Michael Moorcock Quotes page 2

“He’s vain. His vanity’s hurt by the world’s refusal to accept his remedies and become immediately Enlightened. And what does a vain man do when insulted, Sir?”…“He lashes out, Sir,” says I. “He seeks to portion blame. He fumes, Sir. He attacks. In the case before us, such is his despotic power, he kills. He kills, Sir. He wars on other nations. Mary’s blood, Sir, but this poor sphere of ours suffers more from the single, frustrated egoist than from any natural—or supernatural—misery. Your own Church’s history, Sir, illustrates my point well enough, eh? We are too frequently in the power of mad children, who rage and stamp and break Kingdoms as they break toys. They order thousands of deaths a day as if they were spoiled brats kicking at their dolls!”

Source: The Sundered Worlds (1965), Chapter 15 (p. 290)

“You were both catalysts,” Mrs Persson told me, “no more than that. Do you still not realize your error? No individual can claim so much personal guilt. It is madness to do so. We are all guilty of supporting the circumstances, the self-deceptions, the misconceptions and misinformation which lead to War. Every lie we tell ourselves brings an evil like the destruction of Hiroshima closer. We drown in our lies.”

Source: The von Bek family, The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 2 (pp. 197-198; ellipsis represents a minor elision of description)

““This is the stuff which some Nazis wished to put into our churches,” whispered von Bek. “Pagan objects of worship which they claim are the symbols of a true German religion. They are almost as anti-Christian as they are anti-Semitic. It is as if they hate every system of thought which in any way questions their own mish-mash of pseudo-philosophy and mystical claptrap!” He stared at the altar in disgust. “They are the worst kind of nihilists. They cannot even see that they destroy everything and create nothing. Their invention is as empty as any inventions of Chaos I have seen. It has no true history, no concrete substance, no depth, no quality of intellect. It is merely a negation, a brutal denial of all Germany’s virtues.””

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 394)
Oswald Bastable, The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Let us say that those who do insist on a hearing will be silenced soon enough. There is a monotonous pattern to the rise of tyrants which, I suppose, is reflected in the general pattern of human folly. Depressing though it is, we must accept the fact.”

Book 3, Chapter 2 (p. 637)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

“Unlike so many politicians or military leaders they made no attempt to justify their mistakes, to cling to power. For them power held enormous responsibility and was merely invested in them temporarily.”

Book 2, Chapter 5 (p. 568)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

“It had been some years since I had lost my Faith, save in my own capacity to survive a world at War, but evidently in the back of my mind there had always been some sense that through God one might find salvation. Now, as I journeyed in quest of the Holy Grail (or something identified as the Holy Grail), I not only questioned the possibility that salvation existed; I questioned whether God’s salvation was worth the earning. Again I began to see the struggle between God and Lucifer as nothing more than a squabble between petty princelings over who should possess power in a tiny, unimportant territory. The fate of the tenants of that territory did not much seem to matter to them; and even the reward of those tenants’ loyalty seemed thin enough to me.”

Book 2, Chapter 5 “A Question of Attitudes” (p. 370)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 8 (pp. 91-92)

““I shall know soon.” I hesitated. “I shall know if all these adventurings, all these ordeals, have been meaningless or not. Man struggles in the belief that he can, by dint of perseverance, affect his own destiny. And all those efforts, I think, lead to nothing but ruin.”

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 15 (p. 149)

“Did God truly build and populate a small planet for His own purposes; perhaps merely to relieve His boredom?”

“Everything means nothing—that is the only truth.”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 8 (p. 294)

“Can Hell and Heaven be merely the difference between ignorance and knowledge?”

Source: Short fiction, To Rescue Tanelorn... (1962), p. 472

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 16 (p. 158)

“Wasn’t all their effort worthless? Wouldn’t it be better to accept the impossibility of their mission? He began to think Krane was mad. If there were a threat, then inevitably they would die. Death was the future of all people, all planets, all universes. Their struggle was symbolic of the futility of living creatures who fought against their own inevitable extinction. What were a few more years of existence compared to the longevity of a cosmos? In those terms, the whole history of their species lasted for less than a fraction of a second. And then, sheltering beside him under the protection of the energy equalizer, she looked up for a second, and, obscurely, he understood that the effort always would be worth it. Always had been worth it.”

“There must be countless forms of love. Which is the form which conquers the rest? I cannot define it. I shall not try.”

Source: Short fiction, The Lost Canal (2013), p. 371

Michael Moorcock book The Eternal Champion

Source: The Eternal Champion (1970), Chapter 15 “The Returning” (p. 91)

“Destiny was apparently a word describing an individual’s desperate need for certainty.”

“It is almost impossible to have a baseless snobbish opinion of the General Theory of Relativity.”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 12 (p. 349)

“What the local politicians actually meant was that they hoped to claim the land in the name of the public and then make the usual profits privatizing it. There was a principle at stake. They had to ensure their friends and not outsiders got the benefit.”

