Dan Simmons: Trending quotes

“He knew what had to be done. It is not always the same as knowing what to do.”

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 18 (pp. 348-349)

“There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always—always—returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred.
Not this time. Not ever again.”

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 34 (p. 310)

“Sarai had treasured every stage of Rachel’s childhood, enjoying the day-to-day normalcy of things; a normalcy which she quietly accepted as the best of life. She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and the triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things—the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossing and connections casual, dialogues imminently (sic) forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.”

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 30 (p. 237)

“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.”

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 4 (p. 284)

“I realized that night the import and the terrible difficulty in the task ahead of me—in keeping this child safe from the sharp edges of a strange and indifferent universe.
I think that is was on this alien and storm-tossed night that I first understood what it might be like to be a parent.”

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 12 (p. 94)

Dan Simmons book Endymion

Source: Endymion (1996), Chapter 30 (p. 262)

“Twenty kilometers. At an average speed of 120 klicks per hour, we should cover the distance in ten minutes. Ten freezing, adrenaline-pumping, gorge-rising, terror-beating-against-the-ribs, react-in-a-microsecond-or-die seconds.”

“There is something about raising a child that helps to sharpen one’s sense of what is real.”

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 15 (p. 297)

“De Soya blinks. “Suicide is a mortal sin,” he says.
On the screen the girl nods seriously. “Yes,” she says, “but I am not a Christian. Also, I'd rather go to hell than go with you.””

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 6 (p. 433)

Dan Simmons book Endymion

Source: Endymion (1996), Chapter 24 (p. 184)

“Another friend, a child psychologist from the college, once commented that Rachel at age five showed the most reliable indicators of true giftedness in a young person: structured curiosity, empathy for others, compassion, and a fierce sense of fair play.”

“Poets are the mad midwives to reality. They see not what is, nor what can be, but what must become.”

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 4 (p. 249)

“Christ may have lost his faith for a few seconds; He did not sell it in the marketplace for the trinkets of ego and curiosity.”

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 3 (p. 192)

“Sometimes,” said General Morpurgo, taking her hand, “dreams are all that separate us from the machines.”

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 34 (p. 310)

“These were not religious fanatics, I saw, not mindless servants or self-punishing ascetics, but were, instead, row upon row of intelligent, questioning, alert young men and women.”

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 43 (p. 474)

“We know for a fact that the Buddha refused to speculate with his disciples on whether there was such a thing such as life after death. ‘Such questions,’ he said, ‘are not relevant to the practice of the Path and cannot be answered while bound by the restraints of human existence.’ Most of Buddhism, you see, gentlemen, can be explored, appreciated, and utilized as a tool toward enlightenment without descending into the supernatural.”

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 21 (p. 454)

“If one is to observe, M. Endymion, one must be in the proper place to observe.”

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 19 (p. 375)

“I ached everywhere. It was hard to separate the dull agony of the shattered leg from the ache in my head and my back and my guts. My skull felt as if there were a ball of mercury in it that shifted ponderously long seconds after my head itself turned. The vertigo made me sick again, but I had nothing left to vomit. I hung on the tangle of branches and contemplated the glories of adventure.”

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 34 (p. 701)

“How about,” she said, “that you do the logical thing because it’s the logical thing to do?”

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 14 (p. 272)