Greg Bear
Science fiction author.
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The price of freedom—of individuality—is attention to politics, careful planning, careful organization; philosophy is no more a barrier against political disaster than it is against plague.
A Stellar’s jay hopped along behind him, watching closely for dropped crumbs. “It’s dark,” he told the bird. “Go to sleep. I've eaten already. Where were you? No food now.” The bird persisted, however; it knew humans were liars.
Life on earth is hard. Competition for the necessities of life is fierce. How ridiculous to believe that the law of harsh survival would not be true elsewhere, or that it would be negated by the progress of technology in an advanced civilization...
“We’d like to agree with you.” He glanced at Arthur.
“We can’t, however,” Arthur said.
“For the moment, then, amicable disagreement and open minds.”
I sometimes think we deserve to die, we’re all so goddamned stupid.
“That’s insane,” Lanier said.
“Not very. It’s politics.”
Apocalypse could not be repealed by the democratic process.
We are born in ignorance, we die in ignorance, but maybe sometimes we learn something important and pass it along to others before we die. Or we write it down in a little book.
Grief is not productive. It simply represents an inefficiency in accepting change of status.
There is nothing finer in the world than the telling of tales. Split atoms if you wish, but splitting an infinitive—and getting away with it—is far nobler. Lance boils if you wish, but pricking pretensions is often cleaner and always more fun.
Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten.
It was in the blood, the flesh,
And now it is forever.
Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount, but I sure as hell don’t understand everything.
“It’s not impossible,” Minelli said.
“No,” Edward admitted, “but it’s paranoid as hell, and that’s the last thing we need, more fear.”
Having one’s eyes opened doesn’t make one grateful.
You deserve whoever governs you ... Everyone is responsible for the actions of their leaders.
The hardest theme in science fiction is that of the alien. The simplest solution of all is in fact quite profound—that the real difficulty lies not in understanding what is alien, but in understanding what is self. We are all aliens to each other, all different and divided. We are even aliens to ourselves at different stages of our lives. Do any of us remember precisely what it was like to be a baby?
Altruism is masked self-interest. Aggressive self-interest is a masked urge to self-destruction.
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