Greg Bear > Quotes

“Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings — stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.”
― Greg Bear

“Conservatism is not about tradition and morality, hasn't been for many decades... It is about the putative biological and spiritual superiority of the wealthy.”
― Greg Bear

“Welcome to the truth of our world-a massive seed shot out to the stars, filled with deadly children. A seed designed to slay everything it touches.”
― Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three

“When all hopes are lost, only then does reality acquire that sharp focus that defines who we are and what we have become.”
― Greg Bear, Halo: Primordium

“Mother Nature is a bitch.”
― Greg Bear, Darwin's Children

“I will learn by screwing up.”
― Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three

“We've been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that's why. Planetisms that don't know enough to keep quiet, get eaten.”
― Greg Bear, The Forge of God

“Dogs could mellow a wild boy, or open up a shy one.”
― Greg Bear, The Forge of God

“Thought moves like a dissociation of leaves across a lawn in a breeze.”
― Greg Bear, Blood Music

“To see the awful things is to see life as it really is. It makes you sharper, stronger, superior. You can stand it when others cannot.”
― Greg Bear, Quantico

“But to fight something, you really have to try to understand its motivations—particularly when the something you’re fighting holds most of the cards, the deck is stacked against you, and the whole gambling hall is on fire and filled with thugs.”
― Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three

“They’re trying to understand what space is. That’s tough for them. They break distances down into concentrations of chemicals. For them, space is a range of taste intensities.”
― Greg Bear, Blood Music

“The fox speaks with the hurricane and says, “I need to travel far and fast. Can you take me?” The hurricane regards the puny fox with its huge, calm eye and asks, “What can you do for me?” “Why, I will let you whisper your dreams to me.” “But I must kill whatever I carry. You are a living thing and do not wish to die.” “If you do not kill me, I will listen to your inmost self, and tell all the animals, that they may feel sympathy for you.” “What do I care for sympathy? I am all-powerful.” “Yes, but someday, your winds will die, and my kits will tell this tale even when you are gone, of the time great-great-great-grandfather fox was carried by the winds and lived and learned their secrets.” “But then they will not be afraid of me, and what good am I if I do not inspire fear?” “Oh, no living thing could ever be so strong they would not fear you. I give you something more. I give you a voice throughout time that is more than a wordless bellow of rage.”
― Greg Bear, Anvil of Stars

“All it takes to get elected in twenty-first-century America is a mob of frightened sheep and a wolf with a nice smile,”
― Greg Bear, Darwin's Children

“You are what you leave behind.”
― Greg Bear, City at the End of Time

“Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten. It was in the blood, the flesh. And now, it is forever.”
― Greg Bear, Blood Music

“Didn’t anyone who changed things ultimately lead some people—perhaps many people—to death, grief, torment?”
― Greg Bear, Blood Music

“Maybe that’s what your machine calls infection—all the new information in my blood. Chatter. Tastes of other individuals. Peers. Superiors. Subordinates.”
― Greg Bear, Blood Music

“You seem to like helping, taking care of people," he said. "That is admirable."

"You enjoy being nurtured?"

"Well, that isn’t all you promise. When you touch me, I feel a fire at my center. You want me to grow and find my true story, my purpose. You seem to want to be there when I see new things. You want to share and enjoy my discoveries.”
― Greg Bear, City at the End of Time

“We fought and argued and loved and learned through the long, cold voyage. We chose teams, disbanded, re-formed, chose again, and now the fit is perfection within diversity.”
― Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three

“Equal in law is not equal in nature.”
― Greg Bear, Moving Mars

“Robert’s problem was familiar to Aquinas. He called it ignorantia affectata, cultivated ignorance.”
― Greg Bear, Darwin's Children

“We hope for sympathy in a violent, damning, world, all that we’ve known and experienced in real life—as opposed to phantom memory. We long for confirmation and completion and justification—and we also long to survive and learn that our reckless existence has meaning.”
― Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three

“The asteroid was longer on the inside than it was on the outside. The seventh chamber went on forever.”
― Greg Bear, Eon

“There once was an infant lost in the woods, crying its heart out, wondering why no one answered, drawing down the wolves”
― Greg Bear, The Forge of God

“From horizon to horizon the sky was filled with stars to within a few degrees of a fresh sliver of moon, a tiny thing lost in the yawn of night.”
― Greg Bear, The Forge of God

“Nature is a bitch goddess.”
― Greg Bear, Darwin's Children

“The child, ravaged by wolves, falls quiet in the forest, and the long darkness is filled with an undisturbed silence.”
― Greg Bear, The Forge of God

“In the society of would-be-gods, a humble man is always polite.”
― Greg Bear, City at the End of Time

“pellucid.”
― Greg Bear, Eon