R. A. Lafferty Quotes

Alien monsters were pleasant and funny. One early and almost forgotten piece of history tells that Adam, in addition to naming all the sub-lunar creatures, also named the nine hundred and ninety-nine species of creatures who had their homes and nests above the moon, on other moons or trabants or asteroids or planets. And after they were named, the super-lunary creatures went back to their own places, with friendly memories of Earth, the ‘naming place’. So we do have nine hundred and ninety-nine alien species, monstrous but friendly, waiting to meet us again.

Though my short stories are the more readable, my novels do have more to say; and they will, if anyone has the patience for it, repay a rereading.

I don't think I should be getting more attention from mainstream book reviewers. I've never written any mainstream books, and I'm always surprised when the mainstreamers notice me at all.

When you can't depend on the Devil, who can you depend on?

This is the Improbable Club," said the President-Emeritus in a heavy muffled voice, "and you things have made an improbable entry. Many unqualified persons have attempted to crash this Club, but you have done it literally. Whether you will be able to qualify for our high membership is another thing. It will not matter. We accept, for a brief moment at least, all who come here as members. We will quickly measure you one way or another. We have no living ex-members. Sit you down, all, and unwind your ears. Remember, each topper must be topped.

Austro, do you know why an obscure Tibetan grammar should suddenly become a hot item in the porno stores?”

“Mr. Sheen, you know I'm not old enough to go into the porno stores.”

“No, but you're old enough to avoid a direct answer to a straight question.

And the people had begun to gather, tame people with a new wild look about them. Like wolves they were, and they snuffed and howled. Panlykonium reigned in Centrality Square, .and the air sparked with danger.

The New Prophets began to preach by torchlight as though the latter days had come. It was the younger Pliny, those many centuries ago, who mentioned that in times of turmoil men with beards will appear instantly, when in all Rome there had not been bearded men before the moment of strife. The younger Pliny had lived in a shaved age; he believed that the bearded men who appear suddenly are wraiths or portents, and not men at all.

They were the highly civilized people of Cosmopolis itself. It was a fools’ carnival indeed, all split into high-spirited warring factions spilling over into masquerade. Heads were broken, and people laughed, as if it had been a thousand years before. The “Ban and Beyond” people had their banners flying, and flying wedges of opponents, with and without mottos, pulled them down in a glorious melee. The “Sackcloth and Ashes” faction was marching and joking. The newly-appointed (or self-appointed) Metropolitan of Astrobe had put that whole world under interdict, until penance be done and until certain conditions should be fulfilled; and groups were making up and singing ballads about it. High Ladies of Astrobe dressed up like old crones and hawked candy heads and skulls in honor of the beheading tomorrow. Wooly Rams were found somewhere, and spitted and barbecued over the bonfires, about fifty people devouring each Wooly Ram as they tore it apart in pieces, half seared and half raw. The feast of the Wooly Ram had not been held on Astrobe for more than three hundred years, and only antiquarians could have known about it.

The ghost of some other fiction might say in truth to Science Fiction: “You're not very good, are you?” But Science Fiction can answer “Maybe not, but I'm alive and you're dead.

Put the nightmare together. If you do not wake up screaming, you have not put it together well.

The good stories, of course, write themselves. And somebody wants to know who are the really good writers, and how many of them there are. There aren't any. Most of the writers are likeable frauds. Some are unlikable frauds.

‎Sometimes traveling people will be talking together. They will say how good it is in some places and how bad it is in others. And, sooner or later, one of them is bound to mention it. "Talk about really being out in the boondocks!" he will say, "there's a little planet named Earth —"

Brannagan had been to more places than Finnegan had, including the same places. He had not only skirted the d'Entre-Casteau Islands, he had walked all over them. He had not only sailed through China Straits, he had dived in them for old wrecks. He had not only climbed the Cloudy Mountains, but had panned gold in their streams and dips.

Tell me the truth, girl: how does the man next door ship out trailer-loads of material from a building ten times too small to hold the stuff?