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 More Quotes by Dan Simmons More Quotes From Dan Simmons It occurs to me that our survival may depend upon our talking to one another. Dan Simmons survival may talking There is no doubt that I have discovered the ultimate in stagnant human societies. The Bikura have realized the human dream of immortality and have paid for it with their humanity and their immortal souls. Dan Simmons soul humanity dream 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 cancer roles order The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing. Dan Simmons summer dream spring Love was as hardwired into the structure of the universe as gravity and matter. Dan Simmons structure matter love Poets are the mad midwives to reality. They see not what is, nor what can be, but what must become. Dan Simmons mad poet reality We are all eaters of souls. Dan Simmons soul In twentieth-century Old Earth, a fast food chain took dead cow meat, fried it in grease, added carcinogens, wrapped it in petroleum-based foam, and sold nine hundred billion units. Human beings. Go figure. Dan Simmons foam grease meat A token of ecological awareness in a society devoted to self destruction and waste but unwilling to acknowledge its indulgent ways. Dan Simmons waste self way The shortest route to courage is absolute ignorance. Dan Simmons routes absolutes ignorance To see and feel one's beloved naked for the first time is one of life's pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow. To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes. Dan Simmons pain mistake sex Pain is an interesting and off-putting thing. Few if any things in life concentrate our attention so completely and terribly, and few things are more boring to listen to or read about. Dan Simmons things-in-life pain interesting In such seconds of decision entire futures are made. Dan Simmons seconds decision made 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 faith law sea It's one of the strangest attributes of this profession that when we writers get exhausted writing one thing, we relax by writing another. Dan Simmons exhausted relax writing The love of violence is an aspect of our humanity. Even the weak wish to be strong primarily so they can wield the whip. Dan Simmons being-strong humanity wish But I think, and hope, that the novels can be understood and enjoyed as science fiction, on their own terms. Dan Simmons science fiction thinking There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain. Dan Simmons fullness pain knowing Most of us do know we have no immortality. And when you've found a genius, someone who has already purchased his immortality in musical or literary terms, it's maddening. Dan Simmons immortality musical genius The past is dead and buried. But I know now that buried things have a way of rising to the surface when one least expects them to. Dan Simmons rising way past
