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Sheri S. Tepper
404 quotes
“Her tone conveyed the unimportance of anything that might have happened, anywhere, before she came upon the scene.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sam grew up to be both dutiful and willful, a boy who would say yes to avoid trouble but then do as he pleased.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s a lot of fathering in those legends,” Sal commented, disapprovingly. “A lot of fathering, a lot of kinging, a lot of death and violence, and very little uncleing and ordinary kindly living.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But Voorstod had long ago learned what passed for patience among the prophets: a rage they barely bothered to suppress. According to the prophets, if a man failed in his mission, he failed because Almighty God was unhappy with him and willed it so. If God were happy with him, he could not fail. If he failed, God was unhappy with him, and so were the prophets. It was all very logical.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us consider, said Theology Panel: “Is Voorstod a slave state, or is it merely pious?”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Should the escaped Gharm be returned as breakers of contract and apostates, as Voorstod demanded? Or should the Gharm be given sanctuary as common sense and good nature dictated? Where did humanity stop and interference with religion begin?”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Elsewhere negotiation might have worked. With other religions, it could have worked. Voorstod’s God, however, was a jealous and vindictive deity who ruled by murder, terrorism, and malediction. How did one negotiate with that?”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where other gods might have advocated making life a garden, Voorstod’s God promised the garden only after death, preferably violent death. Then might the faithful lie about on the greensward sucking grapes and fucking virgins, so the prophets promised.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As with other peoples who had focused their lives upon wrongs in the past and heaven in the future, Voorstod made an everlasting hell of the present.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For several days they cut, trimmed, and stacked the slender trunks, trying to pick ones that were straight and uniform in size, being careful not to clear-cut any area of the forest, a deed which Jep’s mom would have regarded as only slightly less dishonorable than genocide.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was her way to start each conversation with an apology, so she could be offended when the apology was accepted.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is our minds and not any other attribute which gives us personhood and value. We share intelligence with other living things, and they are no less important than we. Even creatures without detectable intelligence have adapted themselves to play necessary roles. To make God in our image or we in God’s is blasphemy.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no sin inherent in any mind save the sin of pride in believing one has seen or been taught the absolute truth. The second greatest sin is refusing to search for the truth one must acknowledge one will never absolutely find.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even when people are well-meaning, do not let them fool with your heads.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They still begin their services with the first words the prophetess had spoken to them as a teaching. “This I say unto you, be not sexist pigs.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Other such interpretations were used to order the dress of the High Baidee, which included such items as the zettle, a small scarf of precious material hung from the belt, on one side of which were embroidered the words “Stuff happens,” and on the other “Not guilty.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though he was very young, only in his early twenties, he had enormous charisma. This attribute alone made him believable in the way that actors and demagogues are believable: he was so overwhelmingly convincing he was never required to demonstrate relevance.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most boys moved when they started having love affairs—or thinking about having love affairs. Just thinking could go on for a considerable time without anything really happening, not like those marriage cultures, where all the women were trying to cling to their virginity and all the males were trying to take it away from them, everybody panting and rushing, trying to grab off acceptable partners under acceptable conditions before they got too old.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The prophetess had declared it a sin to believe in absolute truths, but the Scrutators claimed that didn’t apply to religious truths, of which they had manufactured a good supply over the centuries.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How did you know we were Voorstoders?” he asked in a silken voice. “You said ‘Lord knows,’” the man replied. “Voorstoders say that. I do a bit of reading in the Archives, bit of a hobby with me. Like to read about those old religions. That Lord-this, Lord-that kind of talk belongs to the old tribal religions, doesn’t it?” Old and outworn, said his voice. Old and outworn and suspect.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems to me,” said Spiggy softly, “that when a race of man becomes so anthropocentric it regards other living beings as lesser consumables, it could get to be a habit. It might become easy to include other living creatures with the Gharm. Animals. Children. Women. Entire planet. Perhaps they, too, become consumables, to be used up and thrown away.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The prophets trusted no one. Trust had no part in the Cause.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Coup markers?” Jep had asked Pirva. “The cause?” Pirva had not looked up from what she was doing. “The Cause is their society, their religion, their brotherhood,” she had said, the words dripping like acid from her mouth. “It’s a killers’ club. A man gets a coup counter for each Abolitionist or Gharm man, woman, or child he has killed out there in Ahabar or the Three Counties. There are special counters for bombs set off in the three counties, no matter who is killed or mutilated.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Over time, a very nice system had developed by which persons actually interested in religion as religion (rather than religion as a system of social control, religion as politics, religion as warfare, or religion as spectacle) met over luncheon from time to time to read their scholarly research to one another, while clerks and aides got on with the endless and self-generating paperwork, or so it was still called, despite the fact there was little or no paper involved.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No army?” “No. They’ve always advocated terrorist tactics, not battle. Their biggest group is their Faithful, the brethren of the Cause led by that group of fanatics they call the prophets. If you ever want to meet a wild man, meet a prophet. But, in addition to the Cause, there are probably a hundred splinter groups, all of them devoted to terrorism of one kind or another, some of them with only half a dozen members. One nice thing about them, they’ve never been able to work together.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These men are the kind who would kill their slaves and families rather than let us free them.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You’ve got to understand they’re a puritan people, Commander. Sex is a very powerful taboo among Voorstoders. They delay it and forestall it when they can. The prophets of the Cause tell them sex is power, and being celibate stores up their power. The priests tell them married sex is all right, but only that. Both priests and prophets tell them not to look at women, not to think of women, that women are evil snares of the devil. And all women past puberty wear robes that cover all of them but their eyes.