Quotes from Dan Simmons

It was as if they had climbed the last hill in creation.

We all retreat into ourselves in some way.

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.

feels the same about life - that involvement with it is like the Catholic Communion only the World is the Host, and it must be chewed.

If one is to steal, steal from the forgotten masters." The

It dealt with the Olympian struggle which followed the Titans' refusal to be displaced—the boiling of great seas as Oceanus struggled with Neptune, his usurper, the extinction of suns as Hyperion struggled with Apollo for control of the light, and the trembling of the universe itself as Saturn struggled with Jupiter for control of the throne of the gods.

He wasn't interested in asking questions, only in finding answers. What's the difference? asked Baedecker. He felt the conversation slipping out of his control, dropping away from him like an aircraft that had reached stall speed. The difference is that Scott took the line of least resistance, said Maggie. Like most people, he found it too uncomfortable to be out in the open, unsheltered by some shadow of authority. So when the questions got too hard, he settled for easy answers.

What in fuck do you fucking well think you're fucking doing?' The officer's broad helmet bobbed as he shouted. I thanked all of the gods that he was not a Sikh.

Mahnmut hield niet van Frans - het voelde als een te dikke olie tussen zijn tandwielen - Maar het zat wel in zijn database, dus kon hij het vertalen.

Dale stepped over to the large console radio and wrestled it away from the wall. The inside was empty. No wires, no tubes, no lights for the dial, no works at all. Dale looked at the interiors of the other radios he'd listened to over the past two months. All empty.

Occam's Razor: All other things being equal, the simplest solution is usually the correct one. —William of Occam, fourteenth century Darwin's Blade: All other things being equal, the simplest solution is usually stupidity. —Darwin Minor, twenty-first century

It occurs to me that the Grendel tale is premature. The players have not been brought upon the stage. Dislinear plotting and noncontiguous prose have their adherents, not the least of which am I, but in the end, my friends, it is character which wins or loses immortality upon the vellum.

Reading had always been another world for him. Not an escape, since he rarely sought escape ... writers had to confront the world if they were going to observe it accurately ... but another world nonetheless. One filled with powerful voices relaying even more powerful thoughts.

tourists smelling of UV lotion and cannabis.

You are quite acute for a mental stillborn

The road turns and starts climbing where he impacted," said Cameron. Dar winced slightly. He hated the verb-use of nouns such as impact.

The mistake is waiting and waiting for the payoff like it's a reward you've got coming

Being eaten by a kraken less than a hundred kilometers from Conamara Chaos Central would be embarrassing.

Natalie's father had a saying for that behavior—Stupidity has a price and it always gets paid.

If there is a god [...] he's a poet. And a failed one at that.

As G. K. Chesteron once wrote: "You can free things from alien or accidental laws of their own nature…. Do not go about…encouraging triangles to break out of the prison of their three sides. If a triangle breaks out of its three sides, its life comes to a lamentable end.

martyrs of the Antarctic.

You might already be able to tell that I was born with a silver spoon up my ass. I offer no apologies.

The advanced neocortex in the mind vampires we encounter is merely along for the ride. Mind vampires can speak words fluidly and feign altruism and social niceties, but all a mind vampire (as is true with any sociopath) really knows is fight or flight, ascendancy or submission, and hierarchy and control. And violence. Always violence. The violence of their will over yours. And they live to control you.