Samuel R. Delany

“You're living in the real world now,” Spider said sadly. “It’s come from something. It’s going to something. Myths always lie in the most difficult places to ignore.”

Breathing is a fascinating thing to watch in a woman.

Bear in mind that the novel—no matter how intimate, psychological, or subjective—is always a historical projection of its own time.

“I was born,” the Mouse said. “I must die. I am suffering. Help me. There, I just wrote your book for you.”

"The parts I like, well..." He shook his head, with pursed lips. "They just don't have anything to do with me: somebody else wrote them, it seems, about things I may have thought about once. The parts I don't like--well, I can remember writing those, oh yeah, word by word by word."

“The beginning of the end, the beginning of the end,” muttered Lo Hawk. “We must preserve something.”

“The end of the beginning,” sighed La Dire. “Everything must change.”

There are three types of actions: purposeful, habitual, and gratuitous. Characters, to be immediate and apprehensible, must be presented by all three.

I must remember my own origins. Once I was as ignorant as you; I swear, though, I can’t remember when.

The inevitable is that unprepared for.

The rich are always enamored of the ancient.

If you're going to do something stupid—and we all do—it might as well be a brave and foolish thing.

Earth, the world, the fifth planet from the sun—the species that stands on two legs and roams this thin wet crust: it’s changing, Lobey. It’s not the same. Some people walk under the sun and accept that change, others close their eyes, clap their hands to their ears, and deny the world with their tongues.