“Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he had believed himself to be.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“I waded out of the sea while loving it still, even as I had earlier dropped from the stars while loving them; and in truth there is no place in Briah that is not lovely when it no longer holds the threat of death, save for the places men have made so.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“If you know anything of science, madame, you must know that water is but ice given energy.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“You can’t order the waves to be silent, madame,” Baldanders told her. “They are coming, and they are bitter with salt.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“The instruments you have are the right instruments for you, because you’ve been shaped by them. That’s another law.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“And then I saw it—not below, where I had looked, but over my head, a vast and noble curve stretching away to either side, with white cloud flying between ourselves and it, a world all speckled over with blue and green like the egg of a wild bird.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“For years I had known joy in nothing but victories, and now I felt myself a boy again. When I had wished to climb the Great Keep, it had never occurred to me that the Great Keep itself might wish to climb the sky; I knew better now. But this ship at least was climbing beyond the sky, and I wanted to climb with her.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“Things opposite unite and appear to disappear. The potential for both remains. That is one of the greatest principles of the causes of things.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“How is it you speak? What sound is there here?” “You must listen to my voice,” she told me, “and not to my words. What do you hear?” I did as she had instructed me, and heard the silken sliding of the sheet, the whisper of our bodies, the breaking of the little waves, and the beating of my own heart. A hundred questions I had been ready to ask, and it had seemed to me that each of the hundred might bring the New Sun. Her lips brushed mine, and every question vanished, banished from my consciousness as if it had never been. Her hands, her lips, her eyes, the breasts I pressed—all wondrous; but there was more, perhaps the perfume of her hair. I felt that I breathed an endless night … . Lying upon my back, I entered Yesod. Or say, rather, Yesod closed about me. It was only then that I knew I had never been there. Stars in their billions spurted from me, fountains of suns, so that for an instant I felt I knew how universes are born. All folly. Reality displaced it, the kindling of the torch that whips shadows to their corners, and with them all the winged fays of fancy. There was something born between Yesod and Briah when I met with Apheta upon that divan in that circling room, something tiny yet immense that burned like a coal conveyed to the tongue by tongs. That something was myself.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“The best offense is a good defense, but a bad defense is offensive.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night, Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to. Flight.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“The young king, bright with such gold as is not found in any mine, strode across the waves; and the glory of him was such that he who looked on it should never look upon another.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“I said he had called them because it was from his mind that we drew them, seeking those who hated him, or at least had reason to. The giant you saw might have mastered the Commonwealth, had Severian not defeated him. The blond woman could not forgive him for bringing her back from death.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
“Catch Catodon … cast out his conation.”
― Gene Wolfe, quote from The Urth of the New Sun
Gene Wolfe
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date May 7, 1931
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“Does the open wound in another's breast soften the pain of the gaping wound in our own? Or does the blood which is welling from another man's side staunch that which is pouring from our own? Does the general anguish of our fellow creatures lessen our own private and particular anguish? No, no, each suffers on his own account, each struggles with his own grief, each sheds his own tears.”
― Alexandre Dumas, quote from The Man in the Iron Mask
“funny thing about people. The ones who seem strong and mouth off the most, or bully others, are usually the ones most terrified and weakest inside. And the ones who seem quiet and speak their fears, appearing the weakest, are often the strongest under it all.”
― Lynsay Sands, quote from The Reluctant Vampire
“You know, sometimes the right thing isn’t the thing you think is right. It’s the wrong thing you’re afraid to think of.”
― Jude Watson, quote from A King's Ransom
“The United Nations had created a military “peacekeeping” force—the usual lunacy of sending a force to keep the peace where there was no peace to keep, then forbidding them to create the peace, ordering them instead to watch the slaughter without interfering.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from Avenger
“Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.”
― Anatole France, quote from The Gods Will Have Blood
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The ImmigrantsBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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