Dan Simmons

Christ may have lost his faith for a few seconds; He did not sell it in the marketplace for the trinkets of ego and curiosity.

The place was part museum, part library, and part archive; I loved it at first sight...and smell, for here there were thousands of printed books, many very old indeed, and nothing smells quite as wonderful as old books.

“I wish we had the technology to fight God on an equal basis,” he said in low, tight tones. “To beard him in his den. To fight back for all of the injustices heaped on humanity. To allow him to alter his smug arrogance or be blown to hell.”

“War does not call for judgment,” I said, “merely survival.”

Belief in one’s identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief in one’s immortality...and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful.

In the beginning was the Word.

In the end...past honor, past life, past caring...

In the end will be the Word.

Mobs have passions, not brains.

I learned that poets aren’t God, but if there is a God...or anything approaching a God...he’s a poet. And a failed one at that.

Human philosophy tends to shake down into values which might be categorizes as intellectual, religious, moral, and aesthetic.

In the beginning was the Word. Then came the fucking word processor. Then came the thought processor. Then came the death of literature. And so it goes.