Quotes from Dan Simmons

When you think about it, the cause-effect begins to resemble some mad logic-loop by the data artist Carolus or perhaps a print by Escher: the Shrike had come into existence because of the incantatory powers of my poem but the poem could not have existed without the threat/presence of the Shrike as muse. Perhaps I was a bit mad in those days. In

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. Within

The steward had been more circumspect after that. He had learned - as Odysseus had learned after a certain number of years of his wanderings - that his guile was no match for the world and that hubris would always be punished by the gods.

I can tolerate anything, in dog or man, save for the refusal or inability to learn.

indomitable

In the beginning was the Word. In the end Ã¢â'¬Â¦ past honor, past life, past caring Ã¢â'¬Â¦ In the end will be the Word.

incongruities

interlocutor

I did not know if androids could dream—

As a flame blown out by the wind Goes to rest and cannot be defined So the wise man freed from individuality Goes to rest and cannot be defined. Gone beyond all images— Gone beyond the power of words.

America, he thought, and not for the first time, is a nation with huge dreams and not infrequently the ability to realize them.

ignored the expensive dress and affected mandarin nails in favor of the personality which blazed like a beacon

ponderously

emptiness is a good sign; that it presages openness to a new level of awareness, new insights, new experiences.

Dust and powdered plaster hung in the air like incense, outlining two shafts of sunlight streaming down from narrow windows high above.

Nothing could be done about it—every human above the lowest Dregs' Hive poverty class had a comlog with biomonitor, many had implants, and each of these was tuned to the music of the datasphere, monitored by elements of the datasphere, dependent upon functions of the datasphere—so humans accepted their lack of privacy.

I'm a childish fellow," responded Silenus with his satyr's smile. "Ambassador"—he nodded toward the Consul—"could I borrow that gilded pillow you're wearing for a hat?" The

Anything is better than this penny-dreadful tale I've found myself in.

I hope that on the morning of my forty-ninth birthday, in Hemingway's last moments, he might have been thinking, if his sorrow and depression allowed him such a luxury as coherent thought, not only of his final, decisive, twelve-gauge gesture of ultimate defiance but also of any victories he had won in his long-running war against invisible enemies.

This was, without a doubt, the cruciform of which the Bikura spoke. And it had been set here a minimum of many thousands of years ago—perhaps tens of thousands—long before mankind first left Old Earth. Almost certainly before Christ taught in Galilee. I

Jesus,' I whispered. 'An ancient messiah figure,' said the comlog. 'Religions based on his purported teachings include Christianity, Zen-Christianity, ancient and modern Catholicism, and such Protestant sects as . . .' 'Shut up,' I said. 'Good child mode.' This command had the comlog speak only when spoken to.

All those before us have gone into the darkness without assurance of logic fact or persuasive theory, with only a slender thread of hope or the all too shakable convinction of faith. And if they have been able to sustain that slim hope in the face of darkness, then so must I.

The Church might have died before this revelation could have brought new life to it. But

But what if he makes it to civilization … back to England? Alone. He will always be the captain who let all his men die. The courtmartial will be inevitable, its outcome predetermined. Whatever the court's punishment might be, the shame will be a lifelong sentence.