Matt Hilliard

“Every man fights backward—to kill others. Yet his victory comes not in the killing of others but in the killing of certain parts of himself."

To show that I understood him, I said, "You must have killed all the worst parts of your own being.”
― Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor

“So attached to [their lost city of Pajarocu] were and are they that they have refused to duplicate it here on any lesser scale, although duplicating it on its original scale is still far beyond their reach. What they have done instead is to duplicate its plan to perfection—without duplicating, or attempting to duplicate, its substance at all.

There are “streets” paved with grass and fern between “buildings” and “manteions” that are no more than clearings in the forest marked in ways that are, to our eyes, almost undetectable. When the adult citizens we sought to question were willing to talk to us, they talked of gateways, walls and statues that did not in fact exist— or at least, that did not exist here on Blue—and described them in as much detail as if they loomed before us, together with colossal images of Hierax, Tartaros, and the rest, called by outlandish sobriquets and the objects of strange, cruel veneration.

But when the streets are too badly fouled or the river rises, this phantom Pajarocu goes elsewhere, which I think an excellent idea. Our own Viron was built on the southern shore of Lake Limna; when the lake retreated, our people clung to the shiprock buildings that Pas had provided when they ought to have clung to the idea that he had provided instead, the idea of a city by the lake. Many (although certainly not all) of Viron’s troubles may ultimately have been due to this single mistaken choice.

Listen to me, Horn and Hide. Listen all you phantom readers. Buildings are temporary, ideas permanent.”
― Gene Wolfe, On Blue's Waters

“You have bettered yourself," he said, making such a low bow that the tassel of his cap swept the carpet. "You may recall I invariably affirmed you would. Honesty, integrity, and intelligence cannot be kept down."
"We both know that nothing is easier to keep down," I said. "By my old guild, they were kept down every day.”
― Gene Wolfe, The Citadel of the Autarch

“By the same argument, the life must reside in each joint of every finger, and surely that is impossible."

"How big is a man's life?" asked Ultan.

"I have no way of knowing, but isn't it larger than that?"

"You see it from the beginning, and anticipate much. I, recollecting it from its termination, know how little there has been.”
― Gene Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer