Quotes from Gene Wolfe

It has been my good fortune–or evil fortune, as it may be–that the places with which my life has been largely associated have been, with very few exceptions, of the most permanent character.

Strength and a stout heart are hazardous qualities where they cannot prevail.

All those who teach are hated.

I myself teach no one, knowing I would make my students stronger to destroy me. I advise you to follow the same course.

It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future.

My men will follow me in battle," I told him. "You'll see." "Of course they will. They know you're a fine fighter. But where there is no danger, your danger will be from them." I

Nothing moved except the white bird, which flew back and forth with a slow, sad motion that seemed so weary that every time two wings rose I felt that it was about to fall into the sea, and the Short Sun, which crept down to the empty horizon as remorselessly as every man creeps toward his grave.

Hyacinth, who wept before sleep, had wept that night; he had wept too—had wept in joy and pain, and in joy at his pain. When tears were done and their heads rested on one pillow, she had said that no man had ever wept with her before. Two floors below them, their reflected images knelt in the fishpond at Thelxiepeia's feet, subsistent but invisible. There she would weep for him longer than they lived. He lowered his naked body into a rising pool, warm and scarcely less romantic.

It is far easier to get all the good things that our lives have to offer than it is to deserve them. We seldom have much joy of them, however, unless we deserve them.

that everything, whatever happens, has three meanings.

There are men—I have known a good many—who work all their lives for the same Fortune 500 company. They have families to support, and no skills that will permit them to leave and support their families by other means in another place. Their work is of little value, because few, if any, assignments of value come to them. They spend an amazing amount of time trying to find something useful to do. And, failing that, just trying to look busy.

For so many years I feared that he would try to murder me, but in the end it was I who would have murdered him. He may burn my book if he chooses.) Third

They were all thoroughly bad people of the type to which I myself belong—that is to say, bad people who are pleased to think themselves good.

We have books whose papers are matted of plants from which spring curious alkaloids, so that the reader, in turning their pages, is taken unaware by bizarre fantasies and chimeric dreams.

It is not well to spend one's symbols improvidently.

I would take an oath that I smelled Agilus's blood on the rain-washed air before his head banged into the basket.

He who had given all books into my keeping made me blind so that I should know in whose keeping the keepers stand.

His quarry stands to the hunter as our clients to us; those who buy to the tradesman; the enemies of the Commonwealth to the soldier; the governed to the governors; men to women. All love that which they destroy.

For those who have never attended a science fiction convention, masquerades are features of most of the larger ones. Awards are presented for best costume, most beautiful costume, most humorous costume, most naked lady, and so on.

What went wrong? That is the question, and not To be or not to be, for all of Shakespeare.

The plain shiprock walls, and the painted statue of Lord Pas (from which the paint was peeling) will remain with me until the day I die, always somewhat colored by the wonder I felt as a small boy at seeing a black cock struggling in the old man's hands after he had cut its throat, its wings beating frantically, beating as if they might live after all, live somehow somewhere, if only they could spray the whole place with blood before they failed. My

There is no limit to stupidity. Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond infinity.

The aftermath is often more troublesome than the act itself. As soon as the head has been exhibited to the crowd, it can be dropped back into the basket. But the headless body (which remains capable of losing a good deal of blood for a long time after the action of the heart has ceased) must be taken away in a manner dignified yet dishonorable. Furthermore, it must be not just taken "away," but taken to some specific spot where it will be safe from molestation.

Though trodden beneath the shepherd's heel, the wild hyacinth blooms on the ground. He