We came, Takver thought, from a great distance to each other. We have always done so. Over great distances, over years, over abysses of chance. It is because he comes from so far away that nothing can...
Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, w...
They praised his modesty and did not listen to him, for listening is a rare gift, and men will have their heroes.
There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty.
The trouble is, women have to be absolutely first class to get where third-class men get.
The traitor, the self; the self that cries I want to live; let the world burn so long as I can live!
The heavy black she had worn for years was gone; her dress was of turquoise-colored silk, bright and soft as the evening sky. It belled out full from her hips, and all the skirt was embroidered with t...
The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusation of?
The airport bookstore did not sell books, only bestsellers, which Sita Dulip cannot read without risking a severe systemic reaction.
Since he was very young he had known that in certain ways he was unlike anyone else he knew. For a child the consciousness of such difference is very painful, since, having done nothing yet and being...
She didn't even ask me if I was going to go on flying. She knew I would. I don't understand the people who have wings and don't use them. I suppose they're interested in having a career. Maybe they we...
Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.
Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying. The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be...
People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.
Page 15, paperback version by Virago Press 1997: ... Let me ask you this, Mr Ai: do you know, by your own experience, what patriotism is? ‘No’, I said, shaken by the force of the intese personality su...
Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky. —The Creation of Éa
No sirve de nada tener una respuesta cuando la pregunta está equivocada.
No entendían que uno tiene que ponerse del lado de los ganadores, o perder. Y es el hombre el que gana, siempre. El viejo conquistador.
Man's singularity is his divinity.
Like all walls it was ambiguous, two faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side you were on.