“Sol wanted to know how any ethical system – much less a religion so indomitable that it had survived every evil mankind could throw at it – could flow from a command from God for a man to slaughter his son. It did not matter to Sol that the command had been rescinded at the last moment. It did not matter that the command was a test of obedience. In fact, the idea that it was the obedience of Abraham which allowed him to become the father of all the tribes of Israel was precisely what drove Sol into fits of fury.”
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