“Why Baroque? Because it is set in the Baroque, and it IS baroque. Why Cycle? Because I am trying to avoid the T-word ("trilogy"). In my mind this work is something like 7 or 8 connected novels. These have been lumped together into three volumes because it is more convenient from a publishing standpoint, but they could just as well have been put all together in a single immense volume or separated into 7 or 8 separate volumes. So to slap the word "trilogy" on it would be to saddle it with a designation that is essentially bogus. Having said that, I know everyone's going to call it a trilogy anyway.”

—  Neal Stephenson

Baroque Cycle entry in now-defunct MetaWeb

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Why Baroque? Because it is set in the Baroque, and it IS baroque. Why Cycle? Because I am trying to avoid the T-word ("…" by Neal Stephenson?
Neal Stephenson photo
Neal Stephenson167
American science fiction writer 1959

Related quotes

“The next time you feel rejection's sting, remember God's words to Samuel: "It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me." (1 Sam. 8:7)”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

Ozzy Osbourne photo

“I've had this TV for 7 years, this is how it works. Power on - it comes on. Simple clicker, volume control - piece of piss. Works every time…. what the fuck's this? What am I doing? JACK!!”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

Robert Greene photo

“A man said to a Dervish: “Why do I not see you more often?” The Dervish replied, “Because the words ‘Why have you not been to see me?’ are sweeter to my ear than the words ‘Why have you come again?”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Theodore Dreiser photo

“Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.  Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.”

Theodore Dreiser book Sister Carrie

Variant: How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
Source: Sister Carrie

Umberto Eco photo

“I am mimetic. If I write a book set in the seventeenth century, I write in a Baroque style. If I’m writing a book set in a newspaper office, I write in Journalese.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

quoted in Marco Belpoliti, " Umberto Eco: How I Wrote my Books http://en.doppiozero.com/materiali/interviste/umberto-eco-how-I-wrote-my-books" (2015)

George Peacock photo

“I have separated arithmetical from symbolical algebra, and I have devoted the present volume entirely to the exposition of the principles of the former science and their application to the theory of numbers and of arithmetical processes: the second volume, which is now in the press, will embrace the principles of symbolical algebra: it will be followed, if other and higher duties should allow me the leisure to complete them, by other works, embracing all the more important departments of analysis, with the view of presenting their principles in such a form, as may make them component parts of one uniform and connected system.”

George Peacock (1791–1858) Scottish mathematician

Vol. I: Arithmetical Algebra Preface, p. iii
A Treatise on Algebra (1842)

Helen Keller photo

“Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Stephen Chbosky photo

“I feel like a big faker because I've been putting my life back together, and nobody knows.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Theodore Dreiser photo

“How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.”

Theodore Dreiser book Sister Carrie

Source: Sister Carrie

Related topics