Quotes from Gene Wolfe

so we have each of us in the dustiest cellars of our minds a counter at which we strive to repay the debts of the past with the debased currency of the present.

The past cannot be found in the future where it is not

But the Lorns stood in the worst possible relationship: they were known by name only. They were reputed to be "nice.

when I was alone I felt I had in some fashion lost my individuality; to the thrush and the rabbit I had been not Severian, but Man. The many people who like to be utterly alone, and particularly to be utterly alone in a wilderness, do so, I believe, because they enjoy playing that part. But I wanted to be a particular person again, and so I sought the mirror of other persons, which would show me that I was not as they were.

As children we have no appreciation of scenery because, having not yet stored similar scenes in our imagination, with their attendant emotions and circumstances, we perceive it without psychic depth.

The executions I have seen performed and have performed myself so often are no more than a trade, a butchery of human beings who are for the most part less innocent and less valuable than cattle.

monomachy? Impossible. I'm not of the contending class

She possessed the hopeful, hopeless courage of the poor, which is perhaps the most appealing of all human qualities

Until we reach the end of time, we don't know whether something's been good or bad; we can only judge the intentions of those who acted.

As I drew breath, I heard bone snap—a horrible sound, but a joyful one because the bone was not mine.

No doubt many a man who walks about and does his work is dying and ignorant of it, and many who lie abed all day are healthier than those who bring their food and wash them.

I, however, never suffered more than a sore throat and a running nose, forms of sickness that serve only to deceive healthy people into the belief that they know in what disease consists. Master Malrubius suffered real illness, which is to see death in shadows.

Once or twice I saw evidence that rats had been nesting among the books, rearranging them to make snug two and three-level homes for themselves and smearing dung on the covers to form the rude characters of their speech.

I do not know how better to express my feelings about it than by saying that I hated it for starving and humiliating me and loved it because it was my home, hated and loved it because it was the exemplar of old things, because it was weak, and because it seemed indestructible.

If educated men have sometimes thought me, if not their equal, at least one whose company did not shame them, that is owing solely to Thecla: the Thecla I remember, the Thecla who lives in me, and the four books.

You see, you have found some comfort here. You are worried about your poor dog because he is lame. But he, too, may have found hospitality. You love him, so another may love him. You love him, so you may love another.

I had learned in the intervening time the folly of limiting desire to the possible.

They were functioning, Nicholas. They bought and sold; they worked, and paid their taxes—

Every man fights backward—to kill others. Yet his victory comes not in the killing of others but in the killing of certain parts of himself. To show that I understood him, I said, You must have killed all the worst parts of your own being.

I have traveled far, and I have observed that poor people usually have more wit and more virtue than rich ones. He smiled at that. You are kind. But our people have so much wit and virtue now that they may die.

No," said Ultan. "I mean that the library itself extends beyond the walls of the Citadel. Nor, I think, is it the only institution here that does so. It is thus that the contents of our fortress are so much larger than their container.

For no man lives long when his dreams are dead.

You asked me for a light for your candle, and I tried to give you the sun, and now you are burned.

Of the trail of ink there is no end,'" Master Ultan told me. "Or so a wise man said. He lived long ago—what would he say if he could see us now? Another said, 'A man will give his life to the turning over of a collection of books,' but I would like to meet the man who could turn over this one, on any topic.