Kathryn Cramer > Kathryn's Quotes

“....thinking you are attacking society when you condemn or ravage the hypothetical Nice Girl Next Door is the exact equivalent of thinking that stealing from the local supermarket makes you a Communist.”
― Joanna Russ

“You give a guy a license to
steal, you've got to expect him to use it.”
― Bruce Sterling

“There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes.”
― James Morrow

“[...] as Kurt Vonnegut pointed out [...] the literary novel has become extraordinarily privatistic of late. It's as if the big issues (Does God exist? from whence springs decency? what sort of species is Homo Sapiens?) were either settled or not worth discusssing, and serious writers should therefore confine themselves to their various ethnic heritages and interpersonal relationships.”
― James Morrow, Nebula Awards 27: Sfwa's Choices for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year

“I made the only decision I ever knew how to make,' Truman famously asserted in one of his carefully scripted reminiscences. What does that mean, exactly? Did Truman see himself as a professional decision-maker with a narrow specialty, the choice between destroying and not destroying Japanese cities?”
― James Morrow, Shambling Towards Hiroshima

“The precise metaphysical procedures by which a book goes about writing another book need not concern us here. Suffice to say that our human scribes remain entirely ignorant of their possession by bibliographic forces; the agent in question never doubts that his authorship is authentic.”
― James K. Morrow, The Last Witchfinder

“I am not ranting. I possess a perspective here that you people, who are locked in the ivory basements of your own sub-cultures, simply do not possess.”
― Bruce Sterling, Distraction

“Writing is a matter of finding the appropriate balance of dinosaurs and sodomy.”
― Michael Swanwick

“The only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the society’s values, can force it to change.”
― Samuel R. Delany, Empire Star

“I was a young black man, light-skinned enough so that four out of five people who met me, of whatever race, assumed I was white.... I was a homosexual who now knew he could function heterosexually.

And I was a young writer whose early attempts had already gotten him a handful of prizes....

So, I thought, you are neither black nor white.

You are neither male nor female.

And you are that most ambiguous of citizens, the writer.

There was something at once very satisfying and very sad, placing myself at this pivotal suspension. It seemed, in the park at dawn, a kind of revelation--a kind of center, formed of a play of ambiguities, from which I might move in any direction. ”
― Samuel R. Delany, The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village

“No one goes around suggesting that everyone should become their own autonomous cheesemakers and cheering the death of the cheese industry. Why? Because that would result in a lot of shitty cheese.”
― Patrick Nielsen Hayden

“Isn't it amazing how we always have to put our mark on things? And how, from the natural world, we find evidence over and over again that reminds us, not so much of the birds, but of our own stories and our own kinds of art?”
― Rosamond Purcell

“It is a cliche that human beings are fascinated by size--mountain peaks, high buildings, and whales. We are also amazed by miniatures--a flea on a mouse, a flea on a trapeze, the Last Supper carved on the head of a pin.”
― Rosamond Purcell

“How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!”
― Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.”
― Walter Benjamin

“The distracted person, too, can form habits.”
― Walter Benjamin

“I am a cage, in search of a bird.”
― Franz Kafka

“Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction — you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction

“The problem isn't to learn to love humanity, but to learn to love those members of it who happen to be at hand.”
― Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren

“In a very real way, one writes a story to find out what happens in it. Before it is written it sits in the mind like a piece of overheard gossip or a bit of intriguing tattle. The story process is like taking up such a piece of gossip, hunting down the people actually involved, questioning them, finding out what really occurred, and visiting pertinent locations. As with gossip, you can't be too surprised if important things turn up that were left out of the first-heard version entirely; or if points initially made much of turn out to have been distorted, or simply not to have happened at all.”
― Samuel R. Delany, Jewel Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction

“they were nice in a useless sort of way, which is, after all, the only way to be truly nice.”
― Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren

“Let us work without reasoning,' said Martin; 'it is the only way to make life endurable.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
― Anne Frank, Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex: A Collection of Her Short Stories, Fables, and Lesser-Known Writings

“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”
― James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion

“It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately.”
― A.A. Milne

“If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.”
― Philip K. Dick

“There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.”
― Philip K. Dick

“If you would know who controls you see who you may not criticise.”
― Tacitus

“My paranoia wasn't always right, but just to be on the safe side, I never went to sleep with a clown in the room.”
― Mark Henwick, Hidden Trump

“There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.”
― Toni Morrison