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Sheri S. Tepper

404 quotes

“He has brain waves!” she shouted. “He has the same kind of brain waves as chickens. As a matter of fact, his brain waves are virtually indistinguishable from those of chickens.” “He’s not a chicken. He’s a human being!” Leelson’s face was very pale, his mouth was hard. “Morphologically, he’s a human being. Mentally, he’s a chicken.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Godmongers have always found it easy to pay for their beliefs with women’s lives.…”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despite Lutha’s undoubted intelligence, she was constantly exploding like fireworks, laughing or crying, passionate about every trifle. On Dinadh, we think of such behavior as typical of children, not serious adults.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the Gauphin taught, people are ridiculous! We have language and history, we have technology and philosophy, and we still have not achieved good sense and self-control!”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don’t take me for a fool, lovely girl. We fat old things have not laid aside our brains with our silhouettes.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who encounter chains of events at two disparate points, without observing the connections, think they have observed coincidence when they have, in fact, seen only consequence.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every hundred years they would be disillusioned, and each time they would swear to hide their disillusionment in order to retain their power. “We won’t tell anyone,” they’d say. “We won’t let anyone know. We’ll deny it. We’ll defend the traditional teachings!” Such things that happened before! Men in power had made mistakes or foolish claims and spent the rest of their lives and their successors’ lives defending the indefensible, or hiding it.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That’s different. That’s paradise. Like it was on Breadh.” “Were there many people on Breadh?” Snark laughed, abruptly joyous. “Hardly any! That’s what made it paradise!”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pain and loss. Hope dimmed. Ambition quenched. Love becoming an unfunny joke on the lovers! Body saying aye; mind saying nay; now saying can; future saying can’t.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The stories of Old-earth are shared among the people of Old-earth. Even I, Saluez, can identify elephant and whale, ostrich and eagle, serpent and wolf, though they exist no longer. I know that they were and now are not, because of mankind.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most gods of most worlds have human faces.” “Because men make them in their image,” Lutha remarked, somewhat bitterly. “To grant mankind license to do what we would do anyway.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Will you go home again?” Would I go home again? To the lies the songfathers told? To the pain of the House Without a Name? To that terrible destiny for my daughters? To connivance at that evil by my sons? To sell truth and wisdom short in order to buy the false hope of immortality? Somehow I got to my feet. “No,” I cried. My voice was the cry of a small bird against that mighty thunder. Still I cried, “No. I will not!”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some can see no farther than their mirrors. What wears another face must go unseen.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not wish to live forever. Do not believe that every man-shaped thing is holier than something else. Do not look into the mirror to see the face of God.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On that far horizon the Sandia Mountains stand behind their outliers in receding gradations of gray or blue or violet, paper cutouts against the lighter sky, vanishing into night when the lights of the city come on. Then the stars look down and the air is sweet with piñon smoke as centuries-old nut-bearing trees are burned for the momentary pleasure of those who, unlike the native peoples, never think of the food the trees produce.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Another window to the outside opened on the first day of school, when an eager young teacher told the class they could find out anything in the world if they paid attention and learned to read. To Jake it came as a revelation, the missing piece of the puzzle of his life! Here was the secret of existence he had known must be somewhere! All the mysteries of his existence would come clear, all the things he wondered about, if he would only learn to read. He did learn, quickly, passionately, with the ardor many boys reserve for sports.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the difficulties of being the good guys is that even open societies have to have secret police, and secret police turn toward repression as a compass points north.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She needed more sleep and less aggravation.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fear needn’t be grounded in fact to cause problems.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Words? Not really. Mankind is a good word.” She set down her glass with a thump. “Or humankind. I’m afraid we’ve spent a lot of feminist energy on meaningless symbols rather than essential functions.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Infanticide and infant neglect exist in inverse ratio to the accessibility of abortion services.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here we are after a couple million years of natural selection has produced a race that overpopulates and makes war and dominates and rapes, and you want to know about wisdom! Natural selection doesn’t select for wisdom!”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What’s coming is reality. Politics has nothing to do with reality!”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When your people began to press upon us, long, long ago, we moved into remote enclaves. To us, numbers are not strength; wisdom is strength. What profiteth a race to be numerous and stupid, la? Behold how great we are, saith the lemming!” She laughed.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We believe that nothing worthy of our worship would want our worship.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The boys attend the Institute. I saw where they keep the girls. They are not taught anything. They are merely fed, bathed, given exercise, raised so until puberty, at which time they are culled. The enemy does not want either rebellion or thought bred into his followers, so any who show signs of independence or unusual intelligence are culled.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They looked like men. That was the trouble with devils, Carolyn thought. Too often they looked like men.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No sooner had the coronation occurred than Haraldson issued the Edicts of Equity, in which for the first time humanity was defined in terms of intelligence, civility, and the pursuit of justice rather than by species or form. Certain Earthian creatures other than mankind were immediately rendered human by the edicts, gaining the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of satisfactions thereby, and some extremist individuals and groups who had previously paraded themselves as human were disabused of this notion.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Theoretical liberties, however, we are too often assured at the expense of actual civilities, and as civilities were lost, litigation emerged as a way of life with a consequent reduction in real liberties for all persons except lawyers, who, like mercenaries, are profiteers of discord. Persons were actually allowed, by law, under the guise of free expression, to shout into the faces of those who held differing opinions and to intrude upon their privacy. Liberty has two legs. Vigilance is certainly one, but civility is as certainly the other.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We all know men who are angry at everything, simply because they prefer to be angry at everything. Often, they self-destruct, and sometimes they take other people with them.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you have read your assignment, you know that mankind has a stratified mentality. The ancient lizard mind lies below the mammalian mind, which lies below a primate mind, which is modified by a mind adapted to language, and since these layers have developed in response to differing evolutionary pressures, they often do not function efficiently together. Human civility tries to control ape dominance, human rationality tries to control mammalian sexuality, human social conscience tries to ameliorate reptilian greed, never with total success.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Persons inside the group are ‘us.’ All significant entities outside the group, including females, are ‘them,’ and all of them are either property, prey, or opponents.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Females who agree to be property are the survivors. Belonging to a mature, powerful male guarantees his protection for her and her children and raises the female’s rank in the primate society. The higher the rank, the less she is harassed and the more she gets to eat. Over millions of years, therefore, it has become instinctive for females to mate with the most dangerous, most dominant male they can attract.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mankind had always had a propensity for trying to govern the ungovernable and to control what was uncontrollable. Mankind had always relied upon laws and rules to direct those drives that did not care about laws or rules. Pragmatism had at last prevailed.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Seed on wind and being adaptable. Same as me, Ellin. Same as everybody. All of us, seeds. Seed is ninety percent precursor mammal, like mouse. Seven or eight percent chimpanzee-human primate precursor. One point nine nine nine percent generalized Homo sapiens. Tiny fraction one percent me, or you, different from everybody else. One healthy creature being able to blow on wind and still live! Able to choose.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Questioner I was melted down in the cataclysm known as the Flagian Miscalculation, somewhere out near the Bonfires of Hell. The Flagians’ attempt to prove that matter was illusory succeeded only in redistributing that matter rather widely.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any mankind person worth his salt can simultaneously incubate whole clutches of ideas that are either contradictory or mutually exclusive. For instance, mankind has persuaded itself that its race is perfectible, though it hasn’t changed physically, mentally, or psychologically since the Cro-Magnon. Mankind has also persuaded itself that each individual is unique, though each person shares ninety-nine and ninety-nine one hundredths of his DNA and roughly the same percentage of his ideas with thousands or even millions of other persons.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But you’re saying all societies are coercive,” said Ellin in a troubled voice. Questioner laughed. “But Honorable Ellin, of course they are. This is what makes reading history so amusing. Most cultures think of themselves as free while regarding others as coerced. They do so because they are following traditional values, and the generations of coercion that resulted in those values is long forgotten.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prey, property, or opponent,” gasped Mouche, who was now in the door they had entered through, breathing the cleaner air of the sneakway. “Madame said that’s how gangs think.” Questioner nodded. “One like this was a gang unto herself. So long as we think of such people as humans and attempt to treat them as humans, we cannot protect the innocent.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I dreamed this,” he said in a helpless voice. “I dreamed this!” “Well, Mouche,” said Questioner in a chilly, admonitory voice, “I am sure you believe so. It is all very mystic and dreamlike, and though I can be sensitivity to the moods and impressions such places evoke, I try not to give way to them. When dream is most attractive, then is time to be alert and practical, for it is then that we are most in danger.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a class of person who cannot lead and will not be led. Such persons go their own way, uncorrupted by insight, unmitigated by experience. They do what they do, and usually they die of it, but they would rather die than cooperate with anyone else.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Conflict acting on intelligence creates imagination. Faced with conflict, creatures are forced to imagine what will happen, where the next threat will come from. If there has never been conflict, imagination never develops. Wits arise in answer to danger, to pain, to tragedy. No one ever got smarter eating easy apples.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They won’t be sensible. All they will do is talk about how they have been wronged. Those jongau, they were also wronged. Bofusdiaga says creatures who think only of how they are wronged cannot help with the dance and everything is lost.” Questioner rubbed her head. “If you had asked me, Corojum, I could have told you that those people in the cave would be of no help. They are young, rebellious, and not at all useful. At that age, many young people spend a great deal of time thinking they have been wronged.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bofusdiaga says past wrongs cannot be righted because past wrongs are past and time only runs one way. Bofusdiaga says all you independent creatures suffer great wrongs sometime in past, which is normal, but you stay always living in past so you can continue wronged forever! Forever miserable, forever tragical! Bofusdiaga says so long as you go chewing yesterday’s pains, you cannot eat today’s pleasures, so it is no help!”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is not philosophy, this is reality. Will you please keep in mind what’s going on!”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Punishment is not my business,” said Questioner. “As I have said to others, it never works anyhow. Putting right is my business. Unfortunately, when things are put right, often the innocent suffer with the guilty.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even our earliest espousers of human rights limit them to life, liberty, and the pursuit of satisfactions. They do not guarantee posterity or immortality.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are made of the stuff of stars, given our lives by a living world, given our selves by time. We are brother to the trees and sister to the sun. We are of such glorious stuff we need not carry pain around like a label. Our duty, as living things, to be sure that pain is not our whole story, for we can choose to be otherwise. As Ellin says, we can choose to dance.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You think staying in power is why they do it?” “That’s usually the reason for arbitrary cruelty.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Madame says when we focus on our anger, our vision begins to constrict. Soon we are caught up in fury, and we turn it upon everyone.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source