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Time was a flickering gray fire constantly consuming all things, so that what appeared to be motion was actually the oxidation and reduction of possibilities, the collapse of potential matter from grace to nothingness.

— Michael Swanwick Stations of the Tide (1991)

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More quotes by Michael Swanwick

What the common man calls Evil, he once told me, is nothing more than the fear of one’s own potential.

Jack Faust (1997)

Everyone dies—the rearrangement of when is a matter of only statistical interest.

Stations of the Tide (1991)

Indeed, what is magic but impossible science?

Stations of the Tide (1991)

Money can always be traced. It leaves a trail of slime behind it wherever it goes.

Stations of the Tide (1991)

This is the price you must pay for knowledge: You must understand and acknowledge its consequences.

Jack Faust (1997)

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

Sanu Sharma

You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley Poems (1656)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Michael Swanwick (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.