Michael Swanwick Quotes

So it was that the Catherines poured water and spooned gruel, while the Clares prayed for the intercession of the saints. The Catherines changed sheets. The Clares practiced mortification of the flesh. The Catherines employed antibiotics. The Clares made a public display of a kneecap of their patron saint.
It was soon widely know to which hospital one went to get well, and to which one went to die.

(All human beings have their price, and quite often it is surprisingly small. The trick consists of knowing exactly what that price is, when they themselves do not.)

(Information is information, Faust. Knowledge is knowledge. I make no distinction between the high and the low.)

I have no need to expose myself to your flummery," Mette said with dignity. "I believe in order that I may know. I do not know in order to believe."
"I marvel at your spite. Of what possible benefit can this willful ignorance be to you?

Out of doors on a moonless night?" Mette sneered. "Only fools, footpads, and astrologers stray where there is no light.

Now why on Earth would you tell him a thing like that?"
"Because it's true."
Sbrulius laughed. "That, dear Faust, is the single worst argument you could have raised. Many things are true. Few are proper. Fewer still are desirable.

Surely," he cried, "this is not inevitable. Surely humanity could take the knowledge you offer and use it to ennoble itself. Surely they could apply it wisely and without folly."
"They could," Mephistopheles said dryly. "But will they?

“How...how can”—savagely, he slashed an arm down before him in absolute negation of all he saw—“such be? How could God allow it?”
“God? You fool—there is no God!”
The words struck Faust like a great bronze clapper, shattering the crusted certainties of a lifetime, reverberating, setting up echoes that washed back and forth through his being in slowly lessening waves, leaving no atom unshaken, no belief untouched. There was no God. He knew this for the truth, recognized it as such on an almost physical level, for it summed up everything he had ever thought or reasoned. It resolved a thousand doubts. It left no question unanswered. There was no God! Everything was possible now. Nothing was forbidden.

This is the price you must pay for knowledge: You must understand and acknowledge its consequences.

He stood unmoving, wondering at his own abrupt and incomprehensible inability to act. He did not fear damnation. Nor did he give a fig for the common opinion of Mankind. There was nothing to stop him but fear alone—fear that his reasoning was wrong.

Faust had no delusions of Heavenly aid. An involved and benevolent deity would have helped him long years ago when, young, he had yearned for knowledge as achingly as now and with far fewer stains on his soul.

The hearsay of hearsay is not admissible as scholarship.

Now here is a treasure, Averroës Commentaries on Aristotle in a tolerable translation from the Arabic by Gerard of Cremona." He lasciviously stroked the red leather boards, knowing well how his pupil ached for the chance to pore through it. "A liar's gloss on a liar's lies. Surely this is a rare criminal.

They were not aware of the madness that lurked within their own minds.

For a long time the Baldwynn did not speak. At last he said, “Will you serve the Goddess now? Knowingly and lovingly, in sweet obedience and humble acknowledgment of all that she is?”
“No.” The word was a pebble in her mouth. She spat it out. “Not now, not tomorrow, not if I live to be a million. Never.”
The Baldwynn stopped and took her hands in his. “Dear child,” he said. “I feared there was no hope for you.”