Quotes from Gene Wolfe

Death is nothing, and that's why you should fear it.

You see, you don't despise money. Nor do I. Wealth is stuffy and stupid and arrogant, and the only good thing about it is that it has money. Money's lovely stuff—just look at this." He held up the owl. "See how it shines? On one side the owl: the male principle. On the other, the Lady of Thought: the female principle." He spun the coin on the table. "Money always gives you something to think about.

Mediante el empleo del lenguaje del dolor, por el momento lo había eliminado.... tan poderoso es el encantamiento de las palabras, que reduce a entidades manejables todas las pasiones que de otro modo nos enloquecerían y nos destruirían (La sombra del Torturador - Gene Wolfe)

The sand in my boots was sacred sand because it came from a beach of sacred sand. The cenobites treasured up the relics of the sannyasins because the sannyasins had approached the Pancreator. But everything had approached and even touched the Pancreator, because everything had dropped from his hand. Everything was a relic. All the world was a relic. I drew off my boots, that had traveled with me so far, and threw them into the waves that I might not walk shod on holy ground.

You give names to your houses." "To cats and dogs also. If you call a dog, it will come to you sometimes. Cats will not come. So our houses are cats.

Every man fights backward to kill others. Yet his victory comes not in the killing others, but in the killing of certain parts of himself.

You may kiss me and eat one bite of my apple," she told him. "One bite, no more." He was frightened, and shook his head. "One bite will let you understand everything." Her voice was music. "Two bites would let you understand more than everything, and more than everything is too much." He backed away. The

She would think I was an idiot, and I knew it. Only if I had not whistled, for the rest of my life I would remember that moment and how I had wanted to whistle but had not had the guts.

if he is to feel full satisfaction at the moment when Time lifts his own severed head by the hair, he must add to the execution some feature however small that is entirely his own and that he will never repeat. Only thus can he feel himself a free artist.

We are as solid as most truly false things are--a dance of particles in space. Only the things no one can touch are true...

into my pocket. We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.

When my grandson-in-law heard about it, he was fairly struck flat for half a day. Then he pasted up a kind of hat out of paper and held it over my stove, and it went up, and then he thought it was nothing that the cathedral rose, no miracle at all. That shows what it is to be a fool—it never came to him that the reason things were made so was so the cathedral would rise just like it did. He can't see the Hand in nature.

the street still so hot that the dogs would not bark for fear of fainting

We have treatments for disturbed persons, Nicholas. But, at least for the time being, we have no treatment for disturbing persons.

My whole life experience feeds into my writing. I think that must be true for every writer. Clearly the Army and combat were major influences; just the same, you need to understand that many of the writers we have now couldn't load a revolver.

I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them.

All time exists. That is the truth.... If the future did not exist now, how could we journey toward it? If the past does not exist still, how could we leave it behind?

We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.

A youthful American voice isn't particularly challenging - I've been a young American, and they're all around me. I can walk from my house to Barrington High School.

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.

All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.

People don't want other people to be people.

Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real.

What a man knows hardly matters. It is what he does.