Robert Silverberg Quotes

• It was like that all the time, in those years: an endless trip, a gaudy voyage. But powers decay. Time leaches the colors from the best of visions. The world becomes grayer. Entropy beats us down. Everything fades. Everything goes. Everything dies.

  Robert Silverberg

  Color, Years, Vision

  Robert Silverberg (2009). “Dying Inside”, p.116, Macmillan

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• Never pass by a chance to shut up.

  Robert Silverberg

  Chance, Shut Up

  "The Emperor and the Maula". Short story by Robert Silverberg, 2007.

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• There are true unseen forces, but not nearly so many as we believe, nor would they rule us so sternly if we did not admit them to our souls. We would not be assailed half so often by devils, had we not taken the trouble to invent so many of them.

  Robert Silverberg

  Believe, Taken, Soul

  Robert Silverberg (1984). “Lord of Darkness”, Bantam

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• Three Rules for Literary Success: 1. Read a lot.
  2. Write a lot. 3. Read a lot more, write a lot more.

  Robert Silverberg

  Writing, Three

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• Ignorance can't be pardoned. Only cured.

  Robert Silverberg

  Ignorance

  Robert Silverberg (2011). “Up the Line”, p.11, Hachette UK

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• Men of great spirit are at high risk at a time when small souls rule the world.

  Robert Silverberg

  Men, Soul, Risk

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• Utopias are boring. Distopias on the other hand, are interesting.

  Robert Silverberg

  Hands, Interesting, Boring

  FaceBook post by Robert Silverberg from May 16, 2014

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• I hate no one, sir. It seems a waste of emotional energy.

  Robert Silverberg

  Hate, Emotional, Energy

  "The Emperor and the Maula". Short story by Robert Silverberg, 2007.

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• We are born by accident into a purely random universe.

  Robert Silverberg

  Born, Accidents, Universe

  Robert Silverberg (2014). “The Stochastic Man”, p.4, Open Road Media

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• Thus does the unyielding, inescapable future ineluctably devour the present.

  Robert Silverberg

  Doe, Unyielding

  Robert Silverberg (2014). “The Stochastic Man”, p.70, Open Road Media

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• When you know that something is dying inside you, you learn not to put much trust in the random vitalities of the fleeting moment.

  Robert Silverberg

  Dying, Vitality, Fleeting

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• Unacceptable, maybe. But not unthinkable. Nothing's unthinkable once somebody's thought it.

  Robert Silverberg

  Unthinkable

  Robert Silverberg (2004). “Phases of the Moon: Stories of Six Decades”, Subterranean

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• One defining symptom of decadence is a fondness for vast and nonsensical extravagance.

  Robert Silverberg

  Extravagance, Defining, Nonsensical

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• I find the world and all it contains extremely fascinating. Is this sinful?

  Robert Silverberg

  World, Fascinating

  Robert Silverberg (2004). “Phases of the Moon: Stories of Six Decades”, Subterranean

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• To devote oneself to vigilance when the enemy is an imaginary one is idle, and to congratulate oneself for looking long and well for a foe that is not coming is foolish and sinful. My life has been a waste.

  Robert Silverberg

  Long, Enemy, Waste

  Robert Silverberg (2004). “Phases of the Moon: Stories of Six Decades”, Subterranean

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• The denizens of Citizens Service Houses are not, as a rule, gifted with a lot of common sense, but they often make up for that by being extremely argumentative and vindictive.

  Robert Silverberg

  Common Sense, House, Citizens

  Robert Silverberg (2013). “Hot Times in Magma City: The Collected Stories”, p.208, Hachette UK

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• It has been suggested that Tiptree is female, a theory that I find absurd, for there is to me something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree’s writing. I don’t think the novels of Jane Austen could have been written by a man nor the stories of Ernest Hemingway by a woman, and in the same way I believe the author of the James Tiptree stories is male.

  Robert Silverberg

  Believe, Writing, Men

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• Living, we fret. Dying, we live. I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll be of good cheer.

  Robert Silverberg

  Cheer, Mind, Dying

  Robert Silverberg (2009). “Dying Inside”, p.302, Macmillan

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• Aristocrats might shrug, but commoners, dreading any collapse of the social order, wanted the rules of behavior to be observed.

  Robert Silverberg

  Order, Might, Behavior

  "The Emperor and the Maula". Short story by Robert Silverberg, 2007.

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• Who could not return from a visit to Jack Vance's world, without feeling that he had been somewhere unique, that he had experienced things unavailable in our mundane world?

  Robert Silverberg

  Unique, Feelings, World

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• My temperament is not inclined toward more self-promotion than is absolutely necessary for my professional well-being.

  Robert Silverberg

  Self, Promotion, Well Being

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• Having lost our present and our future, we had of necessity to bend all our endeavors to the past, which no one could take from us if only we were vigilant enough.

  Robert Silverberg

  Past, Enough, Lost

  Robert Silverberg (2011). “Nightwings”, p.49, Hachette UK

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• Autobiography. Apparently one should not name the names of those one has been to bed with, or give explicit figures on the amount of money one has earned, those being the two data most eagerly sought by readers; all the rest is legitimate to reveal.

  Robert Silverberg

  Data, Names, Two

  "Hell's Cartographers (Sounding Brass, Tinkling Cymbal)". Book edited by Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison, 1975.

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• Stale is stale and borrowed is borrowed, no matter how original your models may have been.

  Robert Silverberg

  May, Matter, Stale

  "New Dimensions 1". Anthology edited by Robert Silverberg, 1971.

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