Gene Wolfe Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Writing, Novel

  46 Copy quote

• 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

  Fall, Men, Mirrors

  Gene Wolfe (1997). “The Urth of the New Sun: The sequel to 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.225, Macmillan

  26 Copy quote

• Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real.

  Gene Wolfe

  Strong, Real, Believe

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.66, Macmillan

  19 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Ignorance, Space, Stupidity

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.327, Macmillan

  13 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Thinking, Answers, Want

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.259, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• People don't want other people to be people.

  Gene Wolfe

  People, Getting High, Want

  "The Claw of the Conciliator". Book by Don Maitz and Gene Wolfe, March, 1981.

  22 Copy quote

• Certain mystes aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we place essentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them. We believe we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.

  Gene Wolfe

  Real, Believe, Mind

  "The Shadow of the Torturer". Book by Gene Wolfe, 1980.

  13 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Powerful, Passion, Charm

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.151, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• 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?

  Gene Wolfe

  Time, Past, Journey

  Gene Wolfe (1982). “The claw of the conciliator”, Pocket

  10 Copy quote

• We think that we know a man or a woman, when so much of what we know is actually that man's or that woman's situation, his or her place on the board of life. Move the pawn to the last row and see her rise in armor, sword in hand.

  Gene Wolfe

  Moving, Men, Thinking

  Gene Wolfe (2011). “Home Fires”, p.137, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Men, Doe, Matter

  Gene Wolfe (2007). “The Wizard: Book Two of The Wizard Knight”, p.387, Macmillan

  5 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Matter, Science And Religion

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.288, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.

  Gene Wolfe

  Believe, Defining, Truth Is

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.14, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  Gene Wolfe

  Communication, Men, Purpose

  Gene Wolfe (2009). “The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction”, p.111, Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Honest, Fantasy, Novel

  8 Copy quote

• God is the nest we build together.

  Gene Wolfe

  Together, Nests

  5 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Literature, Definitions, Pleasure

  12 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Payment

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.90, Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

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

  Gene Wolfe

  Magic

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.404, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• You must know the story of how the race of ancient days reached the stars, and how they bargained away all the wild half of themselves to do so, so that they no longer cared for the taste of the pale wind, no for love or lust, nor to make new songs nor to sing old ones, nor for any of the other animal things they believed they had brought with them out of the rain forests al the bottom of time--though in fact, so my uncle told me, those things brought them

  Gene Wolfe

  Song, Stars, Uncles

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.38, Orb Books

  7 Copy quote

• A hundred wise men have said in various ways that love transcends the power of death, and millions of fools have supposed that they meant nothing by it. At this late hour in my life I have learned what they meant. They meant that love transcends death. They are correct.

  Gene Wolfe

  Life, Wise, Men

  Gene Wolfe (2009). “The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction”, p.338, Macmillan

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Gene Wolfe

  Believe, Thinking, Talking

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.55, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• A child, not knowing what is extraordinary and what is commonplace, usually lights midway between the two, finds interest in incidents adults consider beneath notice, and calmly accepts the most improbable occurrences.

  Gene Wolfe

  Children, Light, Two

  Gene Wolfe (1972). “The fifth head of Cerberus: three novellas”, Ultramarine Pub Co

  4 Copy quote

• You're a materialist, like all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn't make materialism true. Don't you know that? In the final summing up, it is spirit and dream, thought and love and act that matter.

  Gene Wolfe

  Dream, People, Ignorant

  Gene Wolfe (2011). “The Citadel of the Autarch: Urth: Book of the New Sun”, p.40, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Gene Wolfe

  Writing, Character, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

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