John C. Wright Quotes & Sayings

Son, different rules apply during the End of the World. I did not know what to say to that. — John C. Wright

The suffering we bring on ourselves, we can ask to be taken away from us once we repent of it. The suffering sent to instruct us, we can ask for the strength to endure, and the humbleness to be instructed. — John C. Wright

The Blue Man smiled. Why not wipe out all life in the great dark beyond? All other life, that is. All the competition. They did not overlook or forget about the Earth! They cleared the fields for her. Then they traveled backward in time to restart the universe with Man on top, right at the initial condition set. Why not? — John C. Wright

Penny was a very pretty, witty and brave girl, as bold as a Marine platoon storming Iwo Jima. — John C. Wright

That's not fair! You can't talk back to the Tales! They are all we have! — John C. Wright

But when the wizard is onstage as the main character, you have to adopt what I call the Jack Vance Rule. I call it this because Jack Vance is the first author successfully and adroitly to have applied this rule in his The Dying Earth. The Jack Vance Rule is: (1) The wizard has to be able to do something unusual, or else he is not a wizard, (2) he cannot do everything, or else there is no drama; therefore (3) the story teller has to communicate to the reader whatever the dividing line is that separates what the wizard can do from what he cannot do, so that the reader can have a reasonable expectation of knowing what the wizard can and cannot do. — John C. Wright

Reason is the tool men use to determine if their statements about reality are valid: there is no other. Those who do not or cannot reason are little better than slaves because their lives are controlled by the ideas of other men, ideas they have not examined. — John C. Wright

If atheism solved all human woe, then the Soviet Union would have been an empire of joy and dancing bunnies, instead of the land of corpses. — John C. Wright

The pride of young men requires that they seem wise, despite their inexperience, and the only way to appear all-knowing without going to the tedium of acquiring knowledge, is to hold all knowledge in weary-seeming contempt. — John C. Wright

If Vulcans had a church, they'd be Catholics. — John C. Wright

My wife is a Christian and is extraordinary patient, logical, and philosophical. For years, I would challenge and condemn her beliefs, battering the structure of her conclusions with every argument, analogy, and evidence I could bring to bear. I am a very argumentative man, and I am as fell and subtle as a serpent in debate. — John C. Wright

I did not call for the extermination of people, but of ideas. — John C. Wright

Apparently these new rulers of the world did not indulge in any drinking or smoking to soften their moods when they met, which Menelaus knew to be a big mistake. The Congress of the United States, back before the Disunion, always met sober, and look at what had come of that. — John C. Wright

Beyond this, to speak to the river and ask it why it runs, or to the sunshine and inquire of its cheer, or to command the raging storm be silent, this is a delight that saints and angels know which man, exiled from Eden, has lost. We are dumb and deaf in a world given to our dominion. — John C. Wright

Pain has a funny way of focusing the mind. Only what hurts matters. — John C. Wright

She said, "Look me right in the eye, and tell me you don't love me, and I'll go."
He stared at her. "Miss, I do not love you."
"Don't give me that rot! I'm coming with you, and that's final!"
"Daphne, you just said that if I said ... "
"That doesn't count! I said look me right in the eye! You were staring at my nose! — John C. Wright

A philosopher goes where the truth leads and has no patience with mere emotion. — John C. Wright

My mom once told me, back when I was a kid, that I would never understand girls unless I understood the fear of being lonely and alone. She said no girl would ever understand boys unless she understood the fear of being dishonored and defeated. — John C. Wright

What would the world be like if you had to develop a power yourself before you could use it? Just as a silly example: How would the comment section on YouTube change if, to use it, you had to have the schooling necessary to have a basic understanding of how computers and the internet work? More seriously, would anyone smart enough to know how to design and build a tank, or a laser guided anti-aircraft missile, or a computer and video editing software be stupid enough to join ISIS? In fact, if such knowledge was required - would it even be possible for there to be standing armies? — John C. Wright

This world is behind enemy lines. Secret powers rule it. But they don't want to kill us with bombs or knives. They want even worse for us. They want to kill the better part of us, the part that hopes. Illnesses and accidents are weapons in their hands, weapons of despair, meant to turn our thoughts down and down to dark and dismal paths. — John C. Wright

