Connie Willis Quotes

Nobody deserves this. “Please,” she prayed, and wasn’t sure what she asked.
Whatever it was, it was not granted.

If they were part of the self-correction (i. e., of the space-time continuum) what did that do to the notion of free will? Or was free will part of the plan as well?

It’s the light, she thought. Everyone looks like a cutthroat by torchlight. No wonder they invented electricity.

And why take a chance on a new movie when they can do a sequel or a copy or a remake of something they already own? And while we are at it, why not star remakes in the remake? Hollywood, the ultimate recycler!

I’ve never understood why the faces, who have nothing to sell but an original personality, an original face, all try to look like somebody else. But I guess it makes sense. Why should they be different from everybody else in Hollywood, which has always been in love with sequels and imitations and remakes?

The continuum had somehow managed to correct the incongruity, pairing off lovers like the last act of a Shakespearean comedy, though just how it had managed it wasn’t clear. What was clear was that it had wanted us out of the way while it was doing whatever it was doing. So it had done the time-travel equivalent of locking us in our rooms.

There are moments when rather than reforming the human race I’d like to abandon it altogether and go become, say, one of Dr. O’Reilly’s macaques, which have to have more sense.

Ah, Hollywood, where everybody wants to be in the movies and nobody’s ever bothered to watch one.

Why is it," Joss said, "that whenever I find you, you are always about to hop in bed with my employer?

Contrary to popular belief, the computer graphics revolution didn't kill the musical," the prof said. "The musical kicked off," he paused to let the class titter, "in 1965.…
"The musicals, with their contrived storylines, unrealistic song-and-dance sequences, and simplistic happy endings, no longer reflected the audience's world.

“The clerk is dying, Rosemund is dying, you’ve all been exposed. Why shouldn’t I give up hope?”
“God has not abandoned us utterly,” he said. “Agnes is safe in his arms.”
Safe, she thought bitterly. In the ground. In the cold. In the dark.

In my log, there's nothing worse than working for a government with the guilts. All we were doing on Boohte was surveying the planet, but Big Brother didn't want anybody accusing them of “ruthless imperialist expansion” and riding roughshod over the indidges the way they did when they colonized America.
So they set up all these rules to “preserve planetary ecosystems” (which was supposed to mean we weren't allowed to build dams or kill the local fauna) and “protect indigenous cultures from technological contamination” (which was supposed to mean we couldn't give ’em firewater and guns), and stiff fines for breaking the rules.
Which is where they made their first mistake, because they paid the fines to the indidges, and Bult and his tribe knew a good thing when they saw it, and before you know it we’re being fined for making footprints, and Bult’s buying technological contamination right and left with the proceeds.

How dare you contradict their opinions! You are only a common servant."
"Yes, miss," he said wearily.
"You should be dismissed for being insolent to your betters."
There was a long pause, and then Baine said, "All the diary entries and dismissals in the world cannot change the truth. Galileo recanted under threat of torture, but that did not make the sun revolve round the earth. If you dismiss me, the vase will still be vulgar, I will still be right, and your taste will still be plebeian, no matter what you write in your diary."
"Plebeian?" Tossie said, bright pink. "How dare you speak like that to your mistress? You are dismissed." She pointed imperiously at the house. "Pack your things immediately."
"Yes, miss," Baine said. "E pur si muove."
"What?" Tossie said, bright red with rage. "What did you say?"
"I said, now that finally have dismissed me, I am no longer a member of the servant class and am therefore in a position to speak freely," he said calmly.
"You are not in a position to speak to me at all," Tossie said, raising her diary like a weapon. "Leave at once."
"I dared to speak the truth to you because I felt you were deserving of it," Baine said seriously. "I had only your best interests at heart, as I have always had. You have been blessed with great riches; not only with the riches of wealth, position, and beauty, but with a bright mind and a keen sensibility, as well as with a fine spirit. And yet you squander those riches on croquet and organdies and trumpery works of art. You have at your disposal a library of the great minds of the past, and yet you read the foolish novels of Charlotte Yonge and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Given the opportunity to study science, you converse with conjurors wearing cheesecloth and phosphorescent paint. Confronted by the glories of Gothic architecture, you admire instead a cheap imitation of it, and confronted by the truth, you stamp your foot like a spoilt child and demand to be told fairy stories.

Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?

My physics teacher used to say Diogenes shouldn't have wasted his time looking for an honest man," Shirl said, "he should have been looking for somebody who thought for himself.