Michael Swanwick: Trending quotes

“A magician does not send messages, you know—he orchestrates reality.”

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 19 (pp. 339-340)

““You ask a question that cannot be answered without knowing the nature of the primal chaos from which being arose. Is Spiral Castle like a crystal, once shattered, forever destroyed? That is what I prefer to believe. Or is it like a still pond, whose mirrored surface may be shattered and churned, but which will inevitably restore itself as the waves die down? You may believe this if you choose. You can even believe—why not?—that the restored universe will be an improvement on the old. For me, so long as I have my vengeance I care not what comes after.”
“And us?”
“We die.” An involuntary rise in the dragon’s voice, a slight quickening of cadence, told her that she had touched upon some unclean hunger akin to but less seemly than battle-lust. “We die beyond any chance of rebirth. You and I and all we have known will cease to be. The worlds that gave us birth, the creatures that shaped us—all will be unmade. So comprehensive will be their destruction that even their pasts will die with them. It is an extinction beyond death that we court. Though the ages stretch empty and desolate into infinity and beyond, there will be none to remember us, nor any to mourn. Our joys, sorrows, struggles, will never have been.
“And even if there is a universe to come, it will know naught of us.””

Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 7, “Who Is the Black Beast?” (p. 119)

“You don’t hide information by destroying it. You hide it by swamping it with bad information.”

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 19 (pp. 340-341)

“Hierarchies only work to the benefit of those on the top. If you’re high, you’ll get by. If you’re low, out you go! That’s how it is.”

Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 8, “Conversations in the Puzzle Palace” (p. 139)

“Faust wallowed heavily over on his side, presenting a pitiable face to Wagner. “Never fall in love,” he said. “She will take lovers, and some of them will be more experienced and capable than you. I tell you this as a friend—there are dishes once tasted, a woman is loath to do without.””

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 12 (p. 209)

“They were not aware of the madness that lurked within their own minds.”

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 16, “The Wild Hunt” (p. 275)

““Now why on Earth would you tell him a thing like that?”
“Because it’s true.”
Sbrulius laughed. “That, dear Faust, is the single worst argument you could have raised. Many things are true. Few are proper. Fewer still are desirable.””

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 1, “Trinity” (p. 3)

“I would appreciate it if just this once you would make the effort to curb your negativism.”
“I have to say what I think. That’s what I’m being paid for, after all.”

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 4, “Flight” (p. 55)

“The law,” Hoess suggested, “might not be entirely unhelpful here.”

“A very common delusion.”
Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 1, “The Leviathan in Flight” (p. 10)

““Good men are dying at this very moment to protect you, your factories, your possessions, and all civilization.”
“Good men are dying every moment,” Gretchen replied coldly, “somewhere. Since they did not ask my leave to do so, I feel no particular obligation toward them.””

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 13, “Tabloids” (p. 214)

““It was none of your foul science. I am an occultist.”
“A distinction in terminology only. Our means may differ, but we employ identical techniques. First, render the brain open to suggestion. We use magnetic resonance, while you employ drugs, ritual, sex, terror, or some combination thereof. Then, when the brain is susceptible, imprint it with new behavior patterns. We use holotherapeutic viruses as the message carriers; you eat a rat. Finally, reinforce the new pattern in your daily life. Our methods are probably identical there. The skill is extremely old; people were being reprogrammed long before machines.””

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 13, “Tabloids” (p. 219)

““Out of doors on a moonless night?” Mette sneered. “Only fools, footpads, and astrologers stray where there is no light.””

Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 13, “A View from a Height” (p. 235)

“Everyone dies—the rearrangement of when is a matter of only statistical interest.”

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 4, “Flight” (p. 57)

“These hands were almost crippled digging coal so that rich men in Boston might grow even richer.”

Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 13, “A View from a Height” (p. 238)

Michael Swanwick

Source: In the Drift (1985), Chapter 4, “Mutagen Fair” (p. 130)

““Tell me! What do you think of life? What do you think of ambition? What do you think of science, of learning, of love, of fame, of glory, of aspiration?”
“I think… that those are all very different things.”
“You are wrong. They are all one thing—a cunt.”
“Sir?”
“A cunt! Consider: The cunt is a nasty, ugly, filthy thing. Yet we desire it so greatly as to be willing to suffer any indignity to attain it. For the sake of it we labor and preen and whisper sugary words. We go to the theatre with flowers in our arms, climb over back walls by moonlight, write sonnets, jump out of windows with our trousers in our hands, give dangerous men their choice of weapons. We build love-nests for it sake, and cities, and civilizations. It is our all, our only, our ideal. It has created us and made us great. Such is life, such is ambition, such is science, learning, love, fame, glory, and aspiration. The Eternal Cunt,” he said significantly, “draws us onward.””

“I trust I have not grown so gullible as to consult a doctor,” the bureaucrat said with dignity. “If I want medical attention, I hall employ the qualified machinery or, in extremis, a human with proper biomedical augmentation. But I will not swill down fermented swamp guzzle at the behest of some quasi-literate, uneducated charlatan.”

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 16, “The Wild Hunt” (p. 276)

““Excuse me,” she said hesitantly, “but what effect do these minor planets have on our behavior and fortunes? I mean, you know, astrological influence?”
He looked at her. “None.”
“None at all.”
“No.”
“But if the planets affect our fortunes—” She stumbled to a stop at the dispassionately scornful look on the pale man’s face, the slow way he shook his head. “Surely you’ll agree that the planets order and control our destinies?”
“They do not.”
“Not at all?”
“Then what does? Control our destinies, I mean.”
“The only external forces that have any influence on us are those we can see every day: the smile, the frown, the fist, the brick wall. What you call ‘destiny’ is merely a semantic fallacy, the attribution of purpose to blind causality. Insofar as any of us are compelled to resist the flow of random events, we are driven solely by internal drives and forces.””

Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 7, “Who Is the Black Beast?” (p. 108)

““So whose side are you on? You have to choose.”
“I’m not going to be on anybody’s side anymore,” she said. “Sides are stupid.””

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 6 (p. 88)