Lin Carter Quotes

What's a simurgh?
"A member of the winged species avian simurghi," sniffed the simurgh. "Easy to identify because of his gorgeous plumage, ready wit, intelligent conversation, amiable disposition, and fabulous abilities."

The past has lost, as it always loses; the future has won, as it always wins.

Chan’s heart knew only greed, but there was within him enough intelligence to wonder before a man who could see all the uselessness of life, and still exult in the possessing of it.

Knowing that you possess a talent is half the battle in mastering it.

The notion that heresy is a crime of the soul, to be cured by the chastisement of the body, he pointed out in his amiable way, contained an essential error. For the soul has no real connection to the body, merely residing therein for the while. To punish the body for the sins of the soul was, therefore, about as irrational as to burn down a tenement building because it had temporarily housed a criminal.

Day dawned, as day generally does, in so spectacular a manner as to seem rather show-offy were it to be encountered among any less significant meteorological phenomena.

However, as one or another of the philosophers has probably noted ere now, the morning was not quite over yet.

Lux forced grief from his mind, thinking grimly of revenge.

This life, my dear bird, consists of a haphazard sequence of accidental meetings and partings, very few of which can ever be anticipated, avoided or fully understood. The element of sheer Chance, my friend, conflicting as it does with the first principles of Causation, denies any premeditated plan on the part of Destiny. Destiny, therefore, may only be defined as the sum total of one’s accumulated experiences, which are themselves accidental and purposeless. ‘Purpose,’ you deduce from this, is an interpretation imposed upon a sequence of events after the fact.”

Sheb being a theocracy was naturally ruled by the priests, and priests are naturally bigoted in favor of their own narrow creed, and intolerant of differences of opinion on theological matters. It’s really too bad that things are that way, but there you are: you have to take the world the way it is, not the way you would prefer it to be.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” I confessed in a baffled tone. Niamh gave me a long, cool, faintly amused glance.
“Don’t you? No, I can see that you do not,” she said. And with that she rolled over, her face turned from me, and fell asleep...leaving me staring at the ceiling, completely mystified, pondering the inexplicable perversities of the female mind.

Theological disputations are a favorite hobby of mine, but even the most eloquent and learned disputant finds his abilities wane before the persuasiveness of the thumb-lock, the nose-pincers and the molten boot.