Sheri S. Tepper Quotes

I suspect there’s little difference between whim and inspiration at the beginning of any chain of events. It’s what happens later that tells us which is which.

It seems to me, said Spiggy softly, "that when a race of man becomes so anthropocentric it regards other living beings as lesser consumables, it could get to be a habit. It might become easy to include other living creatures with the Gharm. Animals. Children. Women. Entire planet. Perhaps they, too, become consumables, to be used up and thrown away."

The show," Aunt Sizzy was want to say, "may not have to go on, but we don't buy groceries unless it does!

Mother, though of Gamesman caste, seemed to have no Talent of any kind. She was so beautiful she did not need to be anything else.

It takes a strong man to turn back from a bad choice.

am saying that perhaps God has already done his intervening by creating us. Perhaps He intends us to do what we keep praying He will do. Having designed us for a particular task, he has sent us into battle. We do not particularly enjoy the battle, so we keep begging him to let us off. He pays no attention because He does not keep track of us individually. He does not know where in the body we are or how many of us there are. He does not check to see whether we despair or persevere. Only if the body of the universe is healed will he know whether we have done what we were sent to do!

As with other peoples who had focused their lives upon wrongs in the past and heaven in the future, Voorstod made an everlasting hell of the present.

Life arises naturally; where life is, death is, joy is, pain is. Where joy and pain are, ecstasy and horror are, all part of the pattern. They occur as night and day occur on a whirling planet. They are not individually willed into being and shot at persons like arrows. Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts…

Fear needn’t be grounded in fact to cause problems.

I dreamed this, he said in a helpless voice. I dreamed this!"
"Well, Mouche," said Questioner in a chilly, admonitory voice, "I am sure you believe so. It is all very mystic and dreamlike, and though I can be sensitivity to the moods and impressions such places evoke, I try not to give way to them. When dream is most attractive, then is time to be alert and practical, for it is then that we are most in danger.

Human worlds are always awash in superstition, only a stubborn elite proof against it.

To us it does not seem that long ago, possibly because our children hear stories told around the fire of things which happened fifteen centuries back. Such stories carry an immediacy one does not get from books.…"
"Which is why some countries carry such old grudges," offered Marianne. "What children learn at their grandmas' knees they act upon as though it happened yesterday."
He nodded gravely, even sadly. "Perhaps that is true. Those who have an oral tradition full of old wrongs and old revenge do seem to fight the same battles forever. If the Irish were not forever singing of their ancient wrongs—or writing poetry about it…well, we see the result in every morning's newspapers."

- Jeśli jeszcze raz wspomni o Brouerach - powiedziała Marjorie do Rita - to ją uduszę.
- Są jej przyjaciółmi - odparł Rico, zerkając na nią z zaciekawieniem. - Najlepszymi przyjaciółmi. Dlaczego ci się to nie podoba?
- Nie mówię, że mam coś przeciwko temu. Nie podoba mi się, że stanowią ideał, do którego jestem porównywana.
- Wszystkim dzieciakom wydaje się, że inne rodziny są idealne.
- Ja nigdy tak nie myślałam.
- Owszem, ale ty jesteś dziwna - stwierdził.

Like frogs, each thinking its own puddle was the center of the universe, we believed that God worried over us each of us. Strange that we should realize Pride is a sin yet still be willing prey to such arrogance.

(ghost of)ACHILLES: How can I force obedience on this? In other times I've used the fear of death to make a woman bow herself to me. If not the fear of her own death, then fear for someone else, a husband or a child. How can I bend this woman to my will?
(ghost of)POLYXENA: I think I will not bend.
IPHIGENIA: You see, it's as we've tried to tell you, Great Achilles. Women are no good to you dead.