107 quotes
“There are two possibilities,” said sour John. “One is that I am slow of understanding. The other is that you are not making sense. On other evidence, I know the first possibility to be impossible.”
One at a Time (1968)
They are the possessed men who do much of the running of the world, and theirs is the most frightening story that can be imagined. But those who watch the great men do not know that they are shells inhabited by ghosts.
Archipelago (1979)
To you who are scattered and broken, gather again and mend. Rebuild always, and again I say rebuild. Renew the face of the earth. It is a loved face, but now it is covered with the webs of tired spiders.
The good stories, of course, write themselves. And somebody wants to know who are the really good writers, and how many of them there are. There aren't any. Most of the writers are likeable frauds. Some are unlikable frauds.
It's Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs (1995)
But often, and this will be the hard part for all of you to understand, we will warn and advise before we kill. And quite often we will not kill at all. Try to understand this.
The Flame is Green (1971)
I'm the fellow who, for more than a quarter century, has faithfully maintained the thesis that all writers should be funny-looking and all stories should be funny. Almost all of the evil in the world is brought about by handsome writers doing pompous pieces.
I will be double-damned to a better Hell than Hellpepper Planet if I will have my ending here in peace! Peace be not the end of my epic! An epic is already failed if it have an ending. I don't care how it ended the first time — it will not end the same now!
Space Chantey (1968)
There are skies we have not seen yet! There are whole realms still unvisited by us. We will not be penned in even a giant's pen. We fly!
Space Chantey (1968)
Though my short stories are the more readable, my novels do have more to say; and they will, if anyone has the patience for it, repay a rereading.
I suppose that I believe in another sort of a surreality or super-reality, but it would have to be on a wider basis than the encounters of myself and me.
Now then, I have given you a short fair hearing as the law requires. I do not solicit the support of your party, though, in all honesty, if it had more than one member I might.
Past Master (1968)
The devils stroll the earth again and infect with the red sickness. They must, at all cost to themselves, destroy the growing tendrils before such can touch the other side. For, whenever one least growing creeper touches across the interval, that means the extinction of a devil.
The Flame is Green (1971)
I am Aeaea. To my notion there is no other lady anywhere. And I resent your calling this a silly myth. I made the myth and it is not silly; charming rather. Well, come along, come along! You are my things now, and you will come when I call you.
Space Chantey (1968)
I write as clearly as I am able to. I sometimes tackle ideas and notions that are relatively complex, and it is very difficult to be sure that I am conveying them in the best way. Anyone who goes beyond cliche phrases and cliche ideas will have this trouble.
Have you never heard the most beautiful parable ever, about the boy who went around the world in search of the strangest thing of all, and came to his own home at the end, and it so transfigured that he hardly knew it?
Configuration of the North Shore (1969)
When very young, Hannali would sit on the black ground and chuckle till it was feared he would injure himself. Whatever came over him, prenatal witticism or ancestral joke, he seldom was able to hold his glee. In all his life he never learned to hold it in.
Okla Hannali (1972)
I'm the guy who keeps it all going. If I weren't here, you wouldn't be here either. I know it all, I'm a smart-aleck. Loan-sharking and fencing. Any time I can't see you, you've had it.
Space Chantey (1968)
Well, Finnegan is capable of being all.
The Devil is Dead (1971)
This myth filter was necessary. The ship logs could not tell it rightly nor could any flatfooted prose. And the deeds were too bright to be viewed direct. They could only be sung by a bard gone blind from viewing suns that were suns.
Space Chantey (1968)
"Pirates are perhaps the greatest invention of Earth people," Elizabeth interrupted loftily, "and their pirate stories are wonderful entertainment for small children. We have to give Earth people credit for that, they invented pirates."
The Reefs of Earth (1968)