Quotes from John Varley

People seldom realize just how gigantic the old steam locomotives were until they stand next to one, and

If you can't have me as my own woman, able to make my own decisions and take care of myself, you can't have me at all.

Being the bone of contention between her two lovers was not to her taste.

Where's the romance in life? Tell somebody your epitaph and what do you get? Jokes.

I've already been eaten alive once on this trip. I'm not going to let that happen again.

Admit it, Rocky. You're a tourist at heart.

I thought a while ago, here we are in this incredible place. We know there are a dozen intelligent races in here. What do we do? Sit around and fish? Well, not me. I feel like nosing around. It's what they were paying us for, and it's what I like. Maybe I want some adventure.

Captain Jones, I submit to you that you were never really cut out to be Captain. Oh, you're done it well, just like you do a good job of most things you tackle. But you're not a Captain. You don't enjoy ordering other people around. You like your independence, you like to go to strange places and do exciting things. In an earlier age you would have been an adventurer, a soldier of fortune.

Titanides were masters of song. Their whole language was song; music was as important to them as food.

Listen, you don't knock my reading habits and I won't knock your old black and white flat films.

Her reasons were as valid now as they had been then, but it didn't stop her from blaming herself

The thirst to do something outrageous and heroic had never left her.

She had aged five years since Cirocco last saw her. She was a thin, hollow-eyed ghost with hands that shook constantly. She looked incomplete, as if half of her had been hacked away.

I've been trying to kill that name most of my adult life, but I always weaken when somebody whispers it in my ear.

Our speech is not as yours, nor our pipes so deep.

Bill, in free-fall, it doesn't matter who's on top.

She was a nightmare quilt from hooves to eyebrows, and she was running for her life.

I thought Earth was a fable for the young, spun out around campfires. And I thought Earth beings to be Titanides.

I am the Earth Mother, though I am not your Earth. All life springs from me. I am one of the pantheon that reaches to the stars. Call me a Titan.

I listen only to heroes. You spoke of great deeds when you sang your song. Speak of them now, to leave me forever. Sing to me of your adventures.

I'm offering good friends and evil enemies, eternal day and endless night, rousing song and strong wine, hardships, victories, despair, and glory.

She could see wizarding was not going to be easy.

The Titanides didn't seem to understand the glory of battle; it was something they did because they couldn't help it. Cirocco admired them for the first pitied them for the second.

This had happened before. She had remembered, only to see it all slip away. She had been insane, many times.