75 Quotes by Sheri S. Tepper

Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.

I have always lived in a world in which I'm just a spot in history. My life is not the important point. I'm just part of the continuum, and that continuum, to me, is a marvelous thing. The history of life, and the history of the planet, should go on and on and on and on. I cannot conceive of anything in the universe that has more meaning than that."[Sheri S. Tepper: Speaking to the Universe, Locus Magazine, September 1998]

- Jeśli jeszcze raz wspomni o Brouerach - powiedziała Marjorie do Rita - to ją uduszę.- Są jej przyjaciółmi - odparł Rico, zerkając na nią z zaciekawieniem. - Najlepszymi przyjaciółmi. Dlaczego ci się to nie podoba?- Nie mówię, że mam coś przeciwko temu. Nie podoba mi się, że stanowią ideał, do którego jestem porównywana. - Wszystkim dzieciakom wydaje się, że inne rodziny są idealne. - Ja nigdy tak nie myślałam.- Owszem, ale ty jesteś dziwna - stwierdził.

[T]he scripture worshippers put the writings ahead of God. Instead of interpreting God's actions in nature, for example, they interpret nature in the light of the Scripture. Nature says the rock is billions of years old, but the book says different, so even though men wrote the book, and God made the rock and God gave us minds that have found ways to tell how old it is, we still choose to believe the Scripture.

I tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, "The Gods say..." They will believe if one says, "I had a Vision..." They will believe if one says, "It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold..." But, if one says, "History teaches," then they will not believe.

Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts.

I will raise up prophets to make conflicting pronouncements that inevitably will be garbled in transcription, resulting in mutually exclusive definitions of orthodoxy from which the open-minded will flee in dismay.

Boys play with death as though it were a game, cutting their teeth on daggers.

We're so old that the winds of age echo along our ribs and pick at our eye sockets. We could be gone tomorrow. A chill, say, or a little slip on the cliff side. I feel as fragile as a dried flower. I rattle a little in the moving air, but I'm only coherent dust-a shape of what once was. My essence is going.