Gene Wolfe Quotes

Quotes about:

Authority Children Past Pleasure Writing

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

Gene Wolfe

Writing, Novel

42 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

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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

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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.

9 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

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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

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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

7 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.

15 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

6 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

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

Gene Wolfe

Honest, Fantasy, Novel

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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

8 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

3 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

3 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

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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

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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

5 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

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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

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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

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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.

Gene Wolfe

Lonely, Believe, Men

Gene Wolfe (2001). “There Are Doors”, p.277, Macmillan

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That was when I found out that the best way in the world to make yourself feel better when you have hit bottom is to try to get somebody else to feel better. There are certain things in life that are truly worth knowing, and that is one of the big ones.

Gene Wolfe

Feel Better, Things In Life, Knowing

Gene Wolfe (2007). “Pirate Freedom”, p.252, Macmillan

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My whole life experience feeds into my writing. I think that must be true for every writer. Clearly the Army and combat were major influences; just the same, you need to understand that many of the writers we have now couldn't load a revolver.

Gene Wolfe

Writing, Army, Thinking

3 Copy quote
We choose--or choose not--to be alone when we decide whom we will accept as our fellows, and whom we will reject. Thus an eremite in a mountain is in company, because the birds and coneys, the initiates whose words live in his 'forest books,' and the winds--the messengers of the Increate--are his companions. Another man, living in the midst of millions, may be alone, because there are none but enemies and victims around him.

Gene Wolfe

Book, Men, Wind

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I believe there is no other difference between those who are called courageous and those who are branded craven than that the second are fearful before the danger and the first after it. No one can be much frightened, certainly, during a period of great and immanent peril -- the mind is too much concentrated on the thing itself, and on the actions necessary to meet or avoid it. The coward is a coward, then, because he has brought his fear with him; persons we think cowardly will sometimes amaze us by their bravery, if they have had no forewarning of their danger.

Gene Wolfe

Believe, Thinking, Differences

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Born: May 7, 1931
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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