Roger Zelazny Quotes

His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Silence, though, could.

All of these things considered, it is not surprising that one can detect echoes, correspondences and even an eternal return or two within the work of a single author. The passage of time does bring changes, yea and alas; but still, I would recognize myself anywhere.

"I believe I love you," he mentioned.
"Fortunately, love does not require an act of faith," she noted, accepting a light for her cigar, "because I don't believe in anything."

As a student of business administration, I know that there is a law of evolution for organizations as stringent and inevitable as anything in life. The longer one exists, the more it grinds out restrictions that slow its own functions. It reaches entropy in a state of total narcissism. Only the people sufficiently far out in the field get anything done, and every time they do they are breaking half a dozen rules in the process.

I was willing to die fighting, but it was senseless for all these men to go down with me. Perhaps my blood was tainted, despite my power over the Pattern. A true prince of Amber should have had no such qualms. I decided then that my centuries on the Shadow Earth had changed me, softened me perhaps, had done something to me which made me unlike my brothers.

Is not love itself a form of a spell, where one is loved and the other loves, and the one who loves is compelled to do the other’s bidding? Of course. It is the same thing.

This day she’ll off across the sky on her own wild ways to show.…
There, in the worlds of the Life and the Death, the worlds that she used to know.
Now, some say her name is Mercy and others say it’s Lust. Her secret name is Isis. Her secret soul is dust.

Between you and me,
the words,
like mortar,
separating, holding together
those pieces of the structure ourselves.
To say them,
to cast their shadows on the page,
is the act of binding mutual passions,
is cognizance, yourself/myself,
of our sameness under skin;
it rears possible cathedrals
indicating infinity with steeply-high styli.
For when tomorrow comes it is today,
and if it is not the drop
that is eternity
glistening at the pen’s point,
then the ink of our voices
surrounds like an always night,
and mortar marks the limit of our cells.

My mind spun for a second before it drifted, and in that second I knew that of all pleasures—a drink of cold water when you are thirsty, liquor when you are not, sex, a cigarette after many days without one—there is none of them can compare with sleep. Sleep is best....

Trouble can be purchased cheaply, though the refund may be more than you can bear.

I tako, kad se već činilo da imam cijelu kuću na raspolaganju, odlučih se vratiti u knjižnicu i vidjeti što mogu otkriti. Osim toga, volim knjižnice. Osjećam se ugodno i sigurno okružen sa svih strana zidovima od riječi, predivnih i mudrih. Uvijek se osjećam bolje kad mogu vidjeti da postoji nešto što rastjeruje tamu.

I thought about the Elder Gods and wondered at how they might change things if the way were opened for their return. The world could be a good place or a nasty place without supernatural intervention; we had worked out our own way of doing things, defined our own goods and evils. Some gods were great for individual ideals to be aimed at, rather than actual ends to be sought, here and now. As for the Elders, I could see no profit in intercourse with those who transcend utterly. I like to keep all such things in abstract, Platonic realms and not have to concern myself with physical presences.

“It is no shame to lose to me, mortal. Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game.”
“I am pleased that you were not wholly bored,” Martin said. “Now will you tell me what you were talking about concerning the destruction of my species?”
“Oh, that,” Tlingel replied.

When I said I wanted to die in my sleep, I meant I wanted to be stepped on by an elephant while making love.

Two days, like icebergs—bleak, blank, half-melting, all frigid, mainly out of sight, and definitely a threat to peace of mind—drifted by and were good to put behind.