James K. Morrow: Trending quotes (page 2)

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“To Thomas’s eye, Union Square combined the exoticism of The Arabian Nights with the bedrock banality of American commerce, as if a medieval Persian bazaar had been transplanted to the twentieth century and taken over by Wal-Mart.”

James K. Morrow book Towing Jehovah

Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 2, “Priest” (p. 29)

Night

“Naturally you expect the moral thing from me. But I’ve learned something, friend. Morals don’t count for a hell of a lot in this galaxy. I rank them somewhere between straight teeth and the ability to carry a tune.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 26 (p. 303)

Hell , Nature , Learning

““Talo, it would appear that our sons are growing up.”
She tut-tutted in mock solemnity. “And we always said, ‘It can’t happen here.’””

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 25 (p. 296)

Appearance

“Is there anything quite so ludicrous as two intellectuals grappling in a philosophy-department parking lot? Each of us wanted to pummel the other to a pulp, but neither knew how to go about it.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 9 (p. 215)

““Another boyfriend?”
“A character in one of my plays. Runkleberg’s my twentieth-century Abraham. One fine morning he’s out watering his roses, and he hears God’s voice telling him to sacrifice his son.”
“Does he obey?”
“His wife intervenes.”
“How?”
“She castrates him with his hedge clippers, and he bleeds to death.””

James K. Morrow book Towing Jehovah

Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 4, “Dirge” (p. 71)

Death , God , Water

“That was a very pretty speech,” said Loloc, “but if it contained an answer to even one of my questions then I did not hear it.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 15 (p. 178)

Question

“Someday that man will be astonished to discover there’s a whole world marching along outside his buzzing head.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 11 (p. 136)

World

“There’s no objective evidence for an afterlife, and anecdotal reports of heaven cannot be distinguished from wishful thinking, self-delusion, and the effects of oxygen loss on the brain.”

James K. Morrow

City of Truth as reprinted in Nebula Awards 28, p. 257
Short fiction

Thinking , Loss

“People are always asking, does God exist? Of course she does. The real question: what is she like?”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 69)

God , People , Question

“A second slash ended the monster’s misery. So, he thought, this is how my Earthling ancestors ran their affairs. This is how lands were won, empires expanded, insurrections resisted, prisoners taken, slaves kept, heretics converted, captives made loquacious. For the first time in his life, Minnix felt himself a part of history.
History, he decided, was a terrible idea.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 18 (p. 223)

Life , History , Idea , Time

““Your disciples will expect something even grander from you. They’ll want you to become a deity.”
She snickered and said, “I’m not ruling out that possibility.”
“What sort of deity? A hamadryad? Plato’s demiurge? The Creator God of Judeo-Christian revelation?”
“That job’s already taken,” she said.
“But you could do it better,” I said.
“When it comes to the physics, no, but in other areas—you’re right.””

James K. Morrow

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 13 (pp. 304-305)

God

“What really got under Londa’s skin, I soon learned, was not the Messiah’s sermon per se but the discontinuity between its sublime directives and the ignominious course of Western history, a spectacle that, the more we thought about it, increasingly struck Londa and me as largely a fancy-dress danse macabre, Titus Andronicus on a hemispheric and ultimately global scale, though I hastened to point out that the chronicles of other civilizations were likewise awash in blood. What had gone wrong? She wanted to know. When and why had the teachings of Jesus Christ become an optional component of Christianity?”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 6 (pp. 128-129)

History , Learning , Christ

““In the end Humankind destroyed the heaven and the earth,” Soapstone began…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let there be security,’ and there was security. And Humankind tested the security, that it would detonate. And Humankind divided the U-235 from the U-238. And the evening and the morning were the first strike.” Soapstone looked up from the book. “Some commentators feel that the author should have inserted, ‘And Humankind saw the security, that it was evil.’ Others point out that such a view was not universally shared.”…
Casting his eyes heavenward, Soapstone continued. “And Humankind said, ‘Let there be a holocaust in the midst of the dry land.’ And Humankind poisoned the aquifers that were below the dry land and scorched the ozone that was above the dry land. And the evening and the morning were the second strike.”…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let the ultraviolet light destroy the food chains that bring forth the moving creature!’ And the evening and the morning—”…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let there be rays in the firmament to fall upon the survivors!’ And Humankind made two great rays, the greater gamma radiation to give penetrating whole-body doses, and the lesser beta radiation to burn the plants and the bowels of animals! And Humankind sterilized each living creature, saying, ‘Be fruitless, and barren, and cease to—’””

James K. Morrow

Source: This Is the Way the World Ends (1986), Chapter 9, “In Which by Taking a Step Backward the City of New York Brings Our Hero a Step Forward” (pp. 115-116; ellipses not in the original)

Books , Food , Feeling , Light

“Then there is the final possibility, my favorite.
—Yes?
—The final possibility is that I’m God.
—You’re God?
—Just a theory, but the data are provocative. I mean, look at me. Faceless, shapeless, holey, undifferentiated, Jewish, inscrutable…and a hermaphrodite to boot. Years ago, I told you sponges cannot be fatally dismembered, for each part quickly becomes the whole. To wit, I am both immortal and infinite.
—You’re God? You’re God herself? You?
—The data are provocative.
—God is a sponge? A sponge? There’s not much comfort in that.
—Agreed.
—Sponges can’t help us.
—Neither can God, as far as I can tell. I’d be happy to see some contrary data.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 18 (p. 312)

God , Help , Parting , Happiness

“Nature may not be benign, but she is reliable.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 13 (p. 157)

Nature

“Forgive me if I’m confusing you with logic.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 13 (p. 157)

Forgiveness

““A golden age, Londa calls it. She hopes it will return.”
“Golden ages rarely return,” I said “especially if they never existed.””

James K. Morrow

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 16 (p. 366)

Age , Hope

“I shall never cease to marvel at the clarity of stars when viewed from midocean, each as sharp and bright as the laser pointer God uses when lecturing the angels on evolution.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 14 (p. 333)

God , Angels , Star

“Like all good friends, they hated seeing their relationship lose its emotional innocence, its chastity of good will, and now that the thing was lost, now that searing statements had changed hands and left scars, neither looked forward to the future.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 14 (p. 160)

Hate , Change , Future

“Every religion says war is evil, but one way or another they end up playing along.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 14 (p. 164)

War , Religion , Way , Evil