Gene Wolfe: Trending quotes

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Gene Wolfe: 204 quotes4 likes

“No man has a home unless he is master of a place where he must please no one—a place where he can go and lock the door behind him.”

Gene Wolfe book Storeys from the Old Hotel

"Slaves of Silver", Galaxy, 1971, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Storeys from the Old Hotel (1988)
Fiction

“Be careful about extending credit, too, and doubly careful about refusing to extend it.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 1, Ch. 1
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

“Almost any interesting work of art comes close to saying the opposite of what it really says.”

Gene Wolfe

"What I Know About Writing (in no particular order)", as quoted in Michael Swanwick, "The Wolf in the Labyrinth", Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 2007
Nonfiction

“Most Christians know next to nothing about the life and teachings of Christ and are afraid to learn, sensing that the knowledge will upset their preconceptions.”

Gene Wolfe

"Sun of Helioscope", in Castle of the Otter (1982), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

“Here in two flat sentences are the best things I can say about our field on American television: Dr. Who is sometimes aired. Sometimes Battlestar Galactica is not.”

Gene Wolfe

Guest of Honor speech at Aussiecon Two (August 1985), as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

“I was the core of the universe, as we always are to ourselves.”

Gene Wolfe

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 6, "A Death and the Dark" (p. 38)

“Do you know the story about the farmer who complained all his life about getting too much rain or too little, about the soil and the winds and so on? […] The farmer died and went to Mainframe, and was soon called to the magnificent chamber in which Pas holds court. Pas said to him, "I understand you feel that I botched certain aspects of the job when I built the Whorl; and the farmer admitted it was so, saying, "Well, sir, pretty often I thought I could have made it better."”

Gene Wolfe

To which Pas replied, "Yes, that's what I wanted you to do."
Volume 3: Return to the Whorl (2001), Ch. 6
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

“When neither our fellows nor our gods spoil our plans, we spoil them ourselves.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 4, Ch. 15
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

“As you intend to live hereafter, it is in your power to live here.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 2: Lake of the Long Sun (1994), Ch. 1
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

“What is perceived is dictated by the instrument. If you had other eyes, or another mind, you would see all things otherwise.”

Gene Wolfe

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 40, "The Brook Beyond Briah" (p. 285)

“You have a walking stick. Suppose it could walk by itself, and that it chose to walk away from you. […] It would no longer be a walking stick at all, only a stick that walked.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 3, Ch. 13
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

“The most trivial skirmish is not trivial to those who die in it, and so should not be trivial in any ultimate sense to us.”

Gene Wolfe

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 13, "The Battles" (p. 95)

“It is well not to spend one's symbols improvidently.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 1, Ch. 9
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

“I have never in my whole life had a fight with a smart person or even seen anybody else have one either. That is because when the fight starts the smart people are not there anymore. They have gone off someplace else, and when it is over they come back and tell you how much they did in the fight, only it is all lies.”

Gene Wolfe book Starwater Strains

"Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?", Moon Shots (1999), ed. Peter Crowther, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Starwater Strains (2005), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

“It’s easy—very easy—to slay a ruler. But it’s very difficult to prevent a worse one from coming to his place.”

Gene Wolfe

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 39, "The Claw of the Conciliator Again" (p. 278)

“Now I must, I suppose, explain why I have been writing this account. […] I have written to disclose myself to myself, and I am writing now because I will, I know, sometime read what I am now writing and wonder. Perhaps by the time I do, I will have solved the mystery of myself, or perhaps I will no longer care to know the solution.”

Gene Wolfe

Fiction, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", Orbit 10 (1972)

“Any representation of a god is ultimately a lie, Silk explained. It may be a convenient lie, and it may even be a reverent one; but it's ultimately false. … Neither image would be more nearly true than the other, or more true than any other—merely more appropriate.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 1, Ch. 11
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

“Until we reach the end of time, we don’t know whether something’s been good or bad; we can only judge the intentions of those who acted.”

Gene Wolfe

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 33, "Aboard the Alcyone" (p. 237)

“In the marketplace he told of honor, and how it is a higher law than any law.
At the crossroads he talked of freedom, the freedom of the wind and clouds, and freedom that loves all things and is without guilt.
Beside the city gates he told stories of the forgotten cities that were and of the forgotten cities that might be, if only men would forget them.”

Gene Wolfe

"The God and His Man", Asimov's Science Fiction, 1980, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Endangered Species (1989), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

“A trooper fights for honor … or from loyalty. Or for loot sometimes. But he waits for pay. He will not wait without it, because when there is no fighting there is no honor to win, no flag to die for, no loot to gain.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 4: Exodus from the Long Sun (1996), Ch. 9
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)