The future did not arrive. — John C. Wright

The first kind builds character. You cannot grow without this kind of problem, any more than you can build muscles without exercise. — John C. Wright

You see, none of these conflicts are about things that people only sort of like. It is always about love. You may think me blasphemous to use the Passion of the Christ as an example of drama, but not so: this is the one true story, the greatest story ever told, the tale of tales even as Christ is the King of Kings, and all truly inspired fairy tales and fiction have to contain some echo or reflection of the One True Tale, or else it is no tale of any power at all, merely a pastime.
The most powerful and potent tales, even when they are told awkwardly and without grace or poetry or craft, are stories of paradise lost and paradise regained; sacrifice, selfless love, forgiveness and salvation; stories of a man who learns better. — John C. Wright

Montrose decided then and there that a full library, one made of old-fashioned paper books with bindings, the kind that cannot be electronically re-edited by anonymous lines of hidden code, was just as much a necessity for a free man as a shooting iron or a printing press. — John C. Wright

Humanity one chooses. Men who choose inhumanity are merely upright beasts. — John C. Wright

So it is not the danger that creeps people out. It is something else. Something uncanny. An aura of madness. Even with his face hidden, I could see Enmeduranki had it. — John C. Wright

Human nature, for better or worse, always eventually comes to the fore again. And human nature likes and needs stories that are stories. — John C. Wright

Euryphaean, and the music of an instrument called a pianoforte, infinite resistance coil and the sanity glass, and all the inventions that sprang from — John C. Wright

Imagine the same scene in HAMLET if Pullman had written it. Hamlet, using a mystic pearl, places the poison in the cup to kill Claudius. We are all told Claudius will die by drinking the cup. Then Claudius dies choking on a chicken bone at lunch. Then the Queen dies when Horatio shows her the magical Mirror of Death. This mirror appears in no previous scene, nor is it explained why it exists. Then Ophelia summons up the Ghost from Act One and kills it, while she makes a speech denouncing the evils of religion. Ophelia and Hamlet are parted, as it is revealed in the last act that a curse will befall them if they do not part ways. — John C. Wright

Truth destroys the worst in man; pleasure destroys the best. If you love truth more than happiness, then open; otherwise, let rest." His — John C. Wright

The second kind are invited by bad character, and the problems such a person has then cannot be put right until he puts himself right. It is not something a proud man can do, because proud men see no wrongness in themselves. — John C. Wright

We are men born in a land of eternal darkness. We grope where we cannot see clearly. Why mistrust what ancient books say? Why mistrust what our souls say? Our forefathers gave us this lamp, and the flame was lit in brighter days, when men saw further. I agree the lamp-light of such far-off lore, is dim for us; but surely that proves it to be folly, not wisdom, to cast the lamp aside: for then we are blind. — John C. Wright

Greek myths are heroic, noble and tragic; but the American Dream is heroic, comical, and uplifting. Americans are a people in whom overweening ambition is rewarded, not punished. The Wright Brothers did not have their wings melt when they flew too high. Perhaps their wings were more soundly built than those of Icarus. — John C. Wright

When power is the only coin, they said, you have nothing left to sell but your soul. — John C. Wright

Here is our first rule: Any life you create is yours, and must be cared for. No matter how humble or small, it is still yours, and you must answer for it. — John C. Wright

But the power in this case is real indeed. You doubt the mystery and power of these aircraft and their markings? They are aeons old and yet they still operate!"
"You've seen them fly? Where do they go? I am wondering if there is a city we can reach."
"Before you woke from your coffin, they flew indeed. Turning and turning in the widening gyre. What does that suggest?"
"Um. Some rough beast is slouching toward Bethlehem waiting to be born, maybe?"
"No doubt the spirit of prophecy escapes your lips! It must be prophecy because I cannot grok what you are saying."
"Sorry. Won't happen again. It suggests a search pattern. — John C. Wright

One of the things that made me suffer no regret when I was called away from the cramped intellectual jail of atheism into a wider and more wonderful world, was my growing conviction that my fellow atheists were shallow, men without insight into real human nature. — John C. Wright

What if they found a trapdoor out of this dead universe? A hole? A black hole? A place where the tyranny of time and space couldn't reach? — John C. Wright

The second kind you make yourself. Most people, most of their lives, most of their problems, they simply invite into their lives, sweep out a guestroom for each pain, and give it free lodging and board. — John C. Wright

