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Geoff Ryman Quotes

In a sense who you are has always been a story that you told to yourself. Now your self is a story that you tell to others.

In a sense who you are has always been a story that you told to yourself. Now your self is a story that you tell to others.

Geoff Ryman
Self, Stories, Who You Are
Geoff Ryman (2013). “Paradise Tales: and Other Stories”, p.225, Small Beer Press

Everything, no matter how beautiful, is only with us for awhile.

Geoff Ryman
Beautiful, Matter

Sex complicates, but it is the power of love to simplify.

Geoff Ryman
Sex, Power Of Love, Simplify
Geoff Ryman (2014). “The Child Garden”, p.64, Hachette UK

This is what books only aimed to do and never could. Give you the glint of someone else's sunrise, what living is really like, you get old and it hurts to bend your elbow; your friends start to die, you can’t get fresh fruit in the shops.

Geoff Ryman
Hurt, Book, Giving
Geoff Ryman (2011). “Paradise Tales”, p.240, Small Beer Press

I'm in the back of a limousine with Charlie Chaplin and it’s 1928. Charlie is beautiful; his body language seems to skip, and reel and rhyme, heartbreaking and witty at the same time. It seems to promise a better world.

Geoff Ryman
Beautiful, Witty, Promise
Geoff Ryman (2013). “Paradise Tales: and Other Stories”, p.167, Small Beer Press

You know, all the evil in the world, all the sadness comes from not having a good answer to that question: What do I do next? You just keep thinking of good things to do, lad. You'll be all right. We'll all be all right. I wanted you to know that.

Geoff Ryman
Sadness, Thinking, Evil
Geoff Ryman (2013). “Paradise Tales: and Other Stories”, p.157, Small Beer Press

Everything goes, everything is lost, eventually. But if something is good, it doesn't matter what happens. The ending is still happy.

Geoff Ryman
Matter, Lost, Stills

Literature for me… tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader.

Geoff Ryman
Jesus, Honesty, Lying

Everything move...you wonder how it all knows where to go. Einstein wondered how birds knew where to migrate to. He thought they might follow lines of light in the sky. He saw everything as lines of light. That's how he was built. So we don't know how he moved, either. Any more than the birds.

Geoff Ryman
Moving, Light, Sky

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