Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to b...
Nobody can tell what is right and what is wrong; what is righteous and what is evil. Even if there is a god and I had his teachings right before me, I would think it through and decide if that was right or wrong myself.
I’ve long considered becoming a writer to be the death of nightmares. For me at least, since I started writing I hadn’t had any. Something really terrible or awful happens in a dream and you wake up and think, awesome, and reach for a pen and pap...
Men could not have too much. Ecstasy and vulnerability belonged in the same dish. The fear the cup would be snatched away was what gave the wine its savor and as Zhirem’s cup was sure, so was his joylessness… to die is a fear, but to live is a fe...
One day I’ll have my appointment with death, and every day I call out to God to see if I can reschedule for a later date.
Nearly all of the men I admire are dead, because admiration is fueled by mystery. And what's more mysterious than death? Nothing. Well, besides women, of course.
Aren’t you at all curious about your past?” Rhys asked. “No, my present is who I am. Your identity is whoever you choose to be, not who your parents were.” “But as a scientist you know that prior events influence it, and the future.” “I...
What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy’s death as any of us, but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the wor...
There’s always someone bigger and badder who can knock you off your perch—even if you’re me. Never forget it and you don’t have to worry about corruption. You’ll be too afraid with watching your own back. --Alexandria "Dria" McAndrews
This concern, feebly called 'love of nature', seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy;...
Most of us live our lives like toads, sitting perfectly still, under a plantain leaf. We are waiting for a fly to come our way. When it comes out darts the tongue. We nab it. That is all. We eat it.
When I say forever,' Koschei whispered, 'I mean until the black death of the world. An Ivan means just the present moment, the flickering light of it, in a green field, his mouth on yours. He means the stretching of that moment. But forever isn't bri...
They couldn't hurt Gansey. Nothing could hurt him; people who said money couldn't buy everything hadn't seen anyone as rich as the Aglionby boys. They were untouchable, immune to life's troubles. Only death couldn't be swiped away by a credit card.
Here is the story of how I died. I wish it were a glamorous story; sadly, there was little glamour in my death. The end for everyone is much the same, sad, lonely, and cold. Only, most people don’t wake up again, I did. And I was hungry, so bloody ...
Eric called Al's suicide brave, and he was wrong. My mother's death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn't just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without a...
By the time Bones announced it was Tammy's turn, I'd fallen in love with him all over again. Flowers and jewelry worked for most girls as a romantic gesture, but here I was, misty-eyed at watching him show my mother how to stab the shit out of him.
Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily - no hourly - and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither gree...
I recognized my work for what it was--as unimportant a drug as cigarettes to get one through the weeks and years. If we are extinguished by death, as I still try to believe, what point is there in leaving some books behind any more than bottles, clot...
Death never mattered at those times - in the early days I even used to pray for it: the shattering annihilation that would prevent for ever the getting up, the putting on of clothes, the wathchign her torch trail across to the opposite side of the co...
If you woke before dawn one morning with the formula for a vaccine, which would cure the most ghastly disease currently known to man, releasing millions from an agonising death, would you roll over and resume sleeping until daylight?
I've never felt normal, because I'm not normal, and I don't wanna be. I've had to face death and loss and pain in your world, but I've also never felt stronger, like more real, more myself, because it's my world too. It's where I belong.
