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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.

— R. A. Lafferty It's Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs (1995)

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Good and Evil

More quotes by R. A. Lafferty

The shapes they take are both objective and subjective. One can shape them a little with one's own mind.

Past Master (1968)

A bridge does not abandon its first shore when it grows out in spans towards the further one.

The Flame is Green (1971)

I am mistress of all the sciences. I go so far beyond all else that my work is called magic.

Space Chantey (1968)

Death is for a long time. Those of shallow thought say that it is forever. There is, at least, a long night of it.

Space Chantey (1968)

Be not nervous. In a very little while you will either be a member or you will not be.

Space Chantey (1968)

All R. A. Lafferty quotes →

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False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Socrates

I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.

Edward Teller

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

Henry David Thoreau Walden (1854)

Attribution

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