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Dan Simmons
94 quotes
“I ignore religions,” said Brawne Lamia. “I do not succumb to them.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I now understand the need for faith—pure, blind, fly-in-the-face-of-reason faith—as a small life preserver in the wild and endless sea of a universe ruled by unfeeling laws and totally indifferent to the small, reasoning beings that inhabit it.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The lieutenant took his time scanning their visa chips, letting them wait in the drizzle, occasionally making a comment with the idle arrogance common to such nobodies who have just come into a small bit of power.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, our DNA is unique but so is a salamander’s.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poets are the mad midwives to reality. They see not what is, nor what can be, but what must become.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Words are the only bullets in truth’s bandolier. And poets are the snipers.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the beginning was the Word. In the end...past honor, past life, past caring... In the end will be the Word.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Another friend, a child psychologist from the college, once commented that Rachel at age five showed the most reliable indicators of true giftedness in a young person: structured curiosity, empathy for others, compassion, and a fierce sense of fair play.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sol found their tracts the usual combination of double talk and navel lint-gathering common to most religions.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The story of Rachel’s unique illness was no secret in Crawford, of course. The fact of it had spread through the college the first year of Rachel’s return and the entire town knew soon after. Crawford reacted in the fashion of small towns immemorial—some tongues wagged constantly, some people could not keep the pity and pleasure at someone else’s misfortune out of their voices and gazes—but mostly the community had folded its protective wings around the Weintraub family like an awkward mother bird shielding its young.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sol realized what he had known and forgotten about very small communities: they were frequently annoying, always parochial, sometimes prying on a one-to-one level, but never had they subscribed to the vicious legacy of the so-called “public’s right to know.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After fifty-five years of dedicating his life and work to the story of ethical systems, Sol Weintraub had come to a single, unshakable conclusion: any allegiance to a deity or concept or universal principal (sic) which put obedience above decent behavior toward an innocent human being was evil.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Listen! There will be no more offerings, neither child nor parent. There will be no more sacrifices for anyone other than our fellow human. The time of obedience and atonement is past.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How about,” she said, “that you do the logical thing because it’s the logical thing to do?”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If our society ever opted for Orwell’s Big Brother approach, the instrument of choice for oppression would have to be the credit wake. In a totally noncash economy with only a vestigial barter black market, a person’s activities could be tracked in real time by monitoring the credit wake of his or her universal card. There were strict laws protecting card privacy but laws had a bad habit of being ignored or abrogated when societal push came to totalitarian shove.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It struck me that his dialect was actually the nondialect of someone who has learned a new language perfectly but without the lazy shortcuts of someone born to it.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In such seconds of decision entire futures are made.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is something about raising a child that helps to sharpen one’s sense of what is real.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It no longer matters who consider themselves the masters of events. Events no longer obey their masters.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Doing a life study while drunk and in the process of being seduced is never a formula for quality art.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a dramatization of total chaos, a functional definition of confusion, an unchoreographed dance of sad violence. It was war.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My own guess is that it’s a myth fueled by the same hunger for superstitious verities that drives other religions.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who ignore history’s lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them...they may be forced to die by them.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War does not call for judgment,” I said, “merely survival.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always—always—returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred. Not this time. Not ever again.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sol remembered the dream, remembered his daughter’s hug, and realized that in the end—when all else is dust—loyalty to those we love is all we can carry with us to the grave.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mobs have passions, not brains.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He knew what had to be done. It is not always the same as knowing what to do.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gold,” says the Consul, knowing that this is the only syllable that has held its power over the ages.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Have you considered that these prophecies were not divine revelations, but merely manipulation from some secular power?”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Great Change is when humankind accepts its role as part of the natural order of the universe instead of its role as a cancer.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are created for precisely this sort of suffering. In the end, it is all we are, those limpid tide pools of self-consciousness between crashing waves of pain.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human philosophy tends to shake down into values which might be categorizes as intellectual, religious, moral, and aesthetic.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes,” said General Morpurgo, taking her hand, “dreams are all that separate us from the machines.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religion and ethics were not always—or even frequently—mutually compatible. The demands of religious absolutism or fundamentalism or rampaging relativism often reflected the worst aspects of contemporary culture or prejudices rather than a system which both man and God could live under with a sense of real justice.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With a sudden clarity which went beyond the immediacy of his pain or sorrow, Sol Weintraub suddenly understood perfectly why Abraham had agreed to sacrifice Isaac, his son, when the Lord commanded him to do so. It was not obedience. It was not even to put the love of God above the love of his son. Abraham was testing God. By denying the sacrifice at the last moment, by stopping the knife, God had earned the right—in Abraham’s eyes and the hearts of his offspring—to become the God of Abraham.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The modern universe, as machine and man had come to understand it, needed no Creator; in fact, allowed no Creator. Its rules allowed very little tinkering and no major revisions. It had not begun and would not end, beyond cycles of expansion and contraction as regular and self-regulated as the seasons on Old Earth. No room for love there. It seemed that Abraham had offered to murder his son to test a phantom.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was not surprised to wake up alive. I suppose one is surprised only when one awakens dead.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“De Soya blinks. “Suicide is a mortal sin,” he says. On the screen the girl nods seriously. “Yes,” she says, “but I am not a Christian. Also, I'd rather go to hell than go with you.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why am I seeking logic or sanity here? I'd asked myself at the moment. There hasn’t been any so far.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Information is always to be treasured, Raul. It is behind only love and honesty in a person’s attempt to understand the universe.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I realized that night the import and the terrible difficulty in the task ahead of me—in keeping this child safe from the sharp edges of a strange and indifferent universe. I think that is was on this alien and storm-tossed night that I first understood what it might be like to be a parent.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the men in the boat—I could not remember which character—had moved through all of the circles of theological supposition: praying, believing that God was a merciful Deity who sat up nights worrying about him, then believing that God was a cruel bastard, and finally deciding that no one was listening.”
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source