“... primitive times had required primitive obedience, that later generations evolved to the point where parents offered themselves as sacrifice - as in the dark knights of the ovens which pocked old earth history - and that current generations had to deny any command for sacrifice. Sol had written that whatever God now took in human consciousness - whether as a mere manifestation of the subconscious in all its revanchist needs or as a more conscious attempt at philosophical and ethical evolution - humankind could no longer agree to offer up sacrifice in God's name. Sacrifice and the agreement to sacrifice had written human history in blood.”
Dan Simmons“Writing, I'm convinced, should be a subversive activity - frowned on by the authorities - and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher.”
Dan Simmons“I loved almost everything about being a teacher, but I was an unusual teacher.”
Dan Simmons“So many important things pass quickly without being understood at the time. So many powerful moments are buried beneath the absurd”
Dan Simmons“As Ummon and the other Masters teach, it explains why the giraffe evolved a long neck but never why the other animals did not. It explains why humankind evolved to intelligence, but not why the tree near the front gate refused to.”
Dan Simmons“Who are you, Hockenberry, to thwart Fate and defy the Will of the Gods?I am me, Thomas Hockenberry. I am fed up with these power-addled thugs who call themselves gods.”
Dan Simmons“I loved you backward and forward in time. I loved you beyond boundaries of time and space.”
Dan Simmons, Endymion“... a comment with the idle arrogance common of such nobodies who have just come into a small bit of power.”
Dan Simmons, Hyperion