Quotes from Connie Willis

It's that undefined something we're really afraid of-the flicker of movement we don't quite catch out of the corner of our eye, the bad dream we can't quite remember when we wake up, the sound of a door opening downstairs we thought we heard. And worst of all, the things we're not sure even happened, the things that we might just have imagined, that might mean we're going mad, all those nameless, nebulous things we can't quite put our finger on and can only guess at.

then in a conversational tone said, I slapped my Aunt Martha. When my fiancé died. She told me God needed him in heaven, and I hauled off and slapped her, a sixty year old woman....People say unbelievable things to you. They deserve slapping.

It was the Communists, it was the Mexicans, it was the government. And the only people who acknowledged their guilt weren't guilty at all.

Then why does every sentence beginning 'We need to talk' end in disaster? Our whole evolutionary history has been about trying to stop information from getting communicated—camouflage, protective coloration, that ink that squids squirt, encrypted passwords, corporate secrets, lying. Especially lying. If people really wanted to communicate, they'd tell the truth, but they don't.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." —Monty Python's Flying Circus

Tomorrow at the press conference would be dreadful. She would be surrounded by nice young men who spoke Big Business or Computer or Bachelor on the Make, and she would not understand a word they said. Short Story: Blued Moon

They were a susitute. They were what you did when you couldn't have what you wanted.

Good. Drink your tea, he ordered. It will make you feel better. Nothing will make me feel better, she thought, but she drank it down. It was hot and sweet. Mr. Humphreys must have put his entire month's sugar ration into it. She drained the cup, feeling ashamed of herself. She wasn't the only one who'd had a bad night.

History was full of divergence points nobody could get anywhere near—from Archduke Ferdinand's assassination to the battle of Trafalgar. Events so critical and so volatile that the introduction of a single variable—such as a time traveler—could change the outcome. And alter the entire course of history.

This is the Victorian era, she said. Women didn't have to make sense.

Since I spend my working days studying trends, many of which are downright disgusting, I feel it's my duty after work to encourage the trends I'd like to see catch on, like signaling before you change lanes, and chocolate cheesecake. And reading. Also

Wrong, and wrong agains,' he said. 'The likeness is already there. The metaphor only sees it. And it is not a mere figure of speech. It is the very essence of our minds as we seek to make sense of our surroundings, our experiences, ourselves, seeing similarities, parallels, connections. We cannot help it. Even as the mind fails, it goes on trying to make sense of what is happening to it.

Maybe the conference was an inversion layer of another kind, bringing me face-to-face with old friends and old places. With cancer and the Gap and the Old Man, railing about newfangled players and spicy food. Bringing me face-to-face early with death and old age and change.

Movie Cliche #12: The Moral. A character states the obvious and everybody gets the point.

Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy'?

To do something for someone or something you loved—England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history—wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.

Say you're in the middle of nowhere, nobody for miles and no hope of rescue. You sit down and start playing solitaire and somebody will immediately come along and tell you to play the red eight on the black nine.

You can't go yet, not without telling us what all's happened to you since we saw you last. I faked amnesia, nearly killed Alan Turing, got knocked unconscious by a collapsing wall, faked my own death, and met the Queen. It's a long story, he said.

I sat there watching him examine the fish and marvelling at what we'd caught. A genuine eccentric Oxford don. They're an extinct species, too...

She reached the group. Eileen had been crying. She wiped clumsily at her cheeks as Polly joined them, and then smiled at her. Are you ready? Eileen asked. No , Polly thought. Yes. Are you certain? Colin said. I know how hard this must be for you. We haven't a lot of time, but we've enough for you to say goodbye, if there's anyone else you need to-- I love you , Polly thought.

After all, Americans can be terrifying.

Moom' and 'tomb' actually rhyme, which is something Dickinson hardly ever did, preferring near-rhymes such as 'mat/gate', 'tune/sun,' and 'balm/hermaphrodite.

The perfect metaphor, he said, looming up suddenly out of nowhere in the middle of your maiden voyage, unseen until it is nearly upon you, unavoidable even when you try to swerve, unexpected even though there have been warnings all along. [...]

Those who have courage to love should have courage to suffer." —ANTHONY TROLLOPE, The Bertrams But