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Samuel R. Delany citations
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Samuel Ray Delany Junior, né le 1er avril 1942 à New York aux États-Unis, est un critique et un romancier de science-fiction d'origine afro-américaine. Wikipedia  

✵ 1. avril 1942
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Samuel R. Delany: 131   citations 0   J'aime

Samuel R. Delany: Citations en anglais

“"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."”

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Triton

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.””

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.””

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Samuel R. Delany livre Triton

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Tales of Nevèrÿon

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

“Pryn felt the reckless freedom of assertion.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Nova

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre Triton

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

“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!”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Neveryóna

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre Neveryóna

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre Nova

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

“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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Tales of Nevèrÿon

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre The Einstein Intersection

Section 3
The Einstein Intersection (1967)

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre Dhalgren

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

“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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre The Einstein Intersection

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

“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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Tales of Nevèrÿon

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

“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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Flight from Nevèrÿon

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

“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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Flight from Nevèrÿon

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

“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?”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Flight from Nevèrÿon

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre Flight from Nevèrÿon

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

“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?”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Flight from Nevèrÿon

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

“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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Flight from Nevèrÿon

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre 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.”

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Samuel R. Delany livre Flight from Nevèrÿon

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

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

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Samuel R. Delany livre Flight from Nevèrÿon

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