Gene Wolfe
American science fiction and fantasy writer.
The slight criticism of evolution I offer should not be taken as evidence that I do not believe in evolution; I do. Let's not blame God for everything. I also believe in Lamarckism, as it was put forward by Lamarck. (The Lamarckism presented in standard textbooks is actually Lysenkoism, a straw man set up by the opponents of Lamarckism, palpably false and easily disproved.) There is no paradox in that: Lamarckism and Darwinism are not mutually exclusive, except politically.
Men build scales, but the gods blow upon the lighter pan.
Evolution teaches us the original purpose of language was to ritualize men's threats and curses, his spells to compel the gods; communication came later.
The gods smile on us, my son, or so it is written. It's a wonder they don't laugh aloud.
An exaggerated and solemn respect always indicates a loss of faith.
It will come as no surprise to those of you in the book trade when I say that although books do not cause cancer, books in general do not sell as well as cigarettes.
The only actors who can really do justice to their parts are the ones who don't know what they are.
I have never in my whole life had a fight with a smart person or even seen anybody else have one either. That is because then the fight starts the smart people are not there anymore. They have gone off someplace else, and when it is over they come back and tell you how much they did in the fight, only it is all lies.
No man has a home unless he is master of a place where he must please no one—a place where he can go and lock the door behind him.
We may be damned at last, by God or our consciences; and though I've met a good many people who profess to credit no God, I've never met one who believed he had no conscience—this though he could no more produce it for my inspection than I could point out the God he demanded to see.
Here in two flat sentences are the best things I can say about our field on American television: Dr. Who is sometimes aired. Sometimes Battlestar Galactica is not.
As you intend to live hereafter, it is in your power to live here.
The jokes of the gods are long in the telling.
The true dawn of adulthood, of intellectual maturity, if you like, is the realization that adults are all fools.
There is no human quality more attractive than the courage of the weak.