Fantastic Metropolis, Christmas Editorial (http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/20011209/3/)

““What more could you need?”
I smiled in self-mockery. “Reassurance, I suppose.”
“That must come from your own judgment, from your own testing of your conscience. It is the only kind of reassurance worth having, as I’m sure you would agree.””

Source: Short fiction, London Bone (1997), p. 443

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 10 (p. 112)

“I have learned from my experiences that hatred and racial antagonism can be manufactured by the politicians of any one country against any other, so I was no longer the patriot I had been.”

“I said: “Then in reality I had little choice.”
“Let us say that your character has already determined your choice.””

Book 2, Chapter 2 “Back in Service” (p. 350)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 3 (p. 48)

“When he was dead I raised myself to my feet and I looked about me. Everything was still. A loneliness had come upon my soul.
There was darkness everywhere now but in the forest. And even here there were wisps of grey, as if evil crept in.
I lifted my head to the sky and I shook my fist. “Oh, I reject you. I reject your Heaven and I reject your Hell. Do as you wish with me, but know that your desires are petty and your ambitions have no meaning!””

“An unquestioned creed is a noose about the throat of Reason.”

I addressed no one. I addressed the universe. I addressed a void.

Chapter 15 (p. 154)
The von Bek family, The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981)

“Do not thank me for saving your life. You do not realize yet what I have saved it for.”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 3 (p. 211)

Michael Moorcock book The Jewel in the Skull

Book 3, Chapter 3 “The Warrior in Jet and Gold” (p. 113)
The Jewel in the Skull (1967)

“In an infinite universe, all may become real sooner or later. Yet it is always up to mankind to make real what it really wishes to be real.”

“My bargain with God included the undertaking that I should play no direct part, merely supervise mankind’s self-redemption. Like yourself, my agents are those whose independence of thought is already well-established.”

Source: Book 3, Chapter 7 “Project NFB” (p. 135), The Warlord of the Air (1971)

“How true it is when they say there is nothing which makes a man more furious than the discovery that he has deceived himself!”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 13 (p. 367; the speaker is Lucifer)

“One can act too much in the cause of self-preservation and experience nothing fresh as a result.”

The Dragon in the Sword (1986)
Source: Book 1, Chapter 4 (p. 509)

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 2 (p. 25)

“Here, I thought, I had found the human race in its final stages of decadence—perverse, insouciant, without ambition. And I could not blame them. After all, they had no future.”

Michael Moorcock book Phoenix in Obsidian

Phoenix in Obsidian (1970)
Source: Book 2 “The Champion’s Road” Chapter 3 “The Lord Spiritual” (p. 354)

“Only Bowgentle, the philosopher-poet, his old friend, had an inkling of what he meant and even then Bowgentle believed that it reflected not on the nature of the landscape but on the particular nature of Count Brass’s mind.
“You’re exhausted, disorientated,” Bowgentle would say. “The ordering mechanism of the brain is working too hard, so you see a pattern to existence that, in fact, only stems from your own weariness and disturbance…””

“Knowledge ceases to be wisdom when one has no method for making sense or use of what one learns.”

Book 1, Chapter 2 “The Flamingoes’ Dance” (p. 261)
The Sword of the Dawn (1968)

“Gandhi had been right. There was only one way to behave, even if it seemed, in the short term, against one’s self-interest. Surely it was in one’s self-interest in the long term to exhibit generosity, humanity, kindness and a sense of justice to one’s fellow men. It was cynicism of Beesley’s kind which had, after all, led to the threatened extinction of the whole human race. There could be no such thing s a “righteous” war, for war was by its very nature an act of injustice against the individual, but there could be such a thing as an “unrighteous” war—an evil war, a war begun by men who were utterly corrupt, both morally and intellectually. I had begun to think that it was a definition of those who would make war—that whatever motives they claimed, whatever ideals they promoted, whatever “threat” they referred to, they could not be excused—because of their actions they could only be of a degenerate and immoral character.”

Source: Book 2, Chapter 7 (p. 591), The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

Michael Moorcock book The Land Leviathan

Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Triumphant Beast” (p. 262)
The Land Leviathan (1974)

“Better wicked Lucifer for a master, thought I, than a pious Tyrant!”

““I think you serve a great purpose, Hawkmoon. I think your destiny is a noble one.”
Hawkmoon laughed. “And yet I do not pine for a noble destiny—merely a secure one.””

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 13 (p. 361)

“It’s getting late. I must return to my ship or my men will think I’ve drowned and be celebrating.”

The Sword of the Dawn (1968)
Source: Book 2, Chapter 11 “The Parting” (p. 380)

Michael Moorcock book The Eternal Champion

Source: The Eternal Champion (1970), Chapter 10 “First Sight of the Eldren” (p. 58)

““I have heard it said it is often safer to dwell in the lion’s lair than outside it,” Oladahn said.
“Safer still to live in a land where there are no lions,” Count Brass retorted.”

“I knew that it was human nature which lay at the root of History and that no matter where I found myself I was bound to discover superficial similarities expressing and exemplifying that nature. It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce these terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called “History”. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination.”

