Michael Swanwick Quotes

Indeed, what is magic but impossible science?

A magician does not send messages, you know—he orchestrates reality.

Did you experience hallucinations or illusions?"
"What's the difference?"
"An illusion is a misreading of actual sensory data, while a hallucination is seeing something that isn't there.

I trust I have not grown so gullible as to consult a doctor," the bureaucrat said with dignity. "If I want medical attention, I hall employ the qualified machinery or, in extremis, a human with proper biomedical augmentation. But I will not swill down fermented swamp guzzle at the behest of some quasi-literate, uneducated charlatan.

Time was a flickering gray fire constantly consuming all things, so that what appeared to be motion was actually the oxidation and reduction of possibilities, the collapse of potential matter from grace to nothingness.

It was a scream straight from the toad buried at the base of the brain, that ancient reptile that wants everything at once, delivered to its feet and set ablaze.

I am playing a game called Futility," she said. Are you familiar with it?
"How does one win?"
"You don't. You can only postpone losing. I've managed to keep this particular game going for years.

Money can always be traced. It leaves a trail of slime behind it wherever it goes.

Tyranny always has its rationale.

The bureaucrat was sensitive to this kind of friction. It arose wherever the moving edge of technology control touched on local pride.

I would appreciate it if just this once you would make the effort to curb your negativism."
"I have to say what I think. That's what I'm being paid for, after all."
"A very common delusion.

We had ambition, and ascended into Hell.

It was the kind of discovery that shatters old universes and opens up new ones in their place.

I’ll have to throw it at him, Rebel thought. Swing it up, catch him under the jaw, break a few teeth. Then grab the knife and hold him for the security people. That was a good plan. It ranked right up there with suddenly learning how to teleport.

“Machines!” Wyeth snorted. “Machines are the easiest things in the universe to outwit because they’re predictable—that’s their function, to be predictable, to do exactly what they’re designed for, time after time.