When all hopes are lost, only then does reality acquire that sharp focus that defines who we are and what we have become. Greg Bear More Quotes by Greg Bear More Quotes From Greg Bear Ray Bradbury is, for many reasons, the most influential writer in my life. Throughout our long friendship, Ray supplied not only his terrific stories but a grand model of what a writer could be, should be, and yet rarely is: brilliant and charming and accessible, willing to tolerate and to teach, happy to inspire but also to be inspired. Greg Bear friendship inspire long It's kind of a misnomer about science fiction that science fiction is about anything other than people. It's about people doing stuff, sometimes doing extraordinary stuff. Greg Bear stuff people fiction All things will be ambiguous, for this is the curse of wisdom. Greg Bear ambiguous curse all-things To translate kinesics or paralinguistic messages into words is likely to introduce gross falsification due not merely to the human propensity for trying to falsify statements about "feelings" and relationship and to the distortions which arise whenever the products of one system of coding are dissected onto the premises of another, but especially to the fact that all such translation must give to the more or less unconscious and involuntary message the appearance of conscious intent. Greg Bear feelings trying giving There is nothing finer in the world than the telling of tales. Split atoms if you wish, but splitting an infinitive-and getting away with it-is far nobler. Lance boils if you wish, but pricking pretensions is often cleaner and always more fun. Greg Bear atoms wish fun Sometimes the problem outshines the pain. Greg Bear pain problem sometimes Conservatism is not about tradition and morality, hasn't been for many decades... It is about the putative biological and spiritual superiority of the wealthy. Greg Bear morality political spiritual For years, even before 9/11, I've been trying to warn that the threat from amateur biolabs will ultimately turn out to be far more troublesome than leakage from military labs - perhaps even more costly and deadly than nuclear terrorism. Greg Bear nuclear-terrorism military years Life on earth is hard. Competition for the necessities of life is fierce. How ridiculous to believe that the law of harsh survival would not be true elsewhere, or that it would be negated by the progress of technology in an advanced civilization. Greg Bear technology civilization believe Why do we capital-N Nerds love Mars so much? Because it's beautiful, it's tough, it's buried in our mythic, childhood memories. It's covered with human triumphs but also with sad stories of failure. Greg Bear childhood sad beautiful love Working in Isaac's universe was more of a treat than a challenge. Greg Bear treat challenge more universe We're told another large-scale terrorist attack is inevitable by those people who have committed so many resources to preventing it. They likely know what they're talking about. Greg Bear know inevitable talking people