Quotes from John Varley

To Titanides, they were angels of death. Human in shape, with feathered wings that measured seven meters from tip to tip, the angels turned the peaceful air over Hyperion into a slaughterhouse.

Her mother had fun ideas on how to raise a young lady, and they included handguns and karate as well as dancing and voice lessons.

Outwardly, she did not lack self-confidence. Only she knew how frightened and vulnerable she was beneath it all. It was her secret-one she kept so well that she fooled one of the NASA psychologists into giving her command of a ship.

They were no longer giving voice to their battle song, but the frenzy was still in their eyes. Steam puffed from their nostrils and the ones with bare skin glistened. They thundered by, then wheeled to face the angels.

With a lot more courage than common sense, she stood at the back of the wagon and faced the oncoming angels. Once again, all Cirocco could see was her back as she stood between her love and approaching danger.

We all love after-the-bomb stories. If we didn't, why would there be so many of them? There's something attractive about all those people being gone, about wandering in a depopulated world, scrounging cans of Campbell's pork and beans, defending one's family from marauders. But some secret part of us thinks it would be good to survive. All those other folks will die. That's what after-the-bomb stories are all about.

But I don't believe in heroes anymore. I just believe in people coping with their lives as best they can. You do what you have to do, and in some ways you have no more choice about it than a rock has about falling from a high place.

How heavy is that day in the mountains when you built a campfire and saw a shooting star? What is the mass of yesterday? How fast is love?

Cirocco liked space, reading, and sex, not necessarily in that order. She had never been able to satisfactorily combine all three, but two was not bad.

If it's not worth making beautiful," Valiha said, "it's not worth making.

Will have been! A truly stratospheric verb.

A toast! To the road! May it lead to adventure and carry us safely back home.

Looking around me, I saw that all my colleagues were busy at the same task. Eyes were rolled up, mouths hung open, here and there a finger twitched. It had to be either a day trip from the Catatonic Academy, or the modern press at work.

He couldn't think of a good place. At first he thought she hated all living beings equally. Lately he had come to believe he held a special place in her heart, just below rattlesnakes, pederasts, and spirochetes. Definitely a tough place to start from, but determination had always been Conal's strong point.

Ain't got no strawberries," the bartender said. "Then go out and kill some!

All in all, it was the goldarndest, Barnum-and-Baileyest, rib-stickinest, rough-and-tumblest infernal foofaraw of a media circus anybody had seen since grandpaw chased the possum down the road and lost his store teeth, and I was heartily sorry to have been a part of it.

If she must face the fact that she was fearful, she would also face the fear and overcome it.

She grew into a quiet, beautiful young woman. The beauty was a nuisance, like smog and poverty.

The English language was a delight to them, so illogical and fertile and well-suited to their natural desire to confuse, obfuscate, and generally side-step clear meaning whenever possible.

There is a certain concentrated, avid-for-blood look that appears on the faces of reporters on the trail of a very big story that you'd have to visit the big cat house at the zoo to see duplicated in its primal state. From the look on Brenda's face, if a tiger was standing between her and this story right now, the cat would soon have a tall-journalist-sized hole in him.

New York in the '80s is not a bad place. If you can't make there, you can't make it anywhere.

Yes, but what is it good for? What does it mean?" Her look was full of pity. "If you have to ask that question, you wouldn't understand the answer.

There were millions of Earth men and women who bought the Earth cultures big lies, and they died just as unhappy as you are now. And I suggest to you that it's a foolish thing.

Bill's tongue had started at Cirocco's toes and was now exploring her left ear. She liked that. It had been a memorable journey.