Quotes from Dan Simmons

Meina Gladstone sat at the head of the long table and felt the peculiar and not-unpleasant sense of separateness which comes from far too little sleep over far too long a period.

At sunrise of the third day, I saw the corpse's chest begin to rise and fall and I heard the first intake of breath—a rasp like water being poured into a leather pouch.

Here's the deal. Willi's bought the rights to a paperback best-seller called The White Slaver. It's a piece of formulized shit written for illiterate fourteen-year-olds and the kind of lobotomized housewife that lines up to buy the new Harlequin romances each month. Jack-off material for intellectual quadriplegics. Naturally

Here's the deal. Willi's bought the rights to a paperback best-seller called The White Slaver. It's a piece of formulized shit written for illiterate fourteen-year-olds and the kind of lobotomized housewife that lines up to buy the new Harlequin romances each month. Jack-off material for intellectual quadriplegics. Naturally it sold about three million copies. We

It has to be your decision. The weapon is yours to use or disregard. It pains the Core to take any human life Ã¢â'¬Â¦ or, through inaction, allow any human life to come to harm. But in this case, where the lives of billions are at risk Ã¢â'¬Â¦

Barbarians, we call them, while all the while we timidly cling to our Web like Visigoths crouching in the ruins of Rome's faded glory and proclaim ourselves civilized.

According to Bishop Edouard, the College of Cardinals has elected someone below the rank of monsignor for the first time in the history of the Church. This says that the new Pope is a Jesuit priest Ã¢â'¬Â¦ a certain Father Paul Duré." Dur

Words are the supreme objects. They are minded things.

My days were but heartbeats to you. I hated you for that.

Reading your sonnets?" asked Orphu. Mahnmut closed the book. "How'd you know? Have you taken up telepathy now that you've lost your eyes?" "Not yet," rumbled the Ionian. Orphu's great crab shell was lashed to the deck ten meters from where Mahnmut sat near the bow. "Some of your silences are more literary than others, is all.

Her head was on my shoulder and her breathing was so deep and regular that I thought her to be asleep. I was almost asleep myself when her warm hand slid up my leg and lightly cupped me. I was startled even as I began to stir and stiffen. Siri whispered an answer to my unasked question. "No, Merin, one is never really too old. At least not too old to want the warmth and closeness. You decide, my love. I will be content either way." I

But this is human life: the war, the deeds, The disappointment, the anxiety, Imagination's struggles, far and nigh, All human; bearing in themselves this good, That they are still the air, the subtle food, To make us feel existence, and to show How quiet death is. Where soil is men grow, Whether to weeds or flowers; but for me, There is no depth to strike in

Ah," grinned Old Sludge, showing his one tooth, "going to the company store to get some algae chewies, huh?" "Goddamn poopoo," I would grin back at him.

Belief in one's identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief in one's immortality Ã¢â'¬Â¦ and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful.

Sol! Take your daughter, your only daughter Rachel, whom you love, and go to the world called Hyperion and offer her there as a burnt offering at one of the places of which I shall tell you.

To see and feel one's beloved naked for the first time is one of life's pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow.

Aenea nodded. "It's wonderful to preserve tradition, but a healthy organism evolves Ã¢â'¬Â¦ culturally and physically.

Martin Silenus strides back to the dying fire. "Worse," he says. "He could be twisting on the Shrike's steel tree. Where we'll be in a few—" Brawne Lamia rises suddenly and grasps the poet by his shirtfront. She lifts him off the ground, shakes him

Hell is also the memory of starving children in the slums of Armaghast and the smile of politicians sending boys off to die in colonial wars.

Marmon Hamlit on "AllNet Now!" issued the final deathblow: "Oh, the poetry thing from Whathisname—couldn't read it. Didn't try."    Tyrena

I have lov'd the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remember'd.

The first Dying Earth sold three billion copies," I said. "Pilgrim's Progress," she said. "Mein Kampf. Once in a century. Maybe less." "But it sold three billion Ã¢â'¬Â¦Ã¢â'¬Â "Look," said Tyrena. "In twentieth-century Old Earth, a fast food chain took dead cow meat, fried it in grease, added carcinogens, wrapped it in petroleum-based foam, and sold nine hundred billion units. Human beings. Go figure.

Sometimes there is a thin line separating orthodox zeal from apostasy," said Father Lenar Hoyt. So began the priest's story.

Life is brutal that way Ã¢â'¬Â¦ the loss of irrecoverable moments amid trivia and distraction.