235 Quotes by Gene Wolfe

There are men – I have known a good many – who work all their lives for the same Fortune 500 company. They have families to support, and no skills that will permit them to leave and support their families by other means in another place. Their work is of little value, because few, if any, assignments of value come to them. They spend an amazing amount of time trying to find something useful to do. And, failing that, just trying to look busy.

Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real. What is the Autarch but a man who believes himself Autarch and makes others believe by the strength of it?

A youthful American voice isn’t particularly challenging – I’ve been a young American, and they’re all around me. I can walk from my house to Barrington High School.

To be cursed by a god is to be touched by a god. To be touched by any god is to share divinity in some small measure. When the high priest leaves the sanctuary he strips off his clothing and bathes. Did you know that? His clothing is burned.” I.

If they are too quarrelsome to unite against him, and so violent that they’ll willingly pay his taxes to be protected from one another, they have no reason to complain.

All those who teach are hated.

We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized.

The Pancreator is infinitely far from us,” the angel said. “And thus infinitely far from me, through I fly so much higher than you. I guess at his desires – no one can do otherwise.

If you know anything of science, madame, you must know that water is but ice given energy.