Steve Erickson Quotes

“When he placed a candle on the shelf across the room from him and lit its wick, he came to realize that in fact everything he saw was a flat surface, like a screen – that in fact dimension was an illusion. Everything was a flat surface and the pinpoints of light, whether from a candle on the shelf or a gaslamp above the street, were punctures in that surface – gashes made by somebody behind the screen. He realized then that beyond everything he saw there was an entire realm of blazing sunfire, and that colors were only the silhouettes of people in that realm – walking, eating, dancing, doing whatever they were doing behind the screen. “It astonished Adolphe that everyone failed to realize they were just figures on a tapestry, the shadows of something else. He was therefore amused by the conceit of women, for instance, who who admired the creamy color of their skin when in fact it was only the haze of some other woman behind the vast screen staring into a mirror. Adolphe could explain all of this to himself but he could not explain Janine: Janine wasn't the same as the others. Janine was like their mother; and Adolphe decided Lulu was from this place beyond the surface, and she had, perhaps when she was a little girl, slipped through. “Adolphe wondered why Lulu hadn't told them about this, and then realized she probably would when she thought they were old enough to understand it. He could see it wasn't something one would want to tell a child too soon.”

“The truth is, natural organisms have managed to do everything we want to do without guzzling fossil fuels, polluting the planet or mortgaging the future.”

“For businesses, biomimicry is about bringing a new discipline - biology - to the design table. It's not to write an environmental impact statement, as most biologists in business do right now.”

“When I got home from hospital, and I was in a wheelchair in a plaster body cast, an aeroplane flew over. And I thought to myself, 'Well, if I can't walk, then I might as well fly.' And I was lifted into the aeroplane for the first time. And when I took the controls of the aeroplane, I knew this was something I could do. I thought, 'I can fly.'”

“My desire is to stand up and brush myself off when I make mistakes and ask for forgiveness.”

“Biomimicry is basically taking a design challenge and then finding an ecosystem that's already solved that challenge, and literally trying to emulate what you learn.”

“Biologically inspired materials could revolutionize materials science. People looking at spider silk and abalone shells are looking for new ways to make materials better, cheaper, and with less toxic byproducts.”

“Without moral values, which should begin in Congress, America will lose her roots, her basis, her thesis.”

“Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination”

“There is a romantic, often misguided, misconception among the British that life in France is akin to life in Paradise.”