Michael Moorcock: Trending quotes

““So you are still our Master,” said Sabrina. She was frowning. She had come to be afraid again.
“Not so!” Lucifer turned, almost in rage. “You are your own masters. Your destiny is yours. Your lives are your own. Do you not see that this means an end to the miraculous? You are at the beginning of a new age for Man, an age of investigation and analysis.”
“The Age of Lucifer,” I said, echoing some of His own irony.
He saw the joke in it. He smiled.
“Man, whether he be Christian or pagan, must lean to rule himself, to understand himself, to take responsibility for himself. There can be no Armageddon now. If Man is destroyed, he shall have destroyed himself.”
“So we are to live without aid,” said Sabrina. Her face was clearing.
“And without hindrance,” said Lucifer. “It will be your fellows, your children and their children who will find the Cure for the World’s Pain.”
“Or perish in the attempt,” said I.
“It is a fair risk,” said Lucifer. “And you must remember, von Bek, that it is in my interest that you succeed. I have wisdom and knowledge at your disposal. I always had that gift for Man. And now that I may give it freely I choose not to do so. Each fragment of wisdom shall be earned. And it shall be hard-earned, captain.””

“Americans need bullshit the way koala bears need eucalyptus leaves. They’ve become totally addicted to it. They get so much of it back home that they can’t survive without it.”

“There is less danger, gentlemen, in living according to a set of high moral principles than most politicians believe.”

“Treasures are not won by care and forethought
but by swift slaying and reckless attack.”

“Legends are best left as legends and attempts to make them real are rarely successful”

“The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.”

“I think of myself as a bad writer with big ideas, but I'd rather be that than a big writer with bad ideas.”

“Time is the enemy of identity”

“It's History that's caused all the troubles in the past.”

“You have no proof of this,” I said.
“No. But a theory must be tested to be disproved, Mr Bastable.”

“How paltry is the thing they call science. We have something far superior! We have Faith. We have a Force greater than Reason! We have a wisdom beyond mere knowledge. We have the Holy Grail itself. The Chalice of Limitless Power!”

“Oh, I believe very much in cause and effect,” she said, “but not in the linear sense. Every action has a proliferation of consequences. We can’t remain alive without being responsible for thousands of actions and their consequences. We simply have to live with that fact and decide, morally if you like, how to formulate a civilized, secure environment for ourselves. So far we haven’t succeeded.”

“Like most fanatics,” I pointed out coolly, “you share at least one characteristic with children—you want everything now. All improvements take time. You cannot make the world perfect overnight. Things are considerably better for more people today than they were in my—in the early years of this century, for instance.”

“The soldier shook his head, waxing philosophical. “It’s a madness, sir. We’ve all got it. It could go on until the last human being crawls away from the body of the chap he’s just bashed to bits with a stone. That’s what war is, sir—madness. You don’t think about what you’re doing. You forget, don’t you—you just go on killing and killing.””

“It is many years since I have wielded a weapon larger than a pen, borne anything weightier than a difficult problem in philosophy.”

“By acting as they would act, we become what they are. And if we are what they are, then there is little point in resisting them!”

“Again that smile of exquisite and self-congratulatory piety.”

“I would be grateful if I was allowed to work out my own destiny for once,” I said. “For good or ill.”

“The hardest compromise to make is when you decide to appear to compromise. Often the deception becomes the reality long before you realize it.”