Book 1, Chapter 9 “Interlude at Castle Brass” (p. 291)
The Sword of the Dawn (1968)

““Chaos has her moods and whims, that’s all. As I told you, she cannot remain stable. It is in her nature to be forever changing.”
“While it is in the nature of Law,” Alisaard explained, “to be forever fixed. The Balance is there to ensure that neither Law nor Chaos ever gain complete ascendancy, for the one offers sterility while the other offers only sensation.””

Book 2, Chapter 1 “The Camp on Rishiri” (p. 339)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Machine-devoured, all his hours were given o’er to that insidious circuitry, and old grew he, unnoticing, in the service of his engines.”

Book 3, Chapter 1 (p. 626)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

““Evil flourishes best in disguise,” said Otto grimly. His companions nodded in assent.
“And the best disguise is simple” said the youth, Federit Shaus. “Honest patriotism. Joyful idealism.”
“You’re a cynic, lad,” von Bek smiled at him. “But sadly my own experience would support your view. Show me a man who cries ‘my country right or wrong’, and I’ll show you one who’d cheerfully murder half his own nation in the name of patriotism.””

Book 1, Chapter 3 “Elvereza Tozer” (p. 269)
The Sword of the Dawn (1968)

““Petersburg socialism seems cold to the likes of our Cossacks, who would rather worship personalities than embrace ideas.”
I shared his irony. “You make them sound like Americans.””

Book 2, Chapter 3 (p. 550)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

“Do not speculate, Sedenko, on things for which no evidence exists. You will waste your time.”

The Steel Tsar (1981)
Source: Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Black Ships” (p. 361)

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 9 (p. 103)

“I understood that it was only the very best in us, our capacity for love and self-respect, that enabled us to survive in a perpetually fragmenting multiverse. Only our deepest sense of justice allowed us to remain sane and relish the wonders of chaotic Time and Space, to be free at least of fear. Further violence would bring only an endless chain of bloodshed and an inevitable descent of our race into bestiality and ultimate insentience. To survive, we must love.”

“Women are always underestimated by men,” said Alisaard, a note of satisfaction in her voice, “and this enables them sometimes to gather far more power to themselves than the men suspect.”

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (pp. 388-389)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Michael Moorcock Erekosë

Book 2, Chapter 4 (p. 557)
Erekosë, The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

“It remained difficult for me to understand how some people are simply born mentally deformed, lacking all the natural moral restraints and imagination which dictate the actions of most of us, however partially. Such creatures have learned from childhood to ape the appropriate sentiments when it suits them, to charm or bully their opponents, to agree to anything, to tell any lie and to pursue their own ends with implacable determination.
“Such men and women are the true aliens amongst you and it is ironic how frequently we come to rule you. We use your very best instincts and deepest emotions against you. We convince you that we alone can satisfy your need for security and comfort and then we drain you dry of everything save perpetual terror. Ha, ha, ha!””

“If you were to believe all the old, degenerate German legends, there’s a Grail in every castle, a Charlemagne or an Arthur under every mound! There not a noble house without at least one werewolf offspring or a younger son who’s made a pact with the Devil, an uncle practising the profane arts of alchemy, a vampirical grandfather, a mad monk, a ruined abbey in the grounds where witches meet, an incarcerated lunatic (or heiress—or both), an infanticide or two (and a patricide), and, of course, a family ghost.”

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 389)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“The time has come for the dismantling of fantasies. That is already happening to our universe. Now that we have this one chance of survival we must finally rid ourselves of fantasies and seize that chance!
For centuries our race has built on false assumptions. If you build a fantasy based on a false assumption and continue to build on such a fantasy, your whole existence becomes a lie which you implant in others who are too lazy or too busy to question its truth.
In this manner you threaten the very existence of reality, because, by refusing to obey its laws, those laws engulf and destroy you. The human race has for too long been manufacturing convenient fantasies and calling them laws. For ages this was so. Take war, for instance. Politicians assume that something is true, assume that strife is inevitable, and by building on such false assumptions, lo and behold, they create further wars which they have, ostensibly, sought to prevent.
We have, until now, accepted too many fantasies as being truths, too many truths as fantasies. And we have one last chance to discover the real nature of our existence. I am prepared to take it!”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 5 (p. 263)

“I had learned, after all, to trust neither religion nor politics and to put my faith in the realities of metal, wood and steam, in practical engineering, whose rules could neither be changed nor made the subject of morality, so why should I show reverence for mere antiquity?”

Source: The Sundered Worlds (1965), Chapter 7 (pp. 229-230)

“He had thought his wars over. Now he realized peace had been merely a lull.”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 5 (p. 262)

“Like so many fanatics, he possessed an appalling streak of timidity and terror which feared all that was not absolutely familiar. As his power increased, he would doubtless attempt to destroy anything that made him anxious.”

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 17 (p. 407)

“Do you know what damnation can be, Sir? It can be a state of permanent caution, making one chronically unable to risk anything, even a risk which might save one from extinction.”

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 384)
The Steel Tsar (1981)