Gene Wolfe: Quotes about God

Gene Wolfe was American science fiction and fantasy writer. Explore interesting quotes on god.

Gene Wolfe: 204 quotes4 likes

“What little I have learned in the course of a long life, regarding the gods, I have tried to forget.”

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

“The slight criticism of evolution I offer should not be taken as evidence that I do not believe in evolution; I do. Let's not blame God for everything. I also believe in Lamarckism, as it was put forward by Lamarck. (The Lamarckism presented in standard textbooks is actually Lysenkoism, a straw man set up by the opponents of Lamarckism, palpably false and easily disproved.) There is no paradox in that: Lamarckism and Darwinism are not mutually exclusive, except politically.”

Gene Wolfe

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

“Men build scales, but the gods blow upon the lighter pan.”

Gene Wolfe

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

“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)

“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)

“We don't harm the gods when we mingle their names with our curses and obscenities. We harm ourselves. I said that I didn't regard most gods as holy, but they don't have to be for our malice and mockery to recoil upon ourselves.”

Gene Wolfe

Volume 3, Ch. 10
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

“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

“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

“"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

“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

“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)

“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)