Caitlín R. Kiernan Quotes

• You know, it's a sad and unfortunate state of affairs that you have to live in a world where eight-year-olds refuse to believe in anything that they cannot touch or measure, and anyone who happens to see a thing that is invisible to most people is immediately branded a lunatic.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Atheist, Believe, Years

  46 Copy quote

• A book may only be judged for what it is, not what you'd like it to be.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Book, May, Judged

  Caitlín R. Kiernan's blog entry (greygirlbeast.livejournal.com), December 11, 2006.

  6 Copy quote

• The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she - the author - should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Writing, Fighting, Stories

  Caitlín R. Kiernan's blog entry (greygirlbeast.livejournal.com), January 10, 2005.

  10 Copy quote

• Normal is a bitter pill that we rail against.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Pills, Normal, Bitter

  7 Copy quote

• In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man will poke out his eye to fit in.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Eye, Men, Land

  Caitlín R. Kiernan's blog entry (greygirlbeast.livejournal.com), December 12, 2010.

  8 Copy quote

• Language is a poor enough means of communication as it is. So we should use all the words we have.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Communication, Mean, Use

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• Art should never be a slave to commerce, but for all working artists that's exactly what it must be.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Art, Slave, Should

  Caitlín R. Kiernan's blog entry (greygirlbeast.livejournal.com), January 31, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• Every month, the US is spending more on the Iraqi war than it took to reach Saturn and Titan. Mass murder is expensive, and good science is relatively cheap.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  War, Saturn, Months

  "Doomsday averted" by Caitlín R. Kiernan, greygirlbeast.livejournal.com. January 16, 2005.

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• Magick may be no more than the willful invocation of awe.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  May, Invocation, Awe

  Caitlín R. Kiernan's blog entry (greygirlbeast.livejournal.com), December 11, 2006.

  59 Copy quote

• Ghosts are those memories that are too strong to be forgotten for good, echoing across the years and refusing to be obliterated by time.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Strong, Memories, Years

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• Hauntings are memes, especially pernicious thought contagions, social contagions that need no viral or bacterial host and are transmitted in a thousand different ways. A book, a poem, a song, a bedtime story, a grandmother's suicide, the choreography of a dance, a few frames of film, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a deadly tumble from a horse, a faded photograph, or a story you tell your daughter.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Suicide, Daughter, Song

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• All too infrequently do I encounter a new voice as delightful, compelling, and intelligent as that of Molly Tanzer.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Intelligent, Voice, Encounters

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• No story has a beginning, and no story has an end. Beginnings and endings may be conceived to serve a purpose, to serve a momentary and transient intent, but they are, in their fundamental nature, arbitrary and exist solely as a convenient construct in the minds of man. Lives are messy, and when we set out to relate them, or parts of them, we cannot ever discern precise and objective moments when any given event began. All beginnings are arbitrary.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Men, Mind, Events

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• Originality is the most deadly mirage in all of art. You can chase it from now until doomsday, and you'll only find yourself lost and dying of thirst.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Art, Finding Yourself, Dying

  Caitlín R. Kiernan's blog entry (greygirlbeast.livejournal.com), July 24, 2005.

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• I need a world filled with wonder, with awe, with awful things. I couldn't exist in a world devoid of marvels, even if the marvels are terrible marvels. Even if they frighten me to consider them.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Needs, World, Awful

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• Assassination is almost always unthinkable to moral, thinking men until after a holocaust has come and gone.

  Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Men, Thinking, Holocaust

  4 Copy quote

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