Samuel R. Delany: Trending quotes

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“At a certain point I came to the conclusion that one of the murderous aspects of the AIDS crisis was that people were used to not talking about sexual experiences in detail. Gay sex for instance does not cause AIDS. There are certain acts that transmit a virus and there are certain other acts that don’t transmit a virus. If you don’t talk about what goes on in sexuality, so that you know what particular acts you’re dealing with, then I think you're, possibly in an indirect way but never-the-less in a very real way, contributing to an atmosphere of ignorance which the result is people die.”

Samuel R. Delany

Spoken Arts interview on WBFO 88.7, 20th April 2000.

“One cannot truly trace the course of a life in a thousand pages. Let us have the reticence here not to attempt it in a thousand words.”

Samuel R. Delany book Tales of Nevèrÿon

Section 2 (p. 46)
Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)

“Like contemporary poetry, philosophy is one of those things, especially at the beginning stages, most people would rather do than study — which is why most of what gets done is so impoverished.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Mad Man

Source: The Mad Man (1994), p. 11

“I came no nearer sleep than I came to the moon.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Jewels of Aptor

Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter III (p. 29)

““We’re not going to climb that in the dark, are we?” asked Iimmi.
“Better than in the light,” said Urson. “This way you can’t see how far you have to fall.””

Samuel R. Delany book The Jewels of Aptor

Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter IX (p. 108)

“So,” said Raven, “once again tonight we are presented with a mysterious sign and no way to know whether it completes a pattern or destroys one.”

Samuel R. Delany book Tales of Nevèrÿon

Section 3 (p. 245)
Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)

“Political commitment isn’t a perimeter, Sam; it’s a parameter. Don’t you ever wonder? Don’t you ever doubt?”

Samuel R. Delany book Triton

Source: Triton (1976), Chapter 4 “La Geste d’Helstrom” (p. 140)

“Nevertheless, I still wonder. Each of us, with money, gets further and further away from those moments where the hand pulls the beet root from the soil, shakes the fish from the net into the basket—not to mention the way it separates us from one another, so that when enough money comes between people, they lie apart like parts of a chicken hacked up for stewing.”

Samuel R. Delany book Tales of Nevèrÿon

Source: Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979), Chapter 4, “The Tale of Potters and Dragons” Section 1 (p. 161)

“To speak the unspeakable without the proper rhetorical flourish or introduction; to muff that flourish, either by accident, misjudgment, or simple ignorance; to choose the wrong flourish or not choose any (i. e., to choose the flourish called "the literal") is to perform the unspeakable.”

Samuel R. Delany

On the Unspeakable, Avant-Pop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-Pop:_Fiction_for_a_Daydream_Nation, p. 150

“Perhaps it's good you're not going to write anymore: you'd have to start considering all those dull things like your relation to your audience, the relation between your personality and your poetry, the relation between your poetry and all the poetry before it.”

Samuel R. Delany book Dhalgren

Ernest Newboy in Part IV, "In Time of Plague" (p. 357)
Dhalgren (1975)

“"The parts I like, well…" He shook his head, with pursed lips. "They just don't have anything to do with me: somebody else wrote them, it seems, about things I may have thought about once. The parts I don't like--well, I can remember writing those, oh yeah, word by word by word."”

Samuel R. Delany book Dhalgren

Part IV, "In Time of Plague" (p. 357)
Dhalgren (1975)

“You should always tell the truth, she thought, not because one lie leads to another, but rather because one lie could so easily lead you to that terrifying position from which, with just the help of a random dream, you can see, both back and ahead, the morass where truth and falsity are simply, for you, indistinguishable.”

Samuel R. Delany book Triton

Source: Triton (1976), Chapter 7 “Tiresias Descending, or Trouble on Triton” (p. 329)

“What real power can buy, of course, is anonymity.”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 12, “Of Models, Monsters, Night, and the Numinous” (p. 376)

““The beginning of the end, the beginning of the end,” muttered Lo Hawk. “We must preserve something.”
“The end of the beginning,” sighed La Dire. “Everything must change.””

Samuel R. Delany book The Einstein Intersection

Section 1
The Einstein Intersection (1967)

“Bear in mind that the novel—no matter how intimate, psychological, or subjective—is always a historical projection of its own time.”

Samuel R. Delany book Nova

Source: Nova (1968), Chapter 4 (p. 116)

“You seem to be using some sort of logical system where when you get near any explanation, you say: “By definition my problem is insoluble. Now that explanation over there would solve it. But since I’ve defined my problem as insoluble, then by definition that solution doesn’t apply.””

Samuel R. Delany book Triton

Source: Triton (1976), Chapter 3 “Avoiding Kangaroos” (p. 123)

“To be a bandit is better than to be a slave!”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 4, “Of Fate, Fortune, Mayhem, and Mystery” (p. 86)

“What I’ve observed—the pattern behind what I’ve observed—explains why what happens happens the way it does. It makes the whole process easier to see. Your idea is a possible explanation not of the observations but of a set of speculations, which, if you accepted them along with the explanation, would then only make you start seeing things and half-things where no things are.”

Samuel R. Delany book Tales of Nevèrÿon

Section 1 (p. 86)
Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)

“Pryn felt the reckless freedom of assertion.”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 11, “Of Family Gatherings, Grammatology, More Models, and More Mysteries” (p. 330)

“The rich are always enamored of the ancient.”

Samuel R. Delany book Nova

Source: Nova (1968), Chapter 6 (p. 169)