperature to be "normal" or not, the fact is that the earth's maximal temperature did not sustain what we now wish to sustain. Whether the temperatures we're headed toward can sustain a large human population is...going to be an interesting discovery. Not something to be shrugged off with "It's been there before." The earth has. We haven't."

"Questions, always questions. They didn't wait for the answers, either. They rushed on, piling questions on questions, covering every moment with questions, blocking off every sensation but the thorn stab of questions. And orders. If it wasn't, "Lou, what is this?" it was, "Tell me what this is." A bowl. The same bowl, time after time. It is a bowl and it is an ugly bowl, a boring bowl, a bowl of total and complete boring blandness, uninteresting. I am uninterested in that uninteresting bowl. If they aren't going to listen, why should I talk? I know better than to say that out loud. Everything in my life that I value has been gained at the cost of not saying what I really think and saying what they want me to say. In this office, where I am evaluated and advised four times a year the psychiatrist is no less certain of the line between us than all the others have been. Her certainty is painful to see, so I try not to look at her more than I have to. That has its own dangers; like the others, she thinks I should make more eye contact than I do. I glance at her now. Dr. Fornum, crisp and professional, raises an eyebrow and shakes her head not quite imperceptibly. Autistic persons do not understand these signals; the book says so. I have read the book, so I know what it is I do not understand. What I haven't figured out yet is the range of things they don't understand. The normals. The reals. The ones who have the degrees and sit behind the desks in comfortable chairs. (beginning of Chapter One)"

""...One thing nobody can do better than you is be you." (p164)"

"She is best known as the author of prizewinning children’s books (her only book for grown-ups, until now, is the slim and slyly titled “Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise”). While she keeps one foot in the academic world as a fellow of , she has the other planted elsewhere, engaging in and — as good a preparation as any for rendering Donne’s precarious life."

"as quoted by Zoe Perzo,"

"... Spending hours in libraries, reading old Latin manuscripts and the many brilliant encyclopaedias of mythical creatures: there are few things more wonderful."

"Rundell spent her formative years in wild spaces. At age 7, she moved to Zimbabwe, where her mother had family and her father worked as a diplomat, paying the young Rundell 50 pence for every poem she memorized (and extra if it came from the Renaissance)."

"... I think stories of transformations, of wild glories and everyday glories, of magic both real and imaginary, can act like a map. They give us a push toward hope. Real true hope isn't the promise that everything will be all right — but it's a belief that the world has so many strangenesses and possibilities that giving up would be a mistake; that we live in a universe shot through with the unexpected. There's never been a single decade in human history when we have not taken ourselves by surprise: we, the ungainly, wonky-toothed human species, have an endless potential for change. I am not an optimist, or a pessimist; I am a possibilityist. The possibilities out there for discovery, for knowledge, for transforming the world, are literally — there are spectacular ideas that we will have in the next ten years that we can't even begin to dream of now."

"I come from a family of pilots. Both my grandfathers flew s in the Second World War, and my uncle can fly a plane. And, so, about five years ago, I started learning for the huge pleasure of being above the world and being given a vision of the sweep of it."

"… I write about s, because it was probably a hermit crab who ate . And I write about s, because there was once a ."

"The therapists will have a field day and we’ll probably lose hordes to schizophrenia. But cry all they want, stomp around, kick furniture, the human race will get rid of their fairy-tale notions of good, evil and the cosmos, and by God—by Me, I guess—they will grow the hell up."

"It wasn’t your usual vacation. But what’s so bad, Char? I’ve seen heaven and you’ve seen hell, and they’re just what? Common sense, funny and horrible with a lot of bullshit thrown in, just like the six o’clock news."

"Subconsciously aware of the fragility of his artificial reality, the paranoiac must ever reinforce its defenses with more and more elaborate rationale. His virtues must be defined, his enemies painted in primary colors. The basic motive of fear is raised to mystic proportion; a cause, uniform, a symbol. He proclaims his purposes one with God’s. “No—” The central infection inflames and eventually mortifies the entire psyche until any healthy stimulus becomes alien."

"Paranoia, the common cold of neurosis. The paranoiac, perceiving all external stimuli as threat, needs to see his enemies, not merely sense their external presence. Being imaginary, these threats must be fleshed out to visible targets, the more clearly defined the better."

"Infantile, needing to be the center and reason for creation, the less educated or advantaged subject needs a distorted miraculous theology to support a perilous existence, externally and constantly threatened as it is by “them.”"

"Your world is a sewer, Mr. Stride. One can almost absolve you for being one of its diseases."

"Sorlij tried to imagine a place less organized than this. The concept was a challenge."

"Roy’s cry of horror filled of the universe, more horrible for the indifferent silence that swallowed it up."

"“But what’s it mean,” Roy cried, agonized. “What is it for?” “Not for anything. It exists.”"

"Look, these clowns need a messiah because the truth of the world always goes down easier with a few miracles and a lot of blood. It’s a very old game, the rules don’t change. I’d say Stride is a flaming, fourteen-karat folk hero. Look at this crowd; you’re not talking about contented, mature people. You ever see a happy man who needed to conquer the world?"

"Judas shrugged. “He’s taking their own fear, frustration and anger and selling it back to them with a new ribbon around it. Easy answers, easy targets: out with the Jews and blacks, down with the intellectuals, which means anyone who’s better off or disagrees with them. Slogans, marching bands and the promise of blood. How can he miss?”"

"Judas/Jake got into the cab and and drove out of shot. “So that’s the evilest man in the whole world ever.” Charity pondered the screen. She dunked a strawberry in champagne. “Talks mean about folks.” “With considerable authority,” Simnel said. “A true believer at one time who would do anything to make need into truth. Now he watches the rest of them doing the same thing over and over again one way or another.”"

"Was that what all my praying was about? “Lord Amighty, no wonder I am damned.” “No, Miss Stovall. Love and hell are alike in that respect; they are what you bring to them. The script is yours; only the props are furnished.”"

"Religion is what you sing on Sunday, Miss Stovall. Your true faith is what you want all week."

"“We’re here with Judas Iscariot on the fringe of the delirious demonstration for Roy Stride. Judas, can you comment on the meteoric rise of Stride and the White Paladins?” Judas reached through the cab window and fetched his cap. “I’d say the hopeless schmucks have found the kind of government they deserve. Always do.”"

"The smaller the man, the larger his power fantasies."

"Hell might be a strain, she concluded, but you couldn’t beat it for the new and different or the interesting men."

"You haven’t changed for hundreds of years, and your sins, such as they are, have not grown in complexity. A moment of yes in a lifetime of thou shalt not. Certain punishment out of a steaming Protestant imagination."

"“One can think,” Jake mused over the chessboard. “If thought is desirable. For me it was a curse, an obsession, like chess. Always the intellectual yearning to be the man of action. To be, like Brutus, a fulcrum of history. That was denied me until one day when I—acted. I’ll never know whether I was right at the wrong time for my own sake or wrong at the right time for the sake of history.”"

"“Got no time for games,” Charity told the dog. “Hope you don’t bite.” “Not at all. The hound yawned to his ears. But beware the owner. He thinks.”"