“Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount, but I sure as hell don’t understand everything.”

— Greg Bear , book Eon

Source: Eon (1985), p. 73

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 "Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount…" by Greg Bear?

Greg Bear 38

American writer best known for science fiction 1951

Related quotes

“Money is code for the whole of life – you can bind in everything that is contained within life for money, money is a certain amount of sex, a certain amount of shelter, a certain amount of sustenance.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: The origin of money is something to do with representational thinking. Representational thinking is the real leap, where somebody says ‘hey I can draw this shape on the cave wall and it is, in some way, the bison we saw at the meadow. These lines are the bison. That of course lead to language – this squiggle is, of course, a tree, or something. Is the tree. Money is code for the whole of life – you can bind in everything that is contained within life for money, money is a certain amount of sex, a certain amount of shelter, a certain amount of sustenance. … Money is the code for the entire world. Money is the world, the world in the sense I was talking about earlier, our abstract ideas about the world. Money is a perfect symbol for all that, and if you don’t believe in it, and you set a match to it, it’s just firewood – it doesn’t mean anything anymore.

“There is a certain amount of sham in . There is a certain amount of theatre.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: There is a certain amount of sham in. There is a certain amount of theatre. It’s as loosely knit as that. We’re sort of coming out of the closet a bit more over the next couple of years. We’re going to be bringing out – manifesto’s too pushy a word – if it’s a theatre of marvels, we’re bringing out a theatre programme in the next couple of years. We’re working on it at the moment – our unified field theory of spookiness where we try to explain everything from language, consciousness, grey aliens to Rosicrucianism or whatever. It is a grand, mad theory which I’m working my best on at the moment to make it rational. It is an anti-rationalistic theory but I’m trying to couch it in rational terms so that it is not as insular as a lot of magic stuff.

“I'm not sure you get wiser as you get older, Starling, but you do learn to dodge a certain amount of hell.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

“I feel that no amount of women's participation can be said to be enough.”

Sangeeta Niranjan Fijian businesswoman

Interview with the Fiji Times, 18 September 2005

“There must be a certain amount of decorum in the world, just as there must be a certain amount of light.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: There are men who live contented though they live without decorum. Others suffer as if in agony when they see around them people living without decorum. There must be a certain amount of decorum in the world, just as there must be a certain amount of light. When there are many men without decorum, there are always others who themselves possess the decorum of many men. These are the ones who rebel with terrible strength against those who rob nations of their liberty, which is to rob men of their decorum. Embodied in those men are thousands of men, a whole people, human dignity.

“I like a certain amount of tension in music…I like the kind of music that maybe makes you think about the status quo.”

Kim Gordon (1953) American musician, bassist of Sonic Youth

On her ideal music in “Kim Gordon unmasked: a natural instinct of going against the grain” https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/kim-gordon-unmasked-a-natural-instinct-of-going-against-the-grain-20190805-p52dxg.html in The Sydney Morning Herald (2019 Aug 9)

“Daddy, daddy, daddy,
All I want is you.
You can have me, baby —
but my lovin’ days is through.
A certain amount
of impotence
in a dream deferred.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"Same in Blues"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

“A good conversation always involves a certain amount of complaining. I like to bond over mutual hatreds and petty grievances.”

Lisa Kleypas book Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

Source: Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

“Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Remark in 1923 after rejoining the Conservatives, having left them earlier to join the Liberals; reported in Kay Halle, Irrepressible Churchill (1966), p. 52–53. Other sources say this remark was made in 1924.
Early career years (1898–1929)

“There’s a certain
amount of traveling
in a dream deferred.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"Same in Blues"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Variant: A certain amount
of nothing
in a dream deferred.

“Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount, but I sure as hell don’t understand everything.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Greg Bear 38

Related quotes

Related topics