“Pain is an interesting and off-putting thing. Few if any things in life concentrate our attention so completely and terribly, and few things are more boring to listen to or read about.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“It has been my experience that immediately after certain traumatic separations—leaving one’s family to go to war, for instance, or upon the death of a family member, or after parting from one’s beloved with no assurances of reunion—there is a strange calmness, almost a sense of relief, as if the worst has happened and nothing else need be dreaded.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“The problem with being passionately in love ... is that it deprives you of too much sleep.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“The universe deepened at that moment, the music of the spheres grew from a mere chorus to a symphony as triumphant as Beethoven’s Ninth, and I knew that I would always be able to hear it when I wished or needed to, always be able to Use it to take the step I needed to see the one I loved, or, failing that, step to the place where I had been with the one I loved, or, failing that, find a place to love for its own beauty and richness.
The energy of quasars and exploding stellar nuclei filled me then. I was borne up on waves of energy more lovely and more lyrical even than the Ouster angels’ wings seen sliding along corridors of sunlight. The shell of deadly energy that was my prison and execution cell seemed laughable now, Schrödinger’s original joke, a child’s jump rope laid around me on the ground as restraining walls.
I stepped out of the Schrödinger cat box and out of Armaghast System.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“I explained my opinion of the ship’s logic. “That is a strange designation,” said the ship. “While I have certain organic elements incorporated into my substructure and decentralized DNA computing components, I am not—in the strictest sense of the term—a biological organism. I have no digestive system. No need for elimination, other than the occasional waste gas and passenger effluvium. Therefore, I have no anus in either real or figurative terms. Therefore, I hardly believe I could qualify to be called an …” “Shut up,” I said.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“evolution is not progress, that there is no ‘goal’ or direction to evolution. Evolution is change. Evolution ‘succeeds’ if that change best adapts some leaf or branch of its tree of life to conditions of the universe.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“Thus evolved some members of the Core—not altruists, but desperate survivalists who realized that the only way ultimately to win their never-ending zero-sum game was to stop the game. And to stop the game they needed to evolve into a species capable of empathy.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“[The Void Which Binds] actual but unaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“I could not do this, I realized, if I were immortal. This degree of love of life and of one another is granted, I saw for once and for ever, not to immortals, but to those who live briefly and always under the shadow of death and loss.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“That’s what writers and artists and creators do, boy. Listen to the Void and try to hear dead folks’ thoughts. Feel their pain. The pain of living folks too. Finding a muse is just an artist or holy man’s way of getting a foot in the Void Which Binds’ front door. Aenea knew that. You should have too.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“At that moment I would have welcomed spider-rats nibbling on my toes about as much as the idea of chatting with a missionary priest.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“Children bring chaos and clutter and an infinite potential for the future”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“We’ve been stuck in one species since our Cro-Magnon ancestors helped to wipe out the smarter Neanderthals,” she said. “Now it’s our chance to diversify rapidly, and institutions like the Hegemony, the Pax, and the Core are stopping it.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“Aenea heard the music of the spheres. She resonated with the Void Which Binds, which resonates in turn to sentient life and thought, and then she used the almost illimitable energy of the Void to … to take the first step.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“To see and feel one’s beloved naked for the first time is one of life’s pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“Nothing had ever been so welcome by its absence.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“The Hegemony had known how to treat cancer, but most of the gene-tailoring knowledge and technology had been lost after the Fall.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“In an interstellar society where the Church ruled all but absolutely, news awaited not only independent confirmation but official permission to exist.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“beyond ideology and ambition, beyond thought and emotion, there was only pain. And salvation from it.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“No lifetime is long enough for those who wish to create,”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“But this is human life: the war, the deeds, The disappointment, the anxiety, Imagination’s struggles, far and nigh, All human; bearing in themselves this good, That they are still the air, the subtle food, To make us feel existence, and to show How quiet death is. Where soil is men grow, Whether to weeds or flowers; but for me, There is no depth to strike in”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“Aenea nodded. “It’s wonderful to preserve tradition, but a healthy organism evolves … culturally and physically.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“This is all too important.” Aenea smiled. “It’s all too important. That’s the damned problem, isn’t it?” She turned her face back to the stars.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“Le disgustaba morir, y no quería morir más de lo necesario.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“and my editor, Tom Dupree, for his patience, enthusiasm, and shared good taste for loving Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
Dan Simmons
Born place: in Peoria, Illinois, The United States
Born date April 4, 1948
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“Nephites,” he added, “love to talk and find it particularly annoying to be quieted.”
― Chris Heimerdinger, quote from Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites
“Disappear, she says. I love that word.”
― Will Christopher Baer, quote from Kiss Me, Judas
“Condoms instantly shot to the number-one position on my mental list of must-find survival supplies, far ahead of food, water, and a way across the Mississippi River.”
― Mike Mullin, quote from Ashfall
“Last guy I was interested in turned out to be an incestuous necrophiliac," she said. "So no, not currently dating, and definitely not doing any more shopping in the 'sociopath' category”
― Mira Grant, quote from Blackout
“How do you know they're magic and not some mechanical device of the dwarves?" Tanis asked, sensing that Tas was hiding something.
Tas gulped. He had been hoping Tanis wouldn't ask him that question.
"Uh," Tas stammered, "I---I guess I did sort of happened to, uh, mention them to Raistilin one night when you were all busy doing something else. He told me they might be magic. To find out, he said one of those weird spells of his and they--uh--began to glow. That meant they were enchanted. He asked me what they did and I demonstated and he said they were 'glasses of true seeing.' The dwarven magic-users of old made them to read books written in other languages and--" Tas stopped.
"And?" Tanis pursued.
"And--uh--magic spellbooks." Tas's voice was a whisper.
"And what else did Raistlin say?"
"That if I touched his spellbooks or even looked at them sideways, he'd turn me into a cricket and s-swallow m-me whole," Tasselhoff stammered. He looked up at Tanis with his wide eyed. "I belived him, too."
Tanis shook his head. Trust Raistlin to come up with a threat awful enough to quensh the curiosity of a kender.”
― Margaret Weis, quote from Dragons of Winter Night
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What We Saw
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