Sheri S. Tepper Quotes

Also, the people who've left tended to be those who thought man was more important than other parts of creation, and themselves more important than other men, Africa mused. "Me-and-my-image devotees. Human fertility worshippers. The kind of people who will happily kill other species to make room for more humans, advocates of the old 'fill up the world and ruin it' philosophy."

A cada paso, hemos sido frustrados por dios. No el Dios verdadero. Un dios falso creado por el hombre para contribuir a su destrucción de la Tierra. Es el dios-glotón que ve bien engullirlo todo en nombre de una humanidad completamente egoísta. Sus diez mandamientos son: yo primero (déjame vivir como quiera); los humanos primero (que todos los otros seres vivos mueran en mi beneficio); el esperma primero (nada de control de natalidad); los nacimientos primero (nada de abortos); los hombres primero (nada de derechos de la mujer); mi cultura/tribu/religión primero (separatismo/terrorismo); mi raza primero (nada de derechos humanos); mi política primero (puñeteros liberales/podridos reaccionarios); mi país primero (ondea la bandera, la bandera, la bandera); y, sobre todo, los beneficios primero.

We have a membership provided the ISTO doesn't declare all Earthians a barbarian people."
"I don't know what that means," I persisted, even though this wasn't strictly part of the subject.
Father gritted his teeth. "ISTO recognizes four types of creatures: civilized, semicivilized, barbarians, and animals. Civilized people know about, care about, and protect their environments. Semicivilized people know and care, but can't do anything…"
"Why not?"
Mother said, "Because something prevents their acting in their own self-interest. Public apathy. Commercial interference. Religious opposition. Governmental corruption. The Gentherans say the humans have a lot of that."
Father frowned at her and went on. "Barbarians know but don't care about their worlds, and animals don't even know.

Why pretend now that you cared?
"Why not pretend whatever I like if it makes my life easier? We learned that, you see, we Faithful. We learn to say to ourselves whatever we need to say to make the task easy. We learn to say, 'for God and Voorstod,' when we blow up some old lady in the toilet or some schoolyard full of children. We wouldn't necessarily do it for ourselves, you see, but we can do it for God and Voorstod."

It does not seem impossible, murmured Her Exactitude. Moreover, it accords with our ethical imperative. Luckily, our imperative is based upon experience, rather than upon artifacts or scriptures, so we are not likely to be thrown into disorganization by judgments made centuries ago. We do not assert as true anything which we have not proven or seen proven by others. Thus, we never claimed that we were the center either of the universe or of a deity's attention. While we do not deny deity, we do not presume to understand it, plea bargain with it, or tell others what shape it takes. It does make life easier.

Sit down, Grandma," Glory urged. "You're very pale. This is all very weird and strange, and you're allergic to strange.

If God is truly powerful, He would not let this plague go on.

You think staying in power is why they do it?"
"That's usually the reason for arbitrary cruelty.

Along the Oregon coast an arm of the Pacific shushes softly against rocky shores. Above the waves, dripping silver in the moonlight, old trees, giant trees, few now, thrust their heads among low clouds, the moss thick upon their boles and shadow deep around their roots. In these woods nights are quiet, save for the questing hoot of an owl, the satin stroke of fur against a twig, the tick and rasp of small claws climbing up, clambering down. In these woods, bear is the big boy, the top of the chain, but even he goes quietly and mostly by day. It is a place of mosses and liverworts and ferns, of filmy green that curtains the branches and cushions the soil, a wet place, a still place.

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.

The difference between a true religion—and there are many which share aspects of truth—and a dangerous cult is only this: In the one the individual is freed to grow and live and learn; in the other the individual is subordinated to the will of a hierarchy, enslaved to the purposes of that hierarchy, forbidden to learn except what the cult would teach. You have only to look at the rules which govern the servants of a religion to know whether its god is God indeed, or devil!

Janet snarled, “Nell, who made you the arbiter of what’s Right and wrong or wrong?”
Nell thumped the table. “I’m not making a moral judgment, I’m making a pragmatic one! Before the Happening, the world was full of people, and we were using up the Earth’s resources at a fantastic rate. Somehow we felt we’d find some other world before we used up this one, and going to space was a spectator sport. That game’s over. We’re not going anywhere! Therefore, all the attitudes that led to use-up-the-world-and-leave-it-behind are wrong for us, and whatever attitudes keep the Earth fit for what people and animals are left is right for us, and I defy you to come up with any better definition.”

Every villain or villainous activity I have ever written about is a person or an activity that has actually lived or taken place. I invent nothing. When I wrote in Raising the Stones about the slavery practiced by one race and their reasons for it, those reasons were taken verbatim from arguments written in defense of Negro slavery by southern slave owners. Watch bullies at school. See how they delight in causing pain. See how little is done to change them. Imagine them grown, elected, put into power. They do grow, they are elected, they are put into power.

We might be able to do something. If we were very lucky, it might even be the right thing.

Despite his concern, he was not so out of control as to forget that a frantic man is a careless man, a lesson every soldier learns soon or dies wishing he had learned sooner.