Quotes from Dan Simmons

I'm hungry, Raul," she said from the head of the stairs. "Want to go down and see what this old ship's galley can whomp up for lunch?

We will revel in hardships and welcome strangeness.

Seduction, he knew, was both science and art—a blend of skill, discipline, proximity, and opportunity. Mostly proximity.

In an interstellar society where the Church ruled all but absolutely, news awaited not only independent confirmation but official permission to exist.

Tempus edax rerum.

Besides, history viewed from the inside is always a dark, digestive mess, far different from the easily recognizable cow viewed from afar by historians.

I wish we had the technology to fight God on an equal basis," he said in low, tight tones. "To beard him in his den. To fight back for all of the injustices heaped on humanity. To allow him to alter his smug arrogance or be blown to hell.

Are we so sure that Christ always knew what to do next? He knew what had to be done. It is not always the same as knowing what to do.

You're upsetting a delicate balance of corruption that has existed here for centuries.

The critic had added a personal note: Most of us, I hope, have had some child or spouse or friend like Beatrice, someone who by his very nature, his seemingly innate goodness and intelligence, makes us uncomfortably conscious of our lies when we lie.

The cybrid allows me to carry out my role in the datumplane community." "As poet?" Johnny smiled again. "More as poem," he said. "A poem?" "An ongoing work of art Ã¢â'¬Â¦ but not in the human sense. A puzzle perhaps. A variable enigma which occasionally offers unusual insights into more serious lines of analysis.

For a few minutes I stood alone in her chambers, appreciating the light and silence and art. There was a van Gogh on one of the walls, worth more than most planets could pay. It was a painting of the artist's room at Arles. Madness is not a new invention.

Colonel Fedmahn Kassad knew only that all the great passions of a passionate life had led him to this place and to this moment, and if death awaited him here, then so be it. And if love and glory and a victory that would make Valhalla quake awaited, then so be it.

Crawford reacted in the fashion of small towns immemorial – some tongues wagged constantly, some people could not keep the pity and pleasure at someone else's misfortune out of their voices and gazes – but mostly the community folded its protective wings around the Weintraub family like an awkward mother bird shielding its young

I was always waiting for you, she sent.

Was I a swordsman then? sends Johnny. Or a poet? [Yes There is never one without the other]

there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level Ã¢â'¬Â¦ that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference.

Did you see any of us there?" Kassad said nothing for more than a minute. The soft sounds of the river and the ship's rigging suddenly seemed very loud. Finally Kassad took a breath. "Yes." Silence stretched again. Brawne Lamia broke it. "Will you tell us who?" "No.

Without conscious thought I stepped behind the altar, raised my arms, and began the celebration of the Eucharist. There was no sense of parody or melodrama in this act, no symbolism or hidden intention; it was merely the automatic reaction of a priest who had said Mass almost daily for more than forty-six years of his life and who now faced the prospect of never again participating in the reassuring ritual of that celebration. It

The continuation of her life was more than another day of breathing, but was the gift of another day of engagement with her beloved across the spectrum of all things.

In the beginning was the Word. Then came the fucking word processor. Then came the thought processor. Then came the death of literature. And so it goes. Francis

The universe is indifferent to our fates.

To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes.

You said seventy million were planned," I said. "Yeah, well, we changed our minds after Transline's resident AI read it." I slumped lower in the flowfoam. "Even the AI hated it?" "The AI loved it," said Tyrena. "That's when we knew for sure that people were going to hate it.