Gene Wolfe Quotes

You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.

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.

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.

Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.

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

Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable.

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

Evolution teaches us the original purpose of language was to ritualize men's threats and curses, his spells to compel the gods; communication came later.

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.

You do not characterize by telling the reader about the character. You do it by showing the character thinking, speaking and acting in a characteristic way. You simply show it and shut up.

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

Before you ask more questions, think about whether you really want to know the answers.

Hope is a psychological mechanism unaffected by external realities.

That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin.

So powerful is the charm of words, which for us reduces to manageable entities all the passions that would otherwise madden and destroy us.

...in some situations winning consist[s] of disentangling oneself.

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

You seem to think that the only genuine existence evil can have is conscious existence - that no one is evil unless he admits it to himself. I disagree.

Men to whom wine had brought death long before lay by springs of wine and drank still, too stupefied to know their lives were past.

I don't think anyone is more intrinsically holy. People experience God in many ways; and it seems to me that God does what the rest of us do: He chooses the means that best gets His message across.

Science has so accustomed us to devising and accepting theories to account for the facts we observe, however fantastic, that our minds must begin their manufacture before we are aware of it.

When a gift is deserved, it is not a gift but a payment.

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

There is no magic. There is only knowledge, more or less hidden.

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.

I was trapped in admiration for what I had once admired, as a fly in amber remains the captive of some long-vanished pine.

Have a short story feature two situations, and then let them solve each other.

He's not rewarding us by talking to us. He's talking to us because He has something to say to us directly, as opposed to the things He says to all humanity.

Men are said to desire women, Severian. Why do they despise the women they obtain?

God is the nest we build together.

Do not start a story unless you have an ending in mind. You can change the story's ending if you wish, but you should always have a destination.

There's a certain kind of lonely man who rejects love, because he believes that anyone who offers it wouldn't be a lover worth having.

...I rejoiced in the flaws that made her more real to me

All of us... when we think we are talking most intimately to someone else, are actually addressing an image we have of the person to whom we believe we speak.

Religion and science have always been matters of faith in something. It is the same something.

You believe me wise because I taught you once, but I have not been north, as you have. You have seen (what) I have never seen...You flatter me by asking my opinion.

It seems to me that you can almost define civilization by saying it's people who are not willing to hurt other people because the other people are different.

Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle science fiction.

Time turns our lies into truths.

I was miserable before I knew I was no longer happy

We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.

My rule is never save bits. They get the way, and you don't think of anything new. Put 'em in. Make a big mess.