Greg Bear Quotes

• Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings — stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.

  Greg Bear

  Strong, Kings, Warrior

  Greg Bear (2014). “The Serpent Mage”, p.38, Open Road Media

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• All it takes to get elected in twenty-first-century America is a mob of frightened sheep and a wolf with a nice smile.

  Greg Bear

  Nice, Sheep, America

  Greg Bear (2003). “Darwin's Children”, p.125, Del Rey

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• There is no war so important that to win it, we must destroy our minds.

  Greg Bear

  War, Winning, Mind

  Greg Bear (2014). “Women in Deep Time: Stories”, p.96, Open Road Media

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• To fight an enemy properly, you have to know what they are. Ignorance is defeat.

  Greg Bear

  Ignorance, Fighting, Enemy

  Greg Bear (2014). “The Venging: Stories”, p.189, Open Road Media

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• When all hopes are lost, only then does reality acquire that sharp focus that defines who we are and what we have become.

  Greg Bear

  Reality, Focus, Doe

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• The price of freedom—of individuality—is attention to politics, careful planning, careful organization; philosophy is no more a barrier against political disaster than it is against plague.

  Greg Bear

  Philosophy, Organization, Political

  Greg Bear (2016). “Far Thoughts and Pale Gods”, p.56, Open Road Media

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• Having one's eyes opened doesn't make one grateful.

  Greg Bear

  Grateful, Eye

  Greg Bear (2014). “Eon”, p.131, Open Road Media

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• Altruism is masked self-interest. Aggressive self-interest is a masked urge to self-destruction.

  Greg Bear

  Self, Destruction, Aggressive

  Greg Bear (2014). “The Forge of God”, p.246, Open Road Media

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• Conservatism is not about tradition and morality, hasn't been for many decades... It is about the putative biological and spiritual superiority of the wealthy.

  Greg Bear

  Spiritual, Political, Morality

  Greg Bear (2014). “Slant”, p.170, Open Road Media

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• Apocalypse could not be repealed by the democratic process.

  Greg Bear

  Apocalypse, Process, Democratic

  Greg Bear (2014). “The Forge of God”, p.173, Open Road Media

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• Welcome to the truth of our world-a massive seed shot out to the stars, filled with deadly children. A seed designed to slay everything it touches.

  Greg Bear

  Stars, Children, Our World

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• You deserve whoever governs you ... Everyone is responsible for the actions of their leaders.

  Greg Bear

  Leader, Action, Responsible

  Greg Bear (2014). “The Venging: Stories”, p.14, Open Road Media

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• Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten.It was in the blood, the flesh,And now it is forever.

  Greg Bear

  Blood, Forever, Flesh

  Greg Bear (2014). “Blood Music”, p.256, Open Road Media

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• Sometimes the problem outshines the pain.

  Greg Bear

  Pain, Problem, Sometimes

  Greg Bear (2014). “Queen of Angels”, p.211, Open Road Media

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• But to fight something, you really have to try to understand its motivations—particularly when the something you’re fighting holds most of the cards, the deck is stacked against you, and the whole gambling hall is on fire and filled with thugs.

  Greg Bear

  Motivation, Fighting, Thug

  Greg Bear (2011). “Hull Zero Three”, p.89, Hachette UK

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• Life on earth is hard. Competition for the necessities of life is fierce. How ridiculous to believe that the law of harsh survival would not be true elsewhere, or that it would be negated by the progress of technology in an advanced civilization.

  Greg Bear

  Believe, Technology, Civilization

  Greg Bear (2014). “The Forge of God”, p.246, Open Road Media

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• We may exist in all universes, but 'hear' only one because of our limitations, the valve of our desires, our practical, physical needs. All is vibration, with nothing vibrating across no distance whatsoever. All is music. A universe, a world, is just one long difficult song. The difference between worlds is the difference between songs.

  Greg Bear

  Song, Distance, Differences

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• There is nothing finer in the world than the telling of tales. Split atoms if you wish, but splitting an infinitive-and getting away with it-is far nobler. Lance boils if you wish, but pricking pretensions is often cleaner and always more fun.

  Greg Bear

  Fun, Wish, Atoms

  Greg Bear (2014). “Sleepside: The Collected Fantasies”, p.26, Open Road Media

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• It's kind of a misnomer about science fiction that science fiction is about anything other than people. It's about people doing stuff, sometimes doing extraordinary stuff.

  Greg Bear

  People, Fiction, Stuff

  "Octavia Butler Set a Rare Standard in Sci-Fi Listen Queue". "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. February 27, 2006.

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• I sometimes think we deserve to die, we're all so goddamned stupid.

  Greg Bear

  Stupid, Thinking, Sometimes

  Greg Bear (2014). “The Forge of God”, p.239, Open Road Media

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• Man is the poet who kills, Woman the angel who eats.

  Greg Bear

  Angel, Men, Poet

  Greg Bear (2014). “Queen of Angels”, p.21, Open Road Media

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• For years, even before 9/11, I've been trying to warn that the threat from amateur biolabs will ultimately turn out to be far more troublesome than leakage from military labs - perhaps even more costly and deadly than nuclear terrorism.

  Greg Bear

  Military, Nuclear Terrorism, Years

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• To translate kinesics or paralinguistic messages into words is likely to introduce gross falsification due not merely to the human propensity for trying to falsify statements about "feelings" and relationship and to the distortions which arise whenever the products of one system of coding are dissected onto the premises of another, but especially to the fact that all such translation must give to the more or less unconscious and involuntary message the appearance of conscious intent.

  Greg Bear

  Giving, Feelings, Trying

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• It's been a great place to get in touch with what people are really thinking. And to make contact with readers and other writers. Egalitarian, wide open, like the Wild West!

  Greg Bear

  Thinking, Egalitarianism, People

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• Ray Bradbury is, for many reasons, the most influential writer in my life. Throughout our long friendship, Ray supplied not only his terrific stories but a grand model of what a writer could be, should be, and yet rarely is: brilliant and charming and accessible, willing to tolerate and to teach, happy to inspire but also to be inspired.

  Greg Bear

  Friendship, Long, Inspire

  "Sci-fi scribes on Ray Bradbury: 'Storyteller, showman and alchemist'" by John Joseph Adams, www.wired.com. June 06, 2012.

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