Joan D. Vinge Quotes & Sayings

All medical men are voyeurs. Why else would they become doctors? Except for the sadists, of course, who simply enjoy the blood and the pain. — Joan D. Vinge

Probably I chose immortality because mortality is a universal human obsession. — Joan D. Vinge

For every path you choose, there is another you must abandon, usually forever. — Joan D. Vinge

I am only a cup that knowledge holds. It does not to knowledge matter how poor the cup is. It is the wisdom of those who drink of me that me wise makes. Fools make a sibyl foolish, wherever she is. — Joan D. Vinge

Humans are upsetting a fragile balance that their own human ancestors established. — Joan D. Vinge

Maybe everything we do is meaningless. But we have to try, don't we? We have to go on looking for justice ... and settling for revenge. — Joan D. Vinge

Life scars us with its random motion, he thought. Only death is perfect. — Joan D. Vinge

Beyond that, I seem to be compelled to write science fiction, rather than fantasy or mysteries or some other genre more likely to climb onto bestseller lists even though I enjoy reading a wide variety of literature, both fiction and nonfiction. — Joan D. Vinge

Here was a fragment of Goddess myth that, through all its permutations, had somehow escaped being turned on its head. It was the perfect springboard for the sort of novel I wanted to write. — Joan D. Vinge

The contradictions are what make human behavior so maddening and yet so fascinating, all at the same time. — Joan D. Vinge

Besides, wouldn't it be wonderful if no one ever had to worry about the random cruelty of fatal illness or the woes of old age attacking them or their loved ones? — Joan D. Vinge

The futures and ultimate fates of the characters in The Snow Queen are profoundly changed by choices made in their own minds or hearts, as well as choices unexpectedly forced on them by things beyond their control. — Joan D. Vinge

Things change all the time; but how much of it is real? Does any choice any of us ever makes, no matter how important it seems, really cause a ripple in the greater scheme of things? — Joan D. Vinge

To be alive was to be disappointed. You tried and failed and kept on trying, never knowing whether you'd ever get what you wanted. But sometimes we get what we need. — Joan D. Vinge

I love you,' he whispered again, wonderingly, as he understood at last how a lifetime together with someone that you loved could seem like an eternity, and yet not be long enough. — Joan D. Vinge

My gods or your gods, who know which are stronger?' That's why we honor them all - just in case. There are more cultures even than Gods in the Eight Worlds, and among them you'll find people who are willing to kill you, or each other, over any difference in belief or lifestyle or physical appearance you can imagine - and some you can't. They all think they're right. There's no Truth, Tammis, only differences of opinion. — Joan D. Vinge

And so The Snow Queen also became a story about the need to seek equilibrium, in our own lives, with the natural world, even within the universe at large. — Joan D. Vinge

Fear of the unknown is a terrible fear. — Joan D. Vinge

Myth is, after all, the neverending story. — Joan D. Vinge

Each time, storytellers clothed the naked body of the myth in their own traditions, so that listeners could relate more easily to its deeper meaning. — Joan D. Vinge

Throughout the ages, stories with certain basic themes have recurred over and over, in widely disparate cultures; emerging like the goddess Venus from the sea of our unconscious. — Joan D. Vinge

It doesn't matter. I'm not asking forever of you ... just let me love you now. — Joan D. Vinge

I stood where they'd left me. I watched them get smaller and smaller as they went down the hallway, leaving me there without a word, not even looking back. Only I was getting smaller and smaller, being swallowed up in the suffocating emptiness of the silent house; so that by the time they came back again, I would have disappeared. — Joan D. Vinge

A clear conscience is generally the result of a faulty memory, not a faulty life. — Joan D. Vinge

But what force in the galaxy is stronger than she is?"
"Indifference." Jerusha surprised herself with the answer. "Indifference, Gundhalinu, is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn't act, it allows. And that's what gives it so much power. — Joan D. Vinge

Studying anthropology, I developed a kind of holistic view of human existence, in which the dichotomies you listed are all necessary and vital aspects of life. — Joan D. Vinge

Sometimes she talked like a poet; she made a little joke of it, so that you wouldn't mind. — Joan D. Vinge

Don't worry. You're safe now. You've got nothing left to steal. — Joan D. Vinge

But our society does not grant nontraditional forms of intelligence equal recognition, no matter how much it would help us get along or truly enrich our lives. — Joan D. Vinge

Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it. — Joan D. Vinge

You've made her so beautiful; when she's come to take your life away. — Joan D. Vinge

Jule was a poet - poetry was like psi, she said, like thought, a thing that compressed images to essence. — Joan D. Vinge

Yes, she made me love her. But she didn't mean to. She took by giving ... and that makes all the difference. — Joan D. Vinge

Humans may be the only creatures on Earth who spend significant time thinking about the fact that someday their lives will end. — Joan D. Vinge

I wanted to show those characters discovering it is possible to find common ground, as they make their way through a plotline that I hope is engrossing enough to keep the reader a willing participant. — Joan D. Vinge

What does immortality mean to me? That we all want more time; and we want it to be quality time. — Joan D. Vinge

All [people] are intolerant ... Only they're intolerant of different things. — Joan D. Vinge

Perhaps the thing that makes humans truly unique on Earth is that we are never satisfied with our situation; maybe that is what's taken us so far. — Joan D. Vinge

The ecosystem of our world is a closed system: it would run out of gas, collapse of its own weight. — Joan D. Vinge

I was thinking about what I wanted to write next, after my first novel, and had decided that I wanted to write a story with a lot of strong female characters in it. — Joan D. Vinge

Moon is also a naive native girl when she sets out for Carbuncle. — Joan D. Vinge

He is afraid, as suddenly he knows that he was afraid all along, that if he felt her body so close to him he would never let her go. — Joan D. Vinge

We are all born with a unique genetic blueprint, which lays out the basic characteristics of our personality as well as our physical health and appearance ... And yet, we all know that life experiences do change us. — Joan D. Vinge

The mers were also designed to reproduce only at long intervals, in order to maintain the natural balance of the environment in which they were placed. — Joan D. Vinge

As for the historical inspirations I drew on in writing The Snow Queen, I suppose I would call them more cross-cultural inspirations, though they frequently involve past societies as well as present day ones. — Joan D. Vinge

Archaeology is the anthropology of the past, and science fiction is the anthropology of the future. — Joan D. Vinge

These days too many of us seem inclined to cover our ears, close our eyes, and blindly follow the most narrow, conservative tenets of religion; or else seek comfort in the ancient traditions of New Age ritual. — Joan D. Vinge

Learn to be - gentle with them. Learn that ... that gentleness isn't ... weakness. — Joan D. Vinge

Everything changes, today's tears are tomorrow's absurdities, after all. — Joan D. Vinge

There's more to me, more to the universe, than I suspected. Room for all the dreams I ever had, and all the nightmares ... heroes in the gutters and in the mirror; saints in the frozen wasteland; fools and liars on the throne of wisdom, and hands reaching out in hunger that will never be filled. — Joan D. Vinge

What I do not want to write is didactic political tracts. — Joan D. Vinge

Real power is control. Knowing that you can do anything ... and not doing it only because you can. — Joan D. Vinge

There's no such thing as a free lunch, at least on the karmic level. — Joan D. Vinge

Indifference, Gundhalinu, is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn't act, it allows. And that's what gives it so much power." He — Joan D. Vinge

Everything born has to die, in order to make room for the future. — Joan D. Vinge