129 quotes
And it is the notions of reality and unreality themselves which finally become suspect when either one is mirrored in art, much less when both are mirrored together.
Neveryóna (1983)
In a sense, modern philosophy is a series of introductions to introductions to introductions, the movement between them controlled by the pro-tective/pro-textive play of forces about desire.
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)
I must say it’s all very interesting. But I seriously don’t believe it’s anything more than a psychotic fantasy on your part.
The Towers of Toron (1964)
Always remember the objects you are working with.
Equinox (1973)
Our parents saw each of us marrying, settling down, but certainly not with one another.
City of a Thousand Suns (1965)
Oh, I cannot tell you how the notion of eternity bores me—not to mention all the silly stories we are always making up to render the idea palatable!
They Fly at Çiron (1993)
I came no nearer sleep than I came to the moon.
The Jewels of Aptor (1962)
I was thinking about what I said to you about customs and morals keeping people apart, making them different from one another. People are so much more alike than different. So much more.
City of a Thousand Suns (1965)
But then, our way is the natural way ordained by god herself, whereas I have no idea whose set of social accidents and economic anomalies have contoured the ways of your odd and awkward land.
Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)
Honesty is the best policy; a policy is, after all, a strategy for living in the polis — in the city …
The Mad Man (1994)
She simply has no concept of what’s real and what’s fantasy—did I say? She’s in the theater.
Triton (1976)
That’s the trouble with spies, you know. It’s not that they carry information. It’s that they carry fragmentary information, out of context, misconstrued, badly interpreted, incomplete, and misread.
Neveryóna (1983)
The inevitable is that unprepared for.
Nova (1968)
“The only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the society’s values, can force it to change.”
“Is that true?”
“I don’t know.”
Empire Star (1966)
What I look for in a friend is someone who's different from me. The more different the person is, the more I'll learn from him. The more he'll come up with surprising takes on ideas and things and situations.
The Mad Man (1994)
“We’re not going to climb that in the dark, are we?” asked Iimmi.
“Better than in the light,” said Urson. “This way you can’t see how far you have to fall.”
The Jewels of Aptor (1962)
“The beginning of the end, the beginning of the end,” muttered Lo Hawk. “We must preserve something.”
“The end of the beginning,” sighed La Dire. “Everything must change.”
The Einstein Intersection (1967)
With adolescence, Pryn had certainly taken on the sometimes troubling knowledge that almost anything with an outside and an inside supporting movement from one to the other could be sexually suggestive.
Neveryóna (1983)
What references she’d overheard were all oblique enough so that, without knowing what they referred to, she’d have no way to interpret them and so hadn’t really heard them at all.
Neveryóna (1983)
But that kind has not a true word in him. I wouldn’t be surprised if everything he said were a lie. Such as he lies as he breathes. Truth is something he’s never even learned to speak.
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)