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It would be some young firebrands with more energy than sense, and they would do it because they would regard the religion in question as a kind of disease.” “Catching, is it?” “Seemingly so. Or, perhaps I should say, suspected to be so.” “That could be ugly. People turn fanatic, do they? Rant and rave against the unholy? Claim to have the only source of truth? Execute people for heresy? Burn people at the stake? Shovel them wholesale into ovens?” Rasiel was a student of human history, including its more barbaric periods.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mostly it’s just that you’re not one of us. If you’re not one of us, you’re an unbeliever. Everyone not part of us is part of the devil: you, the people of Ahabar, the people of Phansure, everyone. Our Cause is to destroy the devil, all of it. We’re the only true followers of God. We have the truth. It was revealed to us, long ago, on Manhome.”… “You believe that, too?” “Of course I believe it. It is my Cause. It was my father’s Cause, and his father’s before him. Even on Manhome we killed the unbelievers.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great work?” he asked. “The final victory of Almighty God,” said Phaed, with a grin. “In the book it is revealed that we shall put whole worlds to the sword.” Phaed dusted off a chair and sat down. “So say the prophets, and since they say it, so do I.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why pretend now that you cared?” “Why not pretend whatever I like if it makes my life easier? We learned that, you see, we Faithful. We learn to say to ourselves whatever we need to say to make the task easy. We learn to say, ‘for God and Voorstod,’ when we blow up some old lady in the toilet or some schoolyard full of children. We wouldn’t necessarily do it for ourselves, you see, but we can do it for God and Voorstod.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But it’s not true,” blurted Sam, unable to keep quiet. “‘What I say ten times is true.’ That’s one of our Proverbs. We teach the young men to fill their heads with such words. Prayers. Chants. Endless circles of noise. The same sounds repeated over and over until they fill the mind. ‘Resolution is the weapon of God; thought is the enemy of resolution; words keep thought out; therefore, learn words,’ say the Scriptures. Even on Manhome, our sons learned words, by rote, to keep them from the dangers of thinking. What God wants followers who think and doubt? The Almighty wants Faithful, who obey!”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’ve met the prophet Awateh, and he’s very religious, but he’s also completely off his head. It seems to me religious toleration stops when they intend to kill you or hurt you with it. Africa, that’s my aunt, she always said noninterference was a two-way street.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that some people are hardwired a certain way, and they invent religions to go along with the way they are. Like they are hardwired for bigotry or violence or being ignorant—or maybe ignorance is just a kind of bigotry. People say they don’t want to know a complicated truth, you know, because they already believe something simple, some thing that’s easier on their minds.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have a saying, we Gharm. A man who claims to carry the truth, carries an empty sack.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think he is a wicked man.” Sam said doggedly, “Are you so sure he is wicked, Lilla? Perhaps, away from here, he might change.” “We Gharm have a saying. Perhaps, away from the pond, the frog would grow feathers.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Also, the people who’ve left tended to be those who thought man was more important than other parts of creation, and themselves more important than other men,” Africa mused. “Me-and-my-image devotees. Human fertility worshippers. The kind of people who will happily kill other species to make room for more humans, advocates of the old ‘fill up the world and ruin it’ philosophy.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our lives are made up of many things, not just one. Many answers, not just one. It’s men that want one answer for everything. They’re always making laws, as though they could make one law that would be just in all cases. They can’t. They never have. I think men get derailed, sometime during their growing up. Instead of settling for what’s honest and real and sort of thoughtful, they go off on these quests. They go strutting and crowing, waving their weapons and shouting their battle cries. They say they’re seeking something higher, but it always seems to end in pain, doesn’t it?”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like, on Thyker, those High Baidee make a law that says no killing, ignoring the times when killing is the only merciful thing to do, but then they make exceptions for war, because they like war. I know all about it. We women know all about it.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Phaed: wife-murderer, woman-killer, culprit of the Cause, one of the Faithful, faithful indeed, to the most ancient and bloody of all religions. Me-worship. My sex-worship. My tribe-worship. My kind-worship. Vowing rage and destruction against all else.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ire and Iron and Voorstod, the three peoples who had followed Voorstod the prophet away from Manhome. Voorstod with its pastors, Ire with its priests, and Iron with its prophets: the first to rule the slaves, the second to rule the women, the last to rule the men—to rule the men, or to be used by the men, to rule. That had always been the way of men’s Gods, old men’s Gods. To use the Gods to rule.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Old men’s religions and old men’s legends, always elsewhere, in the dark, so they could not be seen too clearly. So they could not be examined too closely. So they could go on, breeding, fulminating, burning, and rotting in the dark.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man may not face both ways at once. If he looks back, he cannot look forward.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She knew that ancient evils could be left behind. One could choose not to remember. One did not have to dig into the slime pits of old anger and old hate. Forgetting was possible.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men, she thought, had always been able to seek holiness when they wanted to because some woman was back at home taking care of their obligations. That’s why most of the saints were men and why most of the women saints were virgins.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Their act was fine as it was, but as Sizzy said, mere titillation was limited by both prurience and credulity, while entertainment had no boundaries. “If you entertain people well enough, they don’t care you’re a fake,” said Aunt Sizzy. “Most people don’t give a damn about the truth, anyhow.” She mentioned some politicians, including a recent president, as examples. “The world’s biggest phonies, not very bright, but they entertained people, so nobody cared.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It takes a strong man to turn back from a bad choice.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Derbeck is a theocracy based on religious and political orthodoxy. Arbitrary executions and torture are integral to such systems.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Evil comes from unchecked power.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They parade their cruelty openly, calling it diplomacy, calling it expediency, as governments always have.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source