Marion Zimmer Bradley Quotes

Every human being needs to believe in the goodness of some power that created him, no matter what he calls it, and some religious or ethical structure. But I don’t think we need sacraments or priesthoods from a world that’s only a memory, and won’t even be that to our children and our children’s children. Ethics, yes. Art, yes. Music, crafts, knowledge, humanity—yes. But not rituals which will quickly dwindle down into superstitions. And certainly not a social code or a set of purely arbitrary behavioral attitudes which have nothing to do with the society we are in now.

Science fiction encourages us to explore... all the futures, good and bad, that the human mind can envision.

The horror genre—which I define as “perfectly horrible things happen to perfectly nice people for no reason at all.”

My love for you is a prayer, she thought. Love is the only prayer I know. She thought she had never loved him so much as at this moment, when she heard the convent door close, hard and final, and felt the wall shutting her in. (Gwenhwyfar).

From space there was no sign of life."
Moray, the heavy swarthy man who was the official representative of Earth Expeditionary, and in charge of the Colonists, said quietly, "Don't you mean no signs of a technological civilization, officer? Remember, until a scant four centuries ago, a starship approaching Earth could not have seen any signs of intelligent life there, either."

If you can’t be inconspicuous, be so damned conspicuous that nobody can miss you. And that in itself is a fair concealment. How many people can accurately describe a street riot?

A story with no moral isn't worth writing; a story with no plot isn't worth reading. And if people get your point before they get your story, you are to hire a soapbox instead.

To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom," Viviane said. "Then, when you begin to learn, you will not have to forget all the things you think you know.

Often, in writing, granting the basic skill of writing a literate English sentence—which can no longer be taken for granted even in college graduates—all it takes is determination.

He said harshly, “You are suggesting that we abandon the effort—and relapse into barbarism?”…
“I hope not, captain. It is man’s mind that makes him a barbarian, not his technology. We may have to do without top-level technology, at least for a few generations, but that doesn’t mean we can’t establish a good world here for ourselves and our children, a civilized world. There have been civilizations which have existed for centuries almost without technology. The illusion that man’s culture is only the history of his techno structures is propaganda from the engineers, sir. It has no basis in sociology—or in philosophy.”

A trail without beginning has no end.

Our world is rotten, but I’ve no confidence that the new world will be better!

Good Lord, what's that unholy racket!"
"I forgot you weren't a Scot, darling, don't you like the bagpipes?

The trouble is, we’ve all gotten out of the habit of connecting pregnancy and sex, we all have a civilized attitude about it now.

Spoiled brat, he thought, she’s had everything her own way all her life, and now at the first hint she might have to give way to some consideration other than her own convenience, she starts making a fuss! Damn her!