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Quotes from The Book of the Short Sun — Gene Wolfe

1931–2019 United States

← All quotes by Gene Wolfe

10 quotes

Experience is a wonderful teacher, but one whose lessons come too late.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

Paradoxes explain everything. Since they do, they cannot be explained.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

Be careful about extending credit, too, and doubly careful about refusing to extend it.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

It is well not to spend one's symbols improvidently.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

We're going to fight to the end. But it's better if you fight to somebody else's end.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

Perhaps I need to begin before I can think clearly about the task. The chief thing is to begin, after all—after which the chief thing is to finish.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

If you rob someone who would help you if you needed help you only rob yourself. [...] Do you imagine you can be cruel without teaching others to be cruel to you?

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

Whenever a man and a woman come to words or blows, fools are quick to attribute it to the differences between the sexes. The sexes differ much less than they wish to believe, and such differences as are real tend less to promote strife than to prevent it.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

You have a walking stick. Suppose it could walk by itself, and that it chose to walk away from you. [...] It would no longer be a walking stick at all, only a stick that walked.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

We don't harm the gods when we mingle their names with our curses and obscenities. We harm ourselves. I said that I didn't regard most gods as holy, but they don't have to be for our malice and mockery to recoil upon ourselves.

The Book of the Short Sun (1999)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Gene Wolfe (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.