Pain is an interesting and off-putting thing. Few if any things in life concentrate our attention so completely and terribly, and few things are more boring to listen to or read about. Dan Simmons More Quotes by Dan Simmons More Quotes From Dan Simmons Nothing helps an artist's career more than a little death and obscurity. Dan Simmons obscuritycareersart Doing a life study while drunk and in the process of being seduced is never a formula for quality art. Dan Simmons drunkqualityart The truth is, it's not a great career move to create a readership and then, in effect, abandon them. Dan Simmons truth-iscareersmoving No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published. Dan Simmons terrifiedinspiredwriting We are not the only avatars of humanity. Once our computing machines achieved self-consciousness, they became part of this design. Dan Simmons designhumanityself A hero. You want to be one of those rare human beings who make history, rather than merely watch it flow around them like water around a rock. Dan Simmons rocksherowater Merely to live without a pain Is little gladness, little gain, Ah, welcome joy tho' mixt with grief-- The thorn-set flower that crowns the leaf. Dan Simmons paingriefflower The young remember most deeply.... When we are old and failing, it is the memories of childhood which can be summoned most clearly. Dan Simmons childhoodremembermemories Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity. Dan Simmons evolutionhumanitylong History viewed from the inside is always a dark, digestive mess, far different from the easily recognizable cow viewed from afar by historians. Dan Simmons differenthistoricaldark Sometimes ... dreams are all that separate us from the machines. Dan Simmons machinescomputerdream Those who ignore history's lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them ... they may be forced to die by them. Dan Simmons lessonsmaywar Once upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way. Dan Simmons expressiononce-upon-a-timebrain I know what cancer was. How is it like humankind?" Sek Hardeen's perfectly modulated, softly accented tones showed a hint of agitation. "We have spread out through the galaxy like cancer cells through a living body, Duré. We multiply without thought to the countless life forms that must die or be pushed aside so that we may breed and flourish. We eradicate competing forms of intelligent life. Dan Simmons cancercellsintelligent Belief in one's identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief in one's immortality... and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful. Dan Simmons acidtestsidentity Mobs have passions, not brains. Dan Simmons passionbrain This is every writer's nightmare - the sudden breakdown of meaning in the language that sustains and supports us. Dan Simmons nightmaresupportlanguage Pain and darkness have been our lot since the Fall of Man. But there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level ... that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference. Dan Simmons painmenfall Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings. Dan Simmons meanrealitythinking Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion Dan Simmons mobilitytwinsdoe
