Samuel R. Delany: Trending quotes (page 6)

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“the Spike said. “I think we have just gotten down to a gritty—or at least a nitty.””

Samuel R. Delany book Triton

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

Thinking

“Play makes a human being! Work just means you don’t have to feel guilty about playing, which I don’t feel much anyway. Mainly work means I don’t have to suffer the taunts of my friends who wonder why I’m playing as hard as I do!”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 9, “Of Night, Noon, Time, and Transition” (p. 238)

Feeling , Suffering

“It’s a good idea, when people are curious, to give them something to sustain that curiosity—and direct it.”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 3, “Of Markets, Maps, Cellars, and Cisterns” (p. 65)

People , Idea

“Dull grown-ups and bright children form a particularly tolerant friendship.”

Samuel R. Delany book Nova

Source: Nova (1968), Chapter 3 (p. 44)

Friendship , Children

“She recalled her absurd attempt to construct an example—an image that, because it was constructed of things it simply did not fit, reversed the idea into an idea silly by itself, ridiculous in application—a ridiculousness that could easily, she saw, have strayed into the pernicious, the odious, or the destructive, depending on how widely one had insisted on applying it.”

Samuel R. Delany book Tales of Nevèrÿon

Section 2 (p. 104)
Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)

Idea , Dependency

“There are three types of actions: purposeful, habitual, and gratuitous. Characters, to be immediate and apprehensible, must be presented by all three.”

Samuel R. Delany book Nova

Source: Nova (1968), Chapter 6 (p. 166)

“If you're going to do something stupid—and we all do—it might as well be a brave and foolish thing.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Einstein Intersection

Section 3
The Einstein Intersection (1967)

Stupidity

“to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind.”

Samuel R. Delany book Dhalgren

Part I, "Prism, Mirror, Lens" (p. 1)
Dhalgren (1975)

World , Autumn

“Earth, the world, the fifth planet from the sun—the species that stands on two legs and roams this thin wet crust: it’s changing, Lobey. It’s not the same. Some people walk under the sun and accept that change, others close their eyes, clap their hands to their ears, and deny the world with their tongues.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Einstein Intersection

Section 11 (in the far future of the novel, the sun has captured two more planets)
The Einstein Intersection (1967)

People , World , Change , Sun

“And of course that is the problem with all truly powerful ideas. And what we have been talking of is certainly that. What it produces is illuminated by it. But applied where it does not pertain, it produces distortions as terrifying as the idea was powerful.”

Samuel R. Delany book Tales of Nevèrÿon

Section 1 (p. 87)
Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)

Idea , Problem

“In a sense, modern philosophy is a series of introductions to introductions to introductions, the movement between them controlled by the pro-tective/pro-textive play of forces about desire.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Appendix B, “Closures and Openings” Section 8 (p. 368; see note on Discussion page)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Sense

“But as soon as any of us dies, there is only the monster left. What I had been pursuing was not Belham but the monster called Belham. And what my whole journey had taught me was precisely what sort of monster it was: it was made, as all such monsters are, of contradiction, supposition, miscalculation, impossibility, and ignorance.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 9.82 (p. 302)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

“I believe art is a wholly formal enterprise, encompassing almost all the tenets that the nineteenth century spoke of as l’art pour l’art, tenets which have made twentieth century’s experimentation possible.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

What postmodern doesn’t?
Section 9.811 (p. 273)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Art

“I confess, the Amnewor is new to me. Yes, I’ve heard the name—as a minor fact in some other god’s story. Precisely what it did, though, I can’t remember. That, of course, makes it more intriguing. Death. It was associated with endless, mindless, pointless death. But which of them isn’t?”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 9.81 (p. 273)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

God , Death , Making love

“You understand, Pryn, I don’t believe in any of it: magic, miracles, religion, the calling of the gods, named or unnamed.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 9.21 (p. 248)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

God , Religion , Understanding

“If all human production (aesthetic or otherwise) has its documentary aspect (i. e., it can be associated, by a knowledgeable reader, with a time and place), does this endanger its aesthetic aspects per se? It is the richness of the pattern that is aesthetically at stake. How many art histories does it take to make us understand that reference (a use context) and historicity are not the same?”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 8.55 (p. 241)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Time , Understanding , History , Art

“Content, of course, must have some form. And form, of course, creates its content/commentary. This is why their chimeras have chased each other through moment after moment of history, the intense perception of one or the other producing the overwhelming effect: Art.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 8.21 (p. 232)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

History , Art

“It is the rare society that does not abuse its artists.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 7.2 (p. 216)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

“But whatever you say of them, finally I had to dismiss such notions as the ratiocinations desire can entangle about the most sensible of us.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Source: Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985), Section 4 (p. 164)

“What makes a boy interesting does not make a man interesting.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 1 (p. 136)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Making love , Boy