42 Quotes by Ellen Datlow

Never throw up on an editor.

She understands why people hate her, now. By existing, she reminds them of their smallness. By being different, she forces them to redefine “enemy.” By doing her best for herself, she challenges them to become worthy of their own potential.

This story is about the eschatology of shadow puppets.

Deduction was for the highbrows in top hats and great coats; I performed my detecting with a boot and a six-gun.

Sometimes God needs a sacrifice. Sometimes the road is complicit. No life is sacrosanct.

I subscribe to the tea-kettle theory of art,” she’d responded. “Open the valve and the energy escapes.

You know how in our brains, behind all the recent flashy developments that gave us stuff like emotions and aesthetics and cosmic awareness, there’s this lizard brain. It’s what makes the heart beat and what stays alert to odd noises and sudden movements in the dark while we sleep. Don’t wonder where the dinosaurs went, there’s a bit of one inside each of us.

I clung to the misty margin and watched the grasslands through much of the day, noting the way the light shifted and phantom sprites sometimes moved through the air above the rippling strands, auroral presences like the vaporous dreams of things hidden below the soil.

I hated and loved him in turns, as witches will do, for our hearts are strange and inexplicable.