Any allegiance to a deity or concept or universal principal which put obedience above decent behavior toward an innocent human being evil. Dan Simmons More Quotes by Dan Simmons More Quotes From Dan Simmons Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion Dan Simmons mobility twins doe His imagination was always more real than the reality of daily life. Dan Simmons real imagination reality In the end--when all else is dust--loyalty to those we love is all we can carry with us to the grave. Faith--true faith--was trusting in that love. Dan Simmons loyalty dust love-is The life of a poet lies not merely in the finite language-dance of expression but in the nearly infinite combinations of perception and memory combined with the sensitivity to what is perceived and remembered. Dan Simmons expression memories lying It no longer matters who consider themselves the masters of events. Events no longer obey their masters. Dan Simmons events masters matter Nobody gets beyond a petroleum economy. Not while there's petroleum there. Dan Simmons petroleum economy Want to talk about Shakespeare's sonnets?" asked Orphu of Io. Are you shitting me?" The moravecs loved the ancient human colloquial phrases, the more scatological the better. Yes," said Orphu. "I am most definitely shitting you, my friend. Dan Simmons ios phrases want As long as my sixth graders showed an average improvement of five years, the principal and district pretty much left me alone to create my own curriculum and teach whatever I wanted Dan Simmons average long years Speaking as a novelist myself, I know that members of our profession live in our imaginations as much or more as we inhabit what people call 'the real world. Dan Simmons real imagination people I knew that I wanted to be a writer even before I knew exactly what being a writer entailed Dan Simmons wanted I loved almost everything about being a teacher, but I was an unusual teacher Dan Simmons being-a-teacher unusual teacher Barbarians, we call them, while all the while we timidly cling to our Web like Visigoths crouching in the ruins of Rome's faded glory and proclaim ourselves civilized. Dan Simmons barbarians ruins rome The whole planet reeks of mysticism without revelation. Dan Simmons revelations planets whole It started 25 years ago, when I was teaching elementary school in a small town in Missouri Dan Simmons teaching years school Writing, Im convinced, should be a subversive activity - frowned on by the authorities - and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher. Dan Simmons common-sense writing teacher The future is like smoke from a burning forest, waiting for the wind of specific events and personal courage to blow the sparks and embers of reality this way or that. Dan Simmons blow wind reality Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought. Dan Simmons cubes gas ideas Words are the light and sound of our existence, the heat lightning by which the night is illuminated. Dan Simmons light sound night I despair at the rise of modern violence. I truly give in to despair at times, that deep, futureless pit of despair.... I watch the American slaughterhouse, the casual attacks on popes, presidents, and uncounted others, and I wonder if there are many more out there with the Ability or if butchery has simply become the modern way of life. Dan Simmons despair president giving Luckily, even as a young man not yet become himself, John Bridgens had two things besides indecision that kept him from self-destruction - books and a sense of irony. Dan Simmons self men book