Philip José Farmer Quotes

1918–2009 United States

Philip José Farmer (January 26, 1918 – February 25, 2009) was an American author, principally known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories, especially those of his Riverworld series.

United States
Authors

Also known as: Philip Jose Farmer

Random Philip José Farmer quote

93 quotes

Reader, pray that soon this Iron Age
Will crumble, and Beauty escape the rusting cage.

His wife had held him in her arms as if she could keep death away from him.
He had cried out, "My God, I am a dead man!"

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

He was stiff and sometimes a little strange, which was what you’d expect from an engineer, but he had a moral backbone as inflexible as a fossilized dinosaur’s.

The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)

Burton, though an infidel, made it his business to investigate thoroughly every religion. Know a man’s faith, and you knew at least half the man. Know his wife, and you knew the other half.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

You should have waited to find out the true situation, madame. But then…scarcely anyone ever does.

The Magic Labyrinth (1980)

He seemed to get along with just about everybody. Which, in my book, makes him suspect.

The Dark Design (1977)

And how in God’s name did Santiago find out about the laser? Even Queen Victoria’s sex life wasn’t a better secret.

The Magic Labyrinth (1980)

His thinking wasn’t logical. But whatever the philosophers claimed, the main use of logic was to justify your emotions.

The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)

Burton did not believe in miracles. Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles — if you knew all the facts.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

It was like no hell or heaven of which he had ever heard or read, and he had thought that he was acquainted with every theory of the afterlife.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

Chance, another word for destiny.

The Dark Design (1977)

Burton sighed. She was, on the whole, sane. But she was also a religious fanatic who managed to ignore the facts of life and also the contradictory elements in her faith.

The Magic Labyrinth (1980)

It was not that he was unintelligent. It was just that he was not emotionally able to comprehend democracy.

The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)

Dreams haunted The Riverworld.

The Dark Design (1977)

Was destiny anything but chance? Probably. But the odds against this happening on Earth were infinity to one.

The Dark Design (1977)

Zeitgeist rides tonight, and the devil take the hindmost!

Riders of the Purple Wage (1967)

By the shattered hymen of Thor's bride!

The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)

How strange and unforeseeable... Alice, had inspired the nonsense not really nonsense, and this in circuitous and spiralling fashion had inspired her to do what all others had failed to do...

Yes, we hope to seed a new, rich earth.
We hope to breed a race of men whose power
Dwells in hearts as open as all Space
Itself, who ask for nothing but the light
That rinses the heart of hate so that the stars
Above will be below when man has Love.

Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953)

As for the Bible, it was a book, and all books told the truth in the sense that their authors believed they were writing a kind of truth.

The Dark Design (1977)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Philip José Farmer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.