Roger Zelazny Quotes - Page 3

The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool. I have no use for either.

An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time. One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to have a chance of succeeding.

Even the most heartening of philosophical vistas is no match for, say, a toothache, if it happens to be your own.

Did you ever look back at some moment in your past and have it suddenly grow so vivid that all the intervening years seemed brief, dreamlike, impersonal—the motions of a May afternoon surrendered to routine?

I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not--so long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will.

I have decided, it is fruitless. For I am no longer sure of anything concerning my existance. A philosopher is a dead poet and a dying theologian.

Tonight I will suck the marrow from your bones!” it said. “I will dry them and work them most cunningly into instruments of music! Whenever I play upon them, your spirit will writhe in bodiless agony!” “You burn prettily,” I said.

Death is the only limit to the road you travel.

My favorite form is the short story. From an aesthetics stand point you really have to pare down to the bone. You can't write a throw-away scene.

You are a fool to speak of last great battles...for the last great battle is always the next one.

When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.

Go and copulate with yon purple lizard.

It is a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you.

'Fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming.

Sleep is perhaps the only among life's great pleasures which need not be of short duration.

The stars blazed like the love of God, cold and distant.

To waste! You are unknown and unwanted, save by me. This, because you are fairly adept at the various embalming arts and you occasionally compose a clever epitaph.

There are none of you, good doctors, could cope with my family anyway.

I never plan ahead, with the exception of the Amber books which had to proceed in sequence. But I don't really like to know what I'm going to be working on a year in advance. So I just sign blank contracts for books and whatever strikes me as a good idea is what I write about.

Two days like icebergs bleak, blank, half-melting, all frigid, mainly out of sight, and definitely a threat to peace of mind drifted by and were good to put behind.

It is no shame to lose to me, mortal. Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game.

Beware the meek ... for we shall attempt to inherit the Earth.

Death is mighty, and is no one's friend.

I would never rest until I held vengeance and the throne within my hand, and good night sweet prince to anybody who stood between me and these things.

I enjoy slaughtering beasts, and I think of my relatives constantly.