Norman Spinrad Quotes

"In fifteen billion years did spirit out of less than dust evolve," he said. "In fifteen billion more will not this universe of stars to less than dust return? Whence did it come? What is there when it is gone?"

Social morality requires a shared matrix of communal reality to which to relate thought and deed, and the illusion of an objective ethical esthetic requires at the very least the conviction that objective reality is more than a contradiction in terms.

Any attempt at willful ignorance would now be futile or worse; the only talisman against excessive knowledge that might have puissance would be more knowledge.

The carrot is mightier than the stick.

What moral obligation do you have to those who willfully refuse to open their eyes and deem you mad for seeing?

To become aware of a controlling process is to transcend the determinism of that process.

I could not deny that my spirit was amorally attracted to this ultimate temptation as my conscience was morally repelled by it.

The appreciation of the connoisseur is the highest pleasure of the artiste.

At that moment, I do now truly believe, the deed was done, in the sense that the decision of the will is the true essence of the act.

For truth be told, I was tormented by perceptions and their corollary temptation which from a social definition rendered me unsane, though from a more absolute viewpoint what I might be said to have been suffering from was an excess of insight.

Does something truly speak to me from beyond the void, or is it merely my own desire?

Even now, I cannot decide whether I was foolish dupe or noble and tragic lover. Or whether the two are one and the same.

Was not the arbitrary distinction between illusion and reality the ultimate illusion itself?

“If the path exists for spirit to transcend this sorry scheme of things entire, vraiment, it must exist for all.”
Or for none at all, I thought, but deigned not to voice.

I want to take you as close as you can get, I want to feel your ecstasy as you feel mine, I want to bridge the final gap between us, I want us to come together in a place where each can know the other does not lie.