Michael Swanwick > Quotes

“Writing is a matter of finding the appropriate balance of dinosaurs and sodomy.”
― Michael Swanwick

“Perfection is death,' Anastasia said. 'The world is imperfect, but if it weren't, who would love it?”
― Michael Swanwick

“The bureaucrat fell from the sky.”
― Michael Swanwick, Stations of the Tide

“My colleague and I are journalists. ... Not of the muckraking variety, I hasten to assure you! Corruption is a necessary and time-honored concomitant of any functioning government, which we support wholeheartedly.”
― Michael Swanwick, Rogues

“You start by reading books, and you end by loving them”
― Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter

“Silence. Then, “What does. This. Sound like?”

“What does what sound like?”

“Io is a sulfur-rich, iron-cored moon in a circular orbit around Jupiter. What does this. Sound like? Tidal forces from Jupiter and Ganymede pull and squeeze Io sufficiently to melt Tartarus, its sub-surface sulfur ocean. Tartarus vents its excess energy with sulfur and sulfur dioxide volcanoes. What does. This sound like? Io’s metallic core generates a magnetic field that punches a hole in Jupiter’s magnetosphere, and also creates a high-energy ion flux tube connecting its own poles with the north and south poles of Jupiter. What. Does this sound like? Io sweeps up and absorbs all the electrons in the million-volt range. Its volcanoes pump out sulfur dioxide; its magnetic field breaks down a percentage of that into sulfur and oxygen ions; and these ions are pumped into the hole punched in the magnetosphere, creating a rotating field commonly called the Io torus. What does this sound like? Torus. Flux tube. Magnetosphere. Volcanoes. Sulfur ions. Molten ocean. Tidal heating. Circular orbit. What does this sound like?”

Against her will, Martha had found herself first listening, then intrigued, and finally involved. It was like a riddle or a word-puzzle. There was a right answer to the question. Burton or Hols would have gotten it immediately. Martha had to think it through.

There was the faint hum of the radio’s carrier beam. A patient, waiting noise.

At last, she cautiously said, “It sounds like a machine.”
― Michael Swanwick, Tales of Old Earth

“Art should be beautiful, not ugly. It should be uplifting and redemptive. Art reassures us that life is good and that, however bad things may look at the moment, everything works out for the best in the end.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“So that, logically, in the brief time allotted to us, we should be as kind to one another as is humanly possible and face the harsh facts of reality without fear or flinching.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“This book is dedicated to all good teachers everywhere, most particularly those of the William Levering School and Central High School in Philadelphia, to whom more is owed than can ever be repaid.”
― Michael Swanwick, Bones of the Earth

“The body, you know, is ninety percent water, and there are those who will tell you that life is only a device which water employs to move itself about.”
― Michael Swanwick, The Dragons of Babel

“The privacy laws are paramount. They come before even common sense...”
― Michael Swanwick

“The mechanism thus created periodically acts out post-modern notions of cosmology and then deconstructs itself. It has met with great admiration and no little puzzlement.”
― Michael Swanwick, A Geography of Unknown Lands

“A hippogriff flew past, trailing laughter. It came so close to Will that he could smell its scent, a pungent mixture of horse sweat and milky pin-feathers, and feel the wind from its wings. Its rider’s hair streamed out behind her like a red banner. Will stared up at her, awestruck. The young woman in the saddle was all grace and athleticism. She wore green slacks with matching soft leather boots and, above a golden swatch of abdomen, a halter top of the same green color. She was glorious. The rider glanced casually down and to the side and saw Will gawking. She drew back on the reins so that her beast reared up and for an instant seemed to stall in midair. Then she took the reins between her teeth and with one hand yanked down her halter top, exposing her breasts. With the other hand, she flipped him the finger. Then, jeering, she seized the reins again, pulled up her top, and was gone. Will could not breathe. It was as if this stranger had taken a two-by-four to his heart. All in an instant, he was hers.”
― Michael Swanwick, The Dragons of Babel

“Silent, unseen, small cousin of death,
Born this instant, closer than breath,
Killer of thought, assassin of dreams,
Memory's surgeon, the end of your schemes.”
― Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter

“Relationships between things shift and change constantly; there is not such thing as objective truth.”
― Michael Swanwick, Stations of the Tide

“The Spider Hero lived his life by this maxim: He who possesses great power is burdened also with great responsibility. —”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“Everybody needs a servant, excellent sir, whether they know it or not.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“Surely you’ll agree that the planets order and control our destinies?” “They do not.” “Not at all?” “No.” “Then what does? Control our destinies, I mean.” “The only external forces that have any influence on us are those we can see every day: the smile, the frown, the fist, the brick wall. What you call ‘destiny’ is merely a semantic fallacy, the attribution of purpose to blind causality. Insofar as any of us are compelled to resist the flow of random events, we are driven solely by internal drives and forces.”
― Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter

“It almost sounds sensible when you say it," Prince First-Born Splendor said. "Even though I know better.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“All prayers were dangerous. Either they were answered or they were not, and there was no telling which outcome would produce the greater regret. But they were necessary as well, for they suggested a way out of the unendurable present.”
― Michael Swanwick, The Dragons of Babel

“So she asked, “If you’re a machine, then what is your function? Why were you made?”

“To know you. To love you. And to serve you.”
― Michael Swanwick, Tales of Old Earth

“I forget if it was the Mathematician of Alexandria who said that geometry is beauty laid bare or the Father of Relativity who made the claim for physics,” Darger said. “She is, in either case, ravishing.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“A few words before we attack,” Surplus said. “I know that I can trust you all to be terrifying...”
“Yasss!” his mountain horse said.
“Be quiet, Buttercup. However, please remember to only knock down things that are not difficult to repair – porches are fine; pottery is not.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“But there was only so much temptation a man could resist without losing all respect for himself.”
― Michael Swanwick

“Their business here was over then, and they all knew it; the magic moment had arrived when it was understood that nothing more would be established, discovered, or decided today. But the meeting, having once begun, must drag on for several long more hours before it could be ended. The engines of protocol had enormous inertial mass; once set in motion they took forever to grind to a stop.”
― Michael Swanwick, Stations of the Tide

“There is a logic to the shapes of lives and relationships, and that logic is embedded in the stuff of existence. The lover does not awake one morning convinced he would rather be an engineer. The musician does not abandon her keyboard without regrets. The CEO does not surrender wealth. Or if he does, he will find it easier to give up everything, find a cave in the mountains and become a philosopher than to simply downscale his life-style. You see? We are all of us living stories that on some deep level give us satisfaction. If we are unhappy with our stories, that is not enough to free us from them. We must find other stories that flow naturally from those we have been living.”
― Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter

“and he was young and joyful and in love and his sweetie was here with him, and she loved him, too. All the world was theirs and bright with possibility. So it couldn’t last. Who the fuck cared?”
― Michael Swanwick, The Dragons of Babel

“I once asked Fritz Leiber if it was not possible that Newhon, the world inhabited by his adventurers, was actually a horror venue, disguised by the fact that Fafhrd and Mouser, those most urbane of swordsmen, always escaped the consequences of their actions at the end of each story. To this he responded, “Everything I have ever written is horror.”
― Michael Swanwick, The Postutopian Adventures of Darger and Surplus

“The best thing to be in a city was anonymous. Failing that, however, notoriety would do.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“Lucky for you, you don’t need to worry about love at all. Because you have a wife.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix