You're a materialist, like all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn't make materialism true. Don't you know that? In the final summing up, it is spirit and dream, thought and love and act that matter. Gene Wolfe More Quotes by Gene Wolfe More Quotes From Gene Wolfe No intellect is needed to see those figures who wait beyond the void of death - every child is aware of them, blazing with glories dark or bright, wrapped in authority older than the universe. They are the stuff of our earliest dreams, as of our dying visions. Rightly we feel our lives guided by them, and rightly too we feel how little we matter to them, the builders of the unimaginable, the fighters of wars beyond the totality of existence. Gene Wolfe dream war children I could speculate, but it would be just speculation and the kind of thing that you would get in with a science fiction story. And if I was doing a science fiction story then I would come up with what can go wrong with this system. Gene Wolfe fiction-stories would-be writing I get a lot of people complaining about my ambiguity, often in cases which there is nothing ambigous at all. As far as I can see, people read it when they were half stoned and listening to the TV. Then they come back and say gee, it's impossible to figure out what's going on in a story. Gene Wolfe listening writing people The same authorities who insist upon beginnings, middles, and ends, declare that Great Literature (by which they mean the stories they have been taught to admire) is about love and death, while mere popular fiction like this is about sex and violence. One reader's sex, alas, is another's love; and one's violence, another's death. Gene Wolfe mean sex fiction What a man knows hardly matters. It is what he does. Gene Wolfe matter doe men God is the nest we build together. Gene Wolfe nests together Some writers say they cannot write in front of a window; many say they cannot function without almost perfect quiet. A writer with only two hours a day can write in the back of an open truck on the Interstate. Gene Wolfe almost-perfect writing two Men are said to desire women, Severian. Why do they despise the women they obtain? Gene Wolfe despise desire men When a gift is deserved, it is not a gift but a payment. Gene Wolfe payment Year followed struggling year for me, and all that time I read - I suppose few have ever read so. I began, as most young people do, by reading the books I enjoyed. But I found that narrowed my pleasure. Gene Wolfe reading struggle book Hope is a psychological mechanism unaffected by external realities. Gene Wolfe mechanism psychological reality One can't found a novel theology on Nothing, and nothing is so secure a foundation as a contradiction. Look at the great successes of the past--they say their deities are the masters of all the universes, and yet that they require grandmothers to defend them, as if they were children frightened by poultry. Or that the authority that punishes no one while there exists a chance for reformation will punish everyone when there is no possibility anyone will become the better for it. Gene Wolfe grandmother children past You seem to think that the only genuine existence evil can have is conscious existence - that no one is evil unless he admits it to himself. I disagree. Gene Wolfe conscious evil thinking That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin. Gene Wolfe unforgivable-sin remains capable All of us... when we think we are talking most intimately to someone else, are actually addressing an image we have of the person to whom we believe we speak. Gene Wolfe talking believe thinking I was trapped in admiration for what I had once admired, as a fly in amber remains the captive of some long-vanished pine. Gene Wolfe amber admiration long A child, not knowing what is extraordinary and what is commonplace, usually lights midway between the two, finds interest in incidents adults consider beneath notice, and calmly accepts the most improbable occurrences. Gene Wolfe light two children When a client is driven to the utmost extremity, it is warmth and food and ease from pain he wants. Peace and justice come afterward. Rain symbolizes mercy and sunlight charity, but rain and sunlight are better than mercy and charity. Otherwise they would degrade the things they symbolize. Gene Wolfe pain rain justice Do not start a story unless you have an ending in mind. You can change the story's ending if you wish, but you should always have a destination. Gene Wolfe wish mind writing A youthful American voice isn't particularly challenging - I've been a young American, and they're all around me. I can walk from my house to Barrington High School. Gene Wolfe voice house school
