Nancy Kress > Quotes

“…Boredom [is] a moral failing, the mark of a mind insufficiently stocked to occupy itself.”
― Nancy Kress, Probability Moon

“You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion.”
― Nancy Kress, Steal Across the Sky

“You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader.”
― Nancy Kress, Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints

“Miri once told me that there were only four important ques­tions you could ask about any human being: How does he fill up his time? How does he feel about how he fills up his time? What does he love? How does he react to those he perceives as either inferior or superior to him?

If you make people feel inferior, even unintentionally," she had said, her dark eyes intense, "they will be uncomfortable around you. In that situation, some people will attack. Some will ridicule, to 'cut you down to size.' But some will admire, and learn from you. If you make people feel superior, some will react by dis­missing you. Some by wielding power — just because they can — in greater or lesser ways. But some will be moved to protect and help. All this is just as true of a junior lodge clique as of a group of governments.”
― Nancy Kress, Beggars and Choosers

“Things got said, the kinds of embarrassing things that don't go away. Tempers ran high. My paternal grandfather's teak desk required a new panel, which never quite matched the others. Intellectual debate can be very hard on furniture.”
― Nancy Kress, Beggars and Choosers

“Anything said in upper-crust British automatically sounded intelligent.”
― Nancy Kress, Yesterday's Kin

“Trust in God was a great excuse for sloth and lack of planning.”
― Nancy Kress, Nothing Human

“The strings in her mind grew flatter, calmer. The shapes in the hologrid had changed. She heard the man's words, and yet she didn't; the words were not what was really important. And wasn't that right? Words had never been important, only strings, and the strings had shapes like - but not like -the ones around the man. Only the man had disappeared, too, and that was alright, because she, Miri, Miranda Serena Sharifi, was disappearing, was sliding down a steep long chute and each meter she traveled she became smaller and smaller until she had disappeared and was invisible, a weightless transparent ghost that neither twitched nor stammered, in the corner of a room she had never seen before.”
― Nancy Kress

“Throw enough scientific gibberish at non-scientists and they always faltered.”
― Nancy Kress, Probability Space

“Where did the bonds of maternity end? All children grew up, changed, became somebody else. Parents who trembled that they might lose a gap-toothed toddler to some terrible accident ended up losing him anyway, always, to time. The toddlers died, after all, and what was left was a bond with another adult, who had once been the beloved child.”
― Nancy Kress, Brain Rose

“A good end cannot sanctify evil means, nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it.”
― Nancy Kress, Crucible

“We writers want readers to love our books. Greedy people that we are, we mean all readers. But in our more rational moments, we know that there is no book written that every reader enjoys. This is because people read for different reasons. Some readers want fast-paced excitement—and will put down a slower-paced book that examines the same reality as their own lives. Others want thoughtful insights into reality—and will put down fantasies of nonstop adventure. Some want to read about people they can identify with, some about characters they will never meet. Some seek clear, straightforward storytelling, and some cherish style: the unexpected phrase in exactly the right place. Some want affirmations of values they already hold, and some hope to be challenged, even disturbed. It’s”
― Nancy Kress, Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints

“grandiose paranoid schizophrenia.”
― Nancy Kress, Probability Moon

“Religions—most of them, anyway—had promoted self-effacement, sacrifice, restraint.”
― Nancy Kress, Probability Moon

“World-wide warming moved tropical diseases into northern areas which had no defenses against them.”
― Nancy Kress, Crucible

“But children disappeared all the time,”
― Nancy Kress, After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall

“No races, few permitted variant alleles. Anything else arouses hostility,”
― Nancy Kress, Probability Sun

“No social movement has ever progressed without emphasizing division, and doing that means stirring up hate.”
― Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain

“The CEO of Monsanto had been disemboweled alive.”
― Nancy Kress, Nothing Human

“You must not let them bother you, Leisha,” he said in his wonderful accent. “Not ever. There is an old Asian proverb: ‘The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.’ You must never let your individual caravan be slowed by the barking of rude or envious dogs.”
― Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain

“...neither of them has yet learned to accept hard necessity without making it worse by regret. That's a vital lesson, Miri. Regret is not productive. Nor is guilt, nor grief.”
― Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain

“The incubation period is incredibly short. Ninety-six percent of humans died within a few weeks.”
― Nancy Kress, Terran Tomorrow

“You’d have made a good Ranger,” Leo said in English.”
― Nancy Kress, If Tomorrow Comes

“but it does have a P gene that can produce multiple proteins not needed for replication.”
― Nancy Kress, Terran Tomorrow

“strange attractor—do”
― Nancy Kress, Probability Sun

“auditory cortex,”
― Nancy Kress, Tomorrow's Kin

“But you have no religious faith." Richard had said, smiling, "you're not even a believer." Jennifer hadn't tried to explain to him that religious belief was not the point. The will to believe created its own power, its own faith, and, ultimately, its own will. Through the practice of faith, whatever its specific rituals, one brought into existence the object of that faith. The believer became the Creator.”
― Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain

“this kind of story intrinsically satisfying.”
― Nancy Kress, Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints

“Nothing added to romance like felony charges.”
― Nancy Kress, Future Perfect: Six Stories of Genetic Engineering

“To Kenzo Yagai she said, Trade isn’t always linear. You missed that. If Stewart gives me something, and I give Stella something, and ten years from now Stella is a different person because of that and gives something to someone else as yet unknown—it’s an ecology. An ecology of trade, yes, each niche needed, even if they’re not contractually bound. Does a horse need a fish? Yes.

To Tony she said, Yes, there are beggars in Spain who trade nothing, give nothing, do nothing. But there are more than beggars in Spain. Withdraw from the beggars, you withdraw from the whole damn country. And you withdraw from the possibility of the ecology of help. That’s what Alice wanted, all those years ago in her bedroom. Pregnant, scared, angry, jealous, she wanted to help me, and I wouldn’t let her because I didn’t need it. But I do now. And she did then. Beggars need to help as well as be helped.”
― Nancy Kress