Gene Wolfe Quotes (102 quotes, page 2) | Quotes of famous people

“We may be damned at last, by God or our consciences; and though I've met a good many people who profess to credit no God, I've never met one who believed he had no conscience—this though he could no more produce it for my inspection than I could point out the God he demanded to see.”

Gene Wolfe

Introduction for R. A. Lafferty, Episodes of the Argo (1990), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

God , People

“Those who have never fought suppose that the deserter who flies the field is consumed by shame. He is not, or he would not desert; with only trifling exceptions, battles are fought by cowards afraid to run.”

Gene Wolfe

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 16, "The Epitome" (p. 114)

“This, then, is the new illiteracy, the illiteracy of those who can read but don't. […] This new illiteracy is more pernicious than the old, because unlike the old illiteracy it does not debar its victims from power and influence, although like the old illiteracy it disqualifies them for it. Those long-dead men and women who learned to read so that they might read the Bible and John Bunyan would tell us that pride is the greatest of all sins, the father of sin. And the victims of the new illiteracy are proud of it. If you don't believe me, talk to them and see with what pride they trumpet their utter ignorance of any book you care to name.”

Gene Wolfe

"From a house on the Borderland", Horrorstruck (1987), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

Women , Men , Books , Learning

“When a tree is very old, yet still lives, sometimes the limbs are strangely twisted.”

Gene Wolfe book The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories

"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" (1970), Orbit 7, ed. Damon Knight, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (1980), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Wolfe Archipelago (1983), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

Tree

“If those who despise us stone us as prophets, they must listen to us as prophets. If they curse us as sorcerers, they must learn to curse from us, as sorcerers.
Let us enlighten the young, and let us be condemned for corrupting the young, like Socrates. Let us awaken the old before they sleep forever, though they must read us in secret like the Kabbalah. […] The difficulties and successes of our books and magazines, and the rejection and misinterpretation of the films made from our ideas—are the flounderings of the human mind upon the Paleozoic shore. We are the sand in its gills; let's not lose our grit.”

Gene Wolfe

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

Secret , Books , Idea , Sleep

“She often spoke of marryin' a butcher or a sausage maker, having a liking for those trades, as she said, for they knew you couldn't never get all the stains from their aprons, and didn't demand it.”

Gene Wolfe

"Our Neighbor by David Copperfield", Future Tense (1978), ed. Lee Harding, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Endangered Species (1989)
Fiction

“PARADOX: A statement that reduces the matter at hand to complete obscurity while clarifying it. […] Paradoxes are sensitive and can be routed by sneering.”

Gene Wolfe

"Words Weird and Wonderful", in Castle of the Otter (1982), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

“We can dive to the bottom of the sea and some say NASA will fly us to the stars, and I have known men to plunge into the past—or the future—and drown. But there's one place where we can't go. We can't go where we are already. We can't go home, because our minds, and our hearts, and our immortal souls are already there there.”

Gene Wolfe

"Kevin Malone", New Terrors (1980), ed. Ramsey Campbell, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Endangered Species (1989), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

Men , Home , Soul , Star

“There are people who love birds so much they free them. There are others who love them so much they cage them.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 3, Ch. 4
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

Love , People , Bird

“Evolution teaches us the original purpose of language was to ritualize men's threats and curses, his spells to compel the gods; communication came later.”

Gene Wolfe book The Death of Dr. Island

"The Death of Doctor Island", Universe 3 (1973), ed. Terry Carr, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (1980). Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Wolfe Archipelago (1983), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

Men , God , Communication

“Experience is a wonderful teacher, but one whose lessons come too late.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 2: In Green's Jungles (2000), Ch. 1
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

Teachers

“People who get eyeball arthritis see only what they're supposed to see, like that TV screen.”

Gene Wolfe book Starwater Strains

"Hunter Lake", The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 2003, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Starwater Strains (2005)
Fiction

People

“Animals in zoos (we are told) believe that their bars protect them. We Americans have forged our own bars, built our own cage, and live in it more or less content as long as someone feeds us.”

Gene Wolfe

The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009), afterword to "Petting Zoo", p. 432
Nonfiction

Animals

“Every so often I get optimistic and explain the best method of learning to write for students. I don't believe any of them has ever tried it.”

Gene Wolfe

The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009), afterword to "The Boy Who Hooked the Sun", p. 381
Nonfiction

Learning

“Everyone who is grieved at anything, or discontented, is like a pig for sacrifice, kicking and squealing. Like a dove for sacrifice is he who laments in silence. Our one distinction is that it is given to us to consent, if we will, to the necessity imposed upon us.”

Gene Wolfe

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

Silence

“He is not mad. He is only more clever than you. It is not the same.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 4, Ch. 10
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

Madness

“My definition of a great story has nothing to do with "a varied and interesting background." It is: One that can be read with pleasure by a cultivated reader and reread with increasing pleasure. The business about a varied and interesting background belongs to my definition of a good story.”

Gene Wolfe

"From a Chain letter to George R. R. Martin and Greg Benford", 10 July 1982; as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

Pleasure , Business , Reading

“"God is love"
"Love is blind"
If these be true, then God is blind: Simple logic would appear to have escaped the theologians. Res ipsa loquitur, love is not blind, neither God's love nor man's, though we all wish at times to escape God's eye, and though it must at times appear that the lover cannot see what we see—unless, of course, we are ourselves that lover.
Like God, the lover sees but forgives.”

Gene Wolfe book Home Fires

Home Fires (2011), Reflection 2
Fiction

Love , God , Lovers , Forgiveness

“Of the nature of Death and the Dead we may enumerate twelve kinds. First there are those who become new gods, for whom new universes are born. Second those who praise. Third those who fight as soldiers in the unending war with evil. Fourth those who amuse themselves among flowers and sweet springs with sports. Fifth those who dwell in gardens of bliss, or are tortured. Sixth those who continue as in life. Seventh those who turn the wheel of the universe. Eighth those who find in their graves their mothers' wombs and in one life circle forever. Ninth ghosts. Tenth those born again as men in their grandsons' time. Eleventh those who return as beasts or trees. And last those who sleep.”

Gene Wolfe book Gene Wolfe's Book of Days

"Forlesen", Orbit 14 (1974), ed. Damon Knight, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe's Book of Days (1981), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

Life , Death , Men , God

“Just as mainstream literature shows us how our contemporaries view the present, and historical fiction shows us how they view the past (not, of course, what the present or the past were actually like), so speculative fiction shows us how they view the future. I happen to believe that my contemporaries' view of the past is not very important; but their view of the present is quite definitely important, and their view of the future is vital.”

Gene Wolfe

"The Right of Things to Come", presentation for the Science Fiction Research Association (1978), as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

Literature , Past , Future

“It doesn't move because he has fastened it in place until he finds out why it doesn't move.”

Gene Wolfe

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

“Time passed, slipping through the waist of the universe's great hourglass like the eroded soil of this continent slipping down her rivers to the seas.”

Gene Wolfe book The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories

"Seven American Nights", Orbit 20 (1978), ed. Damon Knight, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (1980), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

Universe , Time , Sea

“The gods smile on us, my son, or so it is written. It's a wonder they don't laugh aloud.”

Gene Wolfe

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

God , Smile

““I pledged myself to show you wonders.”
I drew her farther from the building. “I’m not ready to see wonders. Yours, or any other woman’s.””

Gene Wolfe

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 19, "Silence" (p. 132)

“Action, you see, is the end that thought achieves. Action is its only purpose. What else is it good for? If we don't act, it's worthless.”

Gene Wolfe

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

“The jokes of the gods are long in the telling.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 3, Ch. 1
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

God

“Adolescents are simply those people who haven't as yet chosen between childhood and adulthood. For as long as anyone tries to hold on to the advantages of childhood—the freedom from responsibility, principally—while seeking to lay claim to the best parts of adulthood, such as independence, he is an adolescent. […] Eventually most people choose to be adults, or are forced into it. A very few retreat into childhood and never leave it again. A large number remain adolescents for life.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 2, Ch. 23
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

Life , People , Freedom , Parting

“An exaggerated and solemn respect always indicates a loss of faith.”

Gene Wolfe book The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories

"Seven American Nights", Orbit 20 (1978), ed. Damon Knight, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (1980), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

Faith , Loss

“A hundred wise men have said in various ways that love transcends the power of death, and millions of fools have supposed that they meant nothing by it. At this late hour in my life I have learned what they meant. They meant that love transcends death. They are correct.”

Gene Wolfe

"Bed and Breakfast", Dante's Disciples (1995), ed. Edward E. Kramer, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Strange Travelers (2000), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

Love , Life , Death , Men

“Prince of parable, I desire to see those gardens of lasting delight which Allah—the Creator! the Ever Beneficent!—reserves for the faithful. How am I to do so if I tell lies?”

Gene Wolfe

"By lying to Allah, I suppose."
"The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (and What Came of It)", Arabesques (1988), ed. Susan Schwartz. Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Endangered Species (1989)
Fiction

Faith , Lying

“I pledged myself to show you wonders.”

Gene Wolfe

I drew her farther from the building. “I’m not ready to see wonders. Yours, or any other woman’s.”
Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 19, "Silence" (p. 132)