David Zindell
American science fiction and fantasy author with a degree in mathematics.
Oh, where does the light go when the light goes out? (p88)
For us humanity was a distant goal toward which all men were moving, whose image no one knew, whose laws were nowhere written down.
Truth, like a woman, must be wooed and won - and this only through the purity of mind and the heart’s deep love.
"All living things are afraid to die."
"No, you're exactly wrong, the only truly alive beings are those unafraid to die."
The belly is the reason that man does not easily mistake himself for a god.
Life moved ever outward into infinite possibilities and yet all things were perfect and finished in every single moment, their end attained.
The true human being ... is the meaning of the universe. He is a dancing star. He is the exploding singularity pregnant with infinite possibilities.
For it is only in accepting death that one can truly live, and for the human animal, death has always been the great black beast from the abyss to be dreaded or defeated or avoided or hated - but never looked upon clearly face to face.
Eternity and pain, pain and eternity — they are the only two things of which the universe is made.
"What is a human being, then?" ...
"A seed."
"A … seed?"
"An acorn that is unafraid to destroy itself in growing into a tree."
This was the true nature of consciousness and the meaning of matter, that ultimately both were one substance without cause or control outside itself.
The memory of all things is in all things, Danlo remembered. Nothing is ever truly lost.
"The true Elder Eddas," he said "are universal memories. The One memory is just the memory of the universe itself. The way the universe evolves in conscioiusness of itself and causes itself to be. We are just this blessed consciousness, nothing more, nothing less. We are the light inside light that fuses into the atoms of our bodies; we are the fire that whirls across the stellar deeps and dances all things into being."
"Now you are speaking mystically again, Little Fellow."
"About some things there is no other way to speak."
To be what you want to be: isn't this the essence of being human?
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
What's beautiful is that a creator can be astonished by his own creations.
The elite of the universal religions have always substituted belief in the Infinite for the experience of it. We all need God — but only in small and measured doses. Who can look upon the burning bush and not be destroyed in its flames? Who can bear the heaven and hell of each moment blazing in time? Who can shine like a star? And so, for all but a few of the manswarm, the rare ones who are truly human, it is better to glimpse such a miracle through a dark glass or to grasp it through words only.
All men are warriors. And life for everything in our universe is nothing but war.
In time, the heart of each religion grows hard and dies. And so seekers of the godly will always turn to new prophets and new ways, never realizing that, ultimately, all religions separate man from God.
Do you want to know the secret of life? Bardo will tell you the secret of life: it's not the amount of time we have, despite what I've just said. No it's not quantity and it's not even quality. It's variety.
But it is the nature of life that no emotion is meant to last forever...