Dreamsnake Quotes

“They said everything outside killed, so I thought nothing did.”
― Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake

“Theories aren’t the same when you actually have to start using them.”
― Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake

“The curtains were open to darkness. Arevin had not moved since returning from the observation point, where he had looked down upon the eastern desert and the rolling masses of storm clouds. The killing winds turned sharp-edged sand grains into lethal weapons. In the storm, heavy clothing would not protect Arevin, nor would any amount of courage or desperation. A few moments in the desert would kill him; an hour would strip his bones bare. In the spring no trace of him would be left.”
― Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake

“Her people, like all the other people on earth, were too self-centered, too introspective. Perhaps that was inevitable, for their isolation was well enforced. But as a result the healers has been too shortsighted; by protecting the dreamsnakes, they had kept them from maturing.”
― Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake

“...if he lost consciousness still telling me to do nothing, I'd have to let him die. You say yourself he's rational. I have no right to go against his desires. No matter how stupid and wasteful they are.”
― Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake

“And then Snake saw the craters, stretching away across the desert below her. The earth was covered with green circular basins. Some, lying in the path of the lava flow, had caught and broken its smooth frozen billows. Others were clearer, great holes gouged in the earth, still distinct after so many years of driving sands. The craters were so large, spread over such a distance, that they could only have one source. Nuclear explosions had blasted them. The war was long over, almost forgotten, for it had destroyed everyone who knew or cared about the reason it had happened.”
― Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake

“How can I tell her to be glad she's alive, when she knows she'll never walk on the desert again, or find me a diamond for some patron's earring, never gentle another horse, never make love?"
"I don't know," Smoke said. "But if you and Alex see her life as a tragedy, that's what it will be.”
― Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake