Sheri S. Tepper: Trending quotes

“What’s coming is reality. Politics has nothing to do with reality!”

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 17 (p. 388)

“Honor is only a label they use for what they want you to do, Chernon. They want you to stay, so they call staying honorable.”

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 14 (p. 269)

“All men believed they had their own magics in bed.”

Source: The Gate to Women's Country (1988), Chapter 14 (p. 149)

“We obey orders, and we don’t ask if the officer is crazy or not!”

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 7 (p. 120)

“Fear needn’t be grounded in fact to cause problems.”

Source: The Gate to Women's Country (1988), Chapter 8 (p. 75)

“Another window to the outside opened on the first day of school, when an eager young teacher told the class they could find out anything in the world if they paid attention and learned to read. To Jake it came as a revelation, the missing piece of the puzzle of his life! Here was the secret of existence he had known must be somewhere! All the mysteries of his existence would come clear, all the things he wondered about, if he would only learn to read. He did learn, quickly, passionately, with the ardor many boys reserve for sports.”

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 9 (p. 153)

“Creation has the truth written all over it — the age of the universe, the history of the world — but nine-tenths of mankind either don't know it or think it's a sham, because it isn't what their book or their prophet says, and it isn't cozy or manipulable enough.”

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 2 (pp. 44-45)

“The one sure part of every plan is that it will be set awry.”

The small god in Ch. 44 : the visitor
The Visitor (2002)

“Those of us from Chasm started calling it the Visitor because that's a relatively comfortable label. It implies the stay is temporary, that the thing will go away. We think the Visitor must be part of a race of beings who live in space, though we're guessing at that. We also postulate that they hitch rides on bits of space trash that are moving somewhere, like the huge one that came at us. Anyhow, the Visitor is getting closer by the day.”

Source: The Gate to Women's Country (1988), Chapter 15 (p. 165)

“To Sylvan truth was truth and all else was black heresy, though on occasion he had the very human difficulty of deciding which was which.”

Wolf in Ch. 37 : leaving bastion (p. 353)
The Visitor (2002)

“History upon Terra tells us what horrors follow upon religious mandates of unlimited reproduction.”

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 2 (p. 7)

““Show yourselves,” cried Stephon. “Only cowards hide in the dark.”
“Cowards do many things,” said the voice. “Cowards kill their Commanders and make it look like a bandit attack. Cowards plot in secret. Cowards breed insurrection. Cowards plan the abuse of women.””

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 12 (p. 250)

“They see things; they overhear things; they tell us. We put two and two together to make forty-four, when we must.”

Source: The Gate to Women's Country (1988), Chapter 34 (p. 302)

“Look at Mother Teresa. She spent her whole life being holy. She didn't benefit anyone in any real sense. She didn't work on stopping disease, helping poverty, doing anything that would relieve the condition of her countrymen. She just went around the city, picked up dying people, and took care of them while they died. It was a good thing, no doubt, but it meant no betterment, no progress, no help, no relief from pain. She longed to be holy. She wanted to be a saint. Now she's a saint.
Salk isn't a saint. But he did more for the human race than Mother Teresa did. He didn't long to be holy, which meant having faith, not asking questions, doing something unpleasant without thought or complaint. He longed to do good, which meant finding things out, asking hard questions, and thinking hard, deep thoughts. Goodness and holiness are two different things, unfortunately.”

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 7 (p. 115)

““Not hunting today, sir?” asked Tony in his most innocent voice, busy putting two and two together but not sure how he felt about the resultant sum.”

Strange Horizons interview (2008)

“They looked like men. That was the trouble with devils, Carolyn thought. Too often they looked like men.”

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 11 (p. 235)

“We are to be needed, but I'm not sure for what.”

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 20 (p. 449)

“Infanticide and infant neglect exist in inverse ratio to the accessibility of abortion services.”

Guardian Camwar in Ch. 4 : the cooper (p. 42)
The Visitor (2002)

“All kids think some other family is perfect.”

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 10 (p. 173)