Sheri S. Tepper: Trending quotes (page 4)

“I’m trying to decide whether we can afford to be merciful. The Arbai were merciful, but when confronted with evil, mercy becomes an evil.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 358)

Evil

“Don’t waste your time on penitence or guilt. Solving the problem is better!”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 15 (p. 338)

Problem , Time

“Keepe pursed his lips, nodded. “We’re already in a very strong position in this country, of course. We’ve taken over all of the antigovernment militias, most of the religious groups who think of themselves as conservative, plus what’s left of the KKK and the American Nazi party, but they’re only pocket change. We now own the Republican party. Any moderates still hiding in there have been flushed out. We’ve been managing the press for over twenty years now, and the public is accustomed to our view of the world.”
Jagger paid attention. “I didn’t realize…”
“Oh, yes. People don’t want to absorb new information. They like predictability. So as long as we don’t surprise the public with the truth, we’re free to move as we like. Very shortly we won’t even have to be covert about it. And then, of course, people are sick of issues. Civil rights, human rights, women’s rights—people are tired of all that. You understand?””

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 2 (p. 52; spoken by one of the leaders of a secretive neo-fascist organization)

Women , People , Truth , World

“Here we are after a couple million years of natural selection has produced a race that overpopulates and makes war and dominates and rapes, and you want to know about wisdom! Natural selection doesn’t select for wisdom!”

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 11 (p. 194)

Wisdom , War , Nature

“On that far horizon the Sandia Mountains stand behind their outliers in receding gradations of gray or blue or violet, paper cutouts against the lighter sky, vanishing into night when the lights of the city come on. Then the stars look down and the air is sweet with piñon smoke as centuries-old nut-bearing trees are burned for the momentary pleasure of those who, unlike the native peoples, never think of the food the trees produce.”

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 2 (p. 41)

People , Pleasure , Food , Mountain

“Picture this:
A mountain splintering the sky like a broken bone, its western precipice plummeting onto jumbled scree.”

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: The Visitor (2002), Ch. 1 : caigo faience, first lines (p. 1)

Mountain

“The sooner we can separate salvageable skeptics from self-righteous absolutists, the sooner we can move along.”

Sheri S. Tepper

The Visitor in Ch. 44 : the visitor (p. 464)
The Visitor (2002)

“Eugenie thought of this often. Men had told her many sweet things about herself, but never before that she was important. It was the nicest compliment she had ever received.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

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

Men

“Myra subsided into outraged and sulky silence. Her romantic dream of motherhood had been riven into sharp-edged fragments by late-night feedings, constant diaper washing, and a baby who persisted in looking and acting like a baby, not like a young hero.”

Sheri S. Tepper book The Gate to Women's Country

Source: The Gate to Women's Country (1988), Chapter 10 (p. 88)

Dreams , Silence , Baby , Night

“One of the difficulties of being the good guys is that even open societies have to have secret police, and secret police turn toward repression as a compass points north.”

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 5 (p. 96)

Secret , Guy

“Too good is good for nothing.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 355)

““Words? Not really. Mankind is a good word.” She set down her glass with a thump. “Or humankind. I’m afraid we’ve spent a lot of feminist energy on meaningless symbols rather than essential functions.””

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 10 (p. 170)

“Marjorie thought: It always comes down to something like this, doesn’t it. No matter what our consciences say, no matter how much doctrine we’ve been taught, no matter how many ethical considerations we’ve chewed and swallowed and tried to digest, it always comes down to us arming ourselves with weapons as deadly as we can manage and going out into combat…”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 17 (p. 377)

“They haven’t learned that being penitent sometimes does no good at all.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 374)

Learning

“They’ve got a kind of committee there,” he had said, “an office. Acceptable Doctrine, it’s called. Everyone on the committee is mostly concerned about what people believe. They’re running things, too; don’t let them tell you they aren’t. Truth doesn’t enter in. If they’ve decided something is doctrine, they’ll ignore all evidence to the contrary and lie to your face. You don’t want to run afoul of those types, do you? Not if you have questions to ask. No.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 10 (p. 191)

People , Truth , Lie , Question

“Useless as a third leg on a goose.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 345)

“She needed more sleep and less aggravation.”

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 6 (p. 114)

Sleep

“We believe that nothing worthy of our worship would want our worship.”

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 18 (p. 401)

“The boys attend the Institute. I saw where they keep the girls. They are not taught anything. They are merely fed, bathed, given exercise, raised so until puberty, at which time they are culled. The enemy does not want either rebellion or thought bred into his followers, so any who show signs of independence or unusual intelligence are culled.”

Sheri S. Tepper

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 19 (p. 421)

Exercises , Girl , Intelligence , Boy

““I don’t have much confidence,” she said. “A lot of what I’ve been taught isn’t making sense.”
“That’s the nature of teaching. Something happens, and intelligence first apprehends it, then makes up a rule about it, then tries to pass the rule along. Very small beings invariably operate in that way. However, by the time the information is passed on, new things are happening that the old rule doesn’t fit. Eventually intelligence learns to stop making rules and understand the flow.””

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 354)

Way , Confidence , Intelligence , Understanding