Sean Loftin > Sean's Quotes

“Lecter sits in his armchair with a big pad of butcher paper doing calculations. The pages are filled with the symbols both of astrophysics and particle physics. There are repeated efforts with the symbols of string theory. The few mathematicians who could follow him might say his equations begin brilliantly and then decline, doomed by wishful thinking. Dr. Lecter wants time to reverse — no longer should increasing entropy mark the direction of time. He wants increasing order to point the way”.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“That which is imagined can never be lost.”
― Clive Barker, Weave World

“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering.”
― Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Here is a list of terrible things,
The jaws of sharks, a vultures wings
The rabid bite of the dogs of war,
The voice of one who went before,
But most of all the mirror's gaze,
Which counts us out our numbered days.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War

“The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“To call you excrement would be an insult to the product of my bowels.”
― Clive Barker, Mister B. Gone

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.”
― Clive Barker

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“Writing about the unholy is one way of writing about what is sacred. ”
― Clive Barker

“A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing you to grow. Without them, it sleeps- seldom to awaken. The sleeper must awaken. ”
― Frank Herbert

“A man kills the thing he loves, and he must die a little himself.”
― Clive Barker, Imajica

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Nothing else wounds so deeply and irreparably. Nothing else robs us of hope so much as being unloved by one we love”
― Clive Barker

“The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.”
― Frank Herbert

“I dreamt a limitless book,
A book unbound,
Its leaves scattered in fantastic abundance
On every line there was a new horizon drawn,
New heavens supposed;
New states, new souls.”
― Clive Barker

“The future remains uncertain and so it should, for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires. Thus always the human condition faces a beautifully empty canvas. We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.”
― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

“…there’s nothing in the world more fun than doing something you’re good at.”
― Clive Barker, Galilee

“Flesh could not keep its glamour, nor eyes their sheen. They would go to nothing soon. But monsters are forever.”
― Clive Barker

“Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who so survive.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Often people who are wonderful with animals aren't always terribly good with human beings.”
― Clive Barker

“What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking-there’s the real danger.”
― Frank Herbert

“She had opened a door... and now she was walking with demons. And at the end of her travels, she would have her revenge... Pain had made a sadist of her.”
― Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart

“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Three is the number of those who do holy work;

Two is the number of those who do lover's work;

One is the number of those who do perfect evil

Or perfect good.”
― Clive Barker, Abarat

“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Have patience; the lovers will suffer lovers always suffer.”
― Clive Barker, Galilee