Philip José Farmer Quotes

I concluded that extreme mysticism was closely allied to madness.

Time, however, was creeping or sliding or flowing or proceeding in whatever unknown manner Time used to make Then into Now.

Sometimes you are arrogant, thinking you are better than others. More often you are humble. Too humble. I might even say, sickeningly humble. That is another form of arrogance. True humility is knowing your true place in the cosmic scale.

Eyes forward! Sing a paean to the light
That God gives us to net the distant stars
In eyes that once were blinded with black earth.
Man had no time for aught but toll, no space
For aught but war. Yet God, in His great love,
Has cleared our eyes and given a hint of Power.

Monasticism, retreat from the world, reclusivism, that’s a lot of crap.

Tell me, is this true or is it just one of those tales that people like to make up to worry others?

Now we have lit a candle to the power
Of atoms; now we know we're heirs of light
Itself...

It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one's self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one's sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane.

Zeitgeist rides tonight, and the devil take the hindmost!

Peter would find out that that was superstition, a reasoning from effect to cause, totally invalid. It was in a class with the belief that if you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while you were sitting in the outhouse, the devil would get you.

Kazz thought that putting a lump on Oskas’ head was very funny. He would have considered it to be even a better joke if the chief had drowned. Yet, among his crewmates, he was as sociable, tender, and compassionate a man as anyone could ask for. He was a primitive, and all primitives, civilized or preliterate, were tribal people. Only the tribe consisted of human beings and were treated as such. All outside the tribe though some might be considered friends, were not quite human. Therefore, they did not have to be treated as if they were completely human.

Reader, pray that soon this Iron Age
Will crumble, and Beauty escape the rusting cage.

Sam’s heart felt as if it were being licked by a cat.

Suddenly, he was weeping. The tears were for the good things that had been or might have been, for the bad things that had been but should not have been.

By now you must have accepted the fact that your religion, in fact, none of the Earthly religions, truly knew what the afterlife would be. All made guesses, and then established these as articles of faith. Though, in a sense, some were near the mark, if you accept their revelations as symbolic.