Thought is a disease of the brain. The mind defends itself against the degenerative process of creativity; it begins to jell; notions solidify into inalterable systems.

Sometimes the whole world is mud luscious and puddle wonderful

Creativity is the ability to see relationships where none exist.

The distances between the stars seem brief by contrast to the distances between each of us and his fellows.

For a lot of people, poetry tends to be dull. It's not read much. It takes a special kind of training and a lot of practice to read poetry with pleasure. It's like learning to like asparagus.

Gene Wolfe has produced a work of art that can satisfy adult appetites and in which even the most fantastical elements register as poetry rather than as penny-whistle whimsy.

It considered trying to explain their error to them, but what would be the use? They would only go away with hurt feelings. You can't always expect people, or squirrels, to be rational.

Sameness is what marketers want us to want.

Though opposition is a hopeless task, acquiescence would be worse.

A predilection for genre fiction is symptomatic of a kind of arrested development.

Genius is an infinite capacity for pain.

The vanity of Eve, that desire to exercise power, to seduce, to drag down!

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking things.

There is no such thing as inner peace there is only nervousness and death.

Why did I write? whose sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

For the spread and endurance of an idea the originator is dependent on the self-development of the receivers and transmitters.

The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.

Compared to Clinton, I feel like a loser. I can't even get the intern to make me coffee!

Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error.

We must take situations as they are. We must only change our mental attitudes towards them.

People come and go all the time; the world has always been in movement.