Karl Schroeder Quotes

Karl Schroeder is a Canadian science fiction author. His novels present far-future speculations on topics such as nanotechnology, terraforming, augmented reality, and interstellar travel, and are deeply philosophical. Wikipedia

✵ 4. September 1962

Works

Ventus

Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder: 25 quotes 0 likes

Famous Karl Schroeder Quotes

““The fact is, there’s no such thing as an ultimate state of consciousness. It’s a myth; sentience has meaning only insofar as it’s connected into the physical world…
If you’d like to see it, here’s a view of the Omega Point.” It gestured to open a large inscape window in the sky. Instantly Doran’s head was filled with an undifferentiated roar; white noise matched in the window by endless video snow.
Choronzon laughed. “The more information there is in a signal, the more it resembles noise. You’re looking at infinite information density, gentlemen, a signal so packed with information that it has become noise. These idiots pushed so far in one direction that they ended up at the opposite pole…
Perhaps the fanatics of Omega Point had gotten their wish, but if so they had been mistaken in thinking that the Absolute was something that hadn’t been there all along. Absolute meaning, it seemed, was no different from no meaning at all.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 14 (p. 158).

“Our whole life we’ve lived in a world of softened edges and easy decisions. All except once. One time, when someone had to look at the world through adult eyes and even the grown-ups who survived the crash with us failed the test. Someone had to look at the world as it was, and make the hard decisions that were necessary—not to romanticize, not to retreat into illusions. You did it then. I’m asking you to do it again. See what’s really going on here. See what’s real.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 24 (p. 265).

“Only the dead are free of the influence of others.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 24 (p. 266).

“The great commandment of the narratives is that your life must be meaningful,” said Charon. “If knowing the truth strips the meaning away, then the truth must be suppressed.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 16 (p. 179).

“Each technology equated to some human value or set of values, she saw. She’d known that. But on Earth, in the Archipelago and everywhere else, technologies came first, and values changed to accommodate them. Under the locks, values were the keys to access or shut away technologies…
The locks proclaimed that there were no neutral technologies. The devices and methods people used didn’t just represent certain values—they were those values, in some way.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 23 (pp. 255-256).

“I am the Government,” she said. “I am a force of omniscience and unparalleled power within the human part of the Archipelago. I am a public-domain distributed artificial intelligence. I have made all human institutions redundant, for I am the personal and intimate friend of each and every one of the trillion humans under my domain. I am the selfless advocate of each of them, from the lowliest to the greatest.
The only problem is…Well, nobody listens to me much anymore.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 12 (p. 126).

Karl Schroeder Quotes about people

“In such a way she had done what her people prized above all else: she had given her respect to those different from herself.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 7 (p. 66).

““You know I was once a human being, too, Doran. I remember how hard it was to marshal all the resources I needed to cure myself of the affliction. I also remember, quite clearly, how I always told people I had no interest in self-deification. It was a useful and sometimes necessary shield against interference.”
“Blow off,” said Doran. “Unless you have some specific threat you want to use on me.”
Choronzon laughed. “Not a threat. Just curiosity as to why someone so violently opposed to improving on the human model should decide to go against all his principles.”
“Sometimes,” said Doran icily, “mature people do things they don’t want to do. It’s called following higher principles. But someone without mortal concerns, say, like yourself, wouldn’t understand that.””

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 14 (p. 161).

“They see something they may never have seen before: a normal human reacting normally to a traumatic situation. Livia, these people have been insulated within inscape their whole lives. They have lived in a world where their merest whim could be granted with a thought. Reality has always conformed to their desires—never the other way around. Now they find themselves in a world that obstinately refuses to change itself to fit their imagination. They literally have no idea how to respond.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 14 (p. 159).

Karl Schroeder Quotes

““I haven’t organized my life as a narrative, you know. I’m not sure you’ll understand.”
“As listeners, we are not required to understand,” said Qiingi. “Only to care.””

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 16 (p. 176).

Life , Understanding

“Idiots. They were losing everything because of their short-sightedness. Maybe they deserved to lose it.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 8 (p. 89).

“What’s real is what’s valuable. Everything else is just an illusion.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 17 (p. 183).

“But what good’s abundance if nobody can experience it?”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 23 (p. 256).

“Technologies are control systems,” she said. “They dictate your reality.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 25 (p. 277).

Reality

“The being was trying to get him to think about what he was saying, not just recite.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 5 (p. 45).

Thinking

“That’s what being human means: to be master of your own fate.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 23 (p. 262).

Fate

“Even the gods fight boredom in vain.”

Karl Schroeder

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 22 (p. 252).

God , Fight

“I haven’t organized my life as a narrative, you know. I’m not sure you’ll understand.”

Karl Schroeder

“As listeners, we are not required to understand,” said Qiingi. “Only to care.”
Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 16 (p. 176).

Life , Understanding

“The richest billionaire has to realize that the gods next door take no more notice of him than he would a bug.”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 34 (p. 484)

God

“Then you have no more wish to rule? The country needs you now more than ever.”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

She shook her head. “I’ve been crushed under the weight of power all my life. I think I’m going to enjoy missing it.” She laughed at the lightness with which she dismissed royal power. Every moment was a surprise, these days. She hoped that that feeling would never end.
Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 45 (p. 655)

Country

“Something’s wrong.”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

Axel shrugged. “That statement probably applies to every second I’ve spent on this blasted world.”
Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 44 (p. 632)

“What if they don’t surrender?”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

“My Lady,” he said, “you never ask that question after you’ve gone to war.”
Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 41 (p. 599)

“It’s not that simple.”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

“Ah! That phrase is Male for ‘I’m afraid to.’”
Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 40 (p. 586)

“Humans become violent when they feel their interest are threatened.”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

Galas scowled. “They were never threatened! Parliament is a rumor mill staffed by trough-fed clods who abuse the tongue of their birth every time they open their mouths. They all gabble at once and confuse one another mightily, and when this confusion is committed to paper they refer to it as ‘policy.’”
Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 17 (p. 246)

Feeling

“Just because something is convincing, that does not make it true. It is merely convincing.”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 15 (p. 227)

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