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Roger Zelazny: 224 quotes2 likes

“I had wanted to go after her, to explain my part in what had happened. But I knew it would do no good, so why lose face? When a fairy tale blows up and the dream dust settles and you find yourself standing there, knowing that the last line will never be written, why not omit any exercises in futility?”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 8 (p. 187)

“Dwelling beside a body of water is tonic for the weary psyche. Sea smells, sea birds, seawrack, sands—alternately cool, warm, moist and dry—a taste of brine and the presence of the rocking, slopping bluegraygreen spit-flecked waters, has the effect of rinsing the emotions, bathing the outlook, bleaching the conscience.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 5 (pp. 119-120)

“I was born on the planet Earth, into the middle of the twentieth century, that period in the history of the race when man succeeded in casting off many of the inhibitions and taboos laid upon him by tradition, reveled for a brief time, and then discovered that it didn’t make a bloody bit of difference that he had. He was still just as dead when he died, and he was still faced with every life-death problem that had confronted him before, compounded by the fact that Malthus was right.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 4 (p. 72)

“I see myself as a novelist, period. I mean, the material I work with is what is classified as science fiction and fantasy, and I really don't think about these things when I'm writing. I'm just thinking about telling a story and developing my characters.”

Roger Zelazny

"A Conversation With Roger Zelazny" (8 April 1978), talking with Terry Dowling and Keith Curtis in Science Fiction Vol. 1, #2 (June 1978)

“On the water, aboard the Proteus, the crowding, the activities, the tempo, of life in the cities, on the land, are muted, slowed—fictionalized—by the metaphysical distancing a few meters of water can provide. We alter the landscape with great facility, but the ocean has always seemed unchanged, and I suppose by extension we are infected with some feelings of timelessness whenever we set out upon her.”

Roger Zelazny

Home is the Hangman (1975)

“You were both correct,” said Morningstar. “It is the same thing that you both describe, although neither of you sees it as it really is. Each of you colors reality in keeping with your means of controlling it. For if it is uncontrollable, you fear it. Sometimes then, you color it incomprehensible. In your case, a machine; in theirs, a demon.”

Roger Zelazny book Jack of Shadows

Source: Jack of Shadows (1971), Chapter 6 (p. 63)

“Even if they had been real gods, what did it matter? What was it to me? Here I was still, right where I was born a thousand or so years before, in the middle of the human condition—namely, rubbish and pain. If the gods were real, their only relationship with us was to use us to play their games. Screw them all.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 8 (p. 174)

“I was cruising along on Tokyo Bay, and suddenly this was the answer, looming, the heaped remains of everything that goes down and does not come again to shore, life’s giant kitchen-midden, the rubbish heap that remains after all things pass, the place that stands in testament to the futility of all ideals and intentions, good or bad, the rock that smashes values, there, signalizing the ultimate uselessness of life itself, which must one day be broken upon it, not to rise, no, never, not ever, again.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 7 (p. 154)

“Symbols, by their very nature, conceal as well as indicate, damn them!”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 1 (p. 29)

“At one time, tips were given only for things you logically would want to have done efficiently and promptly, and they served to supplement a lower payscale for certain classes of employment. This was understood, accepted. It was tourism, back in the century of my birth, cluing in the underdeveloped countries to the fact that all tourists are marks, that set the precedent, which then spread to all countries, even back to the tourists’ own, of the benefits which might be gained by those who wear uniforms and render the undesired and the unrequested with a smile. This is the army that conquered the world. After their quiet revolution in the twentieth century, we all became tourists the minute we set foot outside our front doors, second-class citizens, to be ruthlessly exploited by the smiling legions who had taken over, slyly, completely.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 2 (p. 45)

“I have noted, too, that when it comes to matters of security the laws are considerably relaxed.”

Roger Zelazny book Jack of Shadows

Source: Jack of Shadows (1971), Chapter 8 (p. 85)

“All of these things considered, it is not surprising that one can detect echoes, correspondences and even an eternal return or two within the work of a single author. The passage of time does bring changes, yea and alas; but still, I would recognize myself anywhere.”

Roger Zelazny

In the introduction for the short-story collection Unicorn Variations (1983)

“Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant — you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place.
Trust your demon.”

Roger Zelazny

Introduction to Passion Play (1962)

“I sank Atlantis," he said, "personally. It was about three years ago. And God! it was lovely! It was all ivory towers and golden minarets and silver balconies. There were bridges of opal, and crimson pennants and a milk-white river flowing between lemon-colored banks. There were jade steeples, and trees as old as the world tickling the bellies of clouds, and ships in the great sea-harbor of Xanadu, as delicately constructed as musical instruments, all swaying with the tides. The twelve princes of the realm held court in the dozen-pillared Coliseum of the Zodiac, to listen to a Greek tenor sax play at sunset.”

Roger Zelazny book He Who Shapes

He Who Shapes (1965)

“The function of criticism should not be confused with the function of reform.”

Roger Zelazny

Home is the Hangman (1975)

“It is no shame to lose to me, mortal. Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game."
"I am pleased that you were not wholly bored," Martin said. "Now will you tell me what you were talking about concerning the destruction of my species?”

Roger Zelazny book Unicorn Variation

"Oh, that," Tlingel replied.
Unicorn Variation (1982)

““Could Yarl the Omnipotent create a stone so heavy he couldn’t lift it?” Green Green asked him.
”No,” said Courtcour.
”Why not?”
”He would not.”
”That is no answer.”
”Yes, it is. Think about it. Would you?””

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 7 (p. 157)

“At the end of the season of sorrows comes the time of rejoicing. Spring, like a well-oiled clock, noiselessly indicates this time.”

Roger Zelazny

First lines of Zelazny's first published short story, Passion Play (1962)

“I’d lived far too long, and with every day that passed the odds kept growing against my lasting much longer. Although they didn’t put it quite that way when giving the sales pitch, my insurance company’s attitude is reflected in the size of the premiums involved.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 7 (pp. 147-148)

“I wasn’t disappointed, inasmuch as I expected nothing.”

Roger Zelazny book This Immortal

Source: This Immortal (1965), p. 29