A wasteland is a confrontation to a man of stature: an empty place, a gauntlet thrown down in challenge and defiance. A place like that cries out to be conquered and civilised. — John C. Wright

For as 'Wright's Ninth Rule of Writing' states, every story teaches a moral, whether intended by the author or not. — John C. Wright

The modern bridge between the mind and physical objects is rickety and can sustain little weight. Idealists attempted to cut this bridge by positing that the mind is fundamental, while the materialists sawed the ropes off from the other end, in the constant quest to reduce, eliminate, or ignore the mental. The hard problem of consciousness, of unifying mind and body, and of correlating our mental grasp of the world with extramental objects is all but intractable within the modern paradigm. — John C. Wright

The first kind of problems are the ones life sends upon you to test you, to make you humble or make you longsuffering, or whatever you may need. — John C. Wright

The dream they dream is beautiful. A dream as bold as your own, or bolder. You want to explore and colonize the universe; they wish to extend the lifespan of the universe beyond all boundaries, to remake its laws, and shape reality to banish entropy, decay, and death forever. I'd like to believe in that dream whether it's true or not. — John C. Wright

Even a prison the size of a universe is still a prison. And it is every prisoner's duty to escape. — John C. Wright

A sane accusation can be refuted. An insane accusation, one that makes no sense on any level, cannot be refuted, cannot even be addressed, because it is insolent nonsense. There is no sober way to defend oneself from the accusation of being a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater. — John C. Wright

In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero. - The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 183 — John C. Wright

I can't wait to get my memory back. It sounds like I am a really cool person — John C. Wright

No morally imperfect human being(s), born into "the double darkness of sin and ignorance" could ever qualify for the position of Master Utilitarian Manipulator that Consequentialism needs to be put into practice. — John C. Wright

Just then, just when I thought I would be free from the repeated blows to my tender head of the Stupidity Hammer, the Stupidity Hammer rose up from the shining screen, drew back, whirled hugely, and with great force and might and main slammed me right between the eyes so my brain squirted out my ears a yard past my shoulders in both directions.
Bilbo does not seal the barrels.
I will wait for you to recover in case you just got the sensation of a Stupidity Hammer clonking you from the page. Then I will repeat myself, because it is so dumb you might not believe me:
Bilbo does not seal the barrels. He leaves the tops open.
The Desolation of Tolkien — John C. Wright

On THE AMBER SPYGLASS:
If this plotline was a motorist, it would have been arrested for driving while intoxicated, if it had not perished in the horrible drunk accident where it went headlong over the cliff of the author's preachy message, tumbled down the rocky hillside, crashed, and burned. — John C. Wright

Men's souls are crooked and unsound things, not good materials out of which to build friendships, families, households, cities, civilizations. But good or no, these things must be built, and we must craft them with the materials at hand, and make as strong and stubborn redoubt as we can make, lest the horrors of the Night should triumph over us, not in some distant age to come, but now. — John C. Wright

Vows are powerful things," he said. "They set things in motion. — John C. Wright

We call it Albion. It is the English-speaking world. The one where they kill babies in the womb, right? And here I was hoping we'd be famous for the Moonshot, or democracy, or the Beatles, or something. — John C. Wright

Truth does not become more or less true, whether those who know it are many or few. — John C. Wright

And therefore a giant hammer of pure stupidity lashed out of the screen and felled me again. I lay mewling, clutching my head with my sweaty hands, whimpering for my Mommy to make it stop. MAKE IT STOP!
But it did not stop. It. Did. Not. Stop.
The Desolation of Tolkien — John C. Wright

Here in this world, justice loses, and beauty is weak, and truth is shouted down, and everything goes wrong. But we know, in our souls if not in our hearts, that we deserve better. We deserve and yearn for a world where justice triumphs, and beauty is all powerful and truth cannot be quenched by lies any more than insubstantial shadows can fly from earth to the center of the solar system and strangle the sun. So, to remind ourselves of what we have forgotten, we talk about times in real life when justice triumphed, or the beauty was not marred, or truth could not be hidden. — John C. Wright

The process of thinking itself requires us to view the universe in the direction of entropy, since an abstraction always involves information loss, since symbols 'abstract' complexity from observed objects. — John C. Wright

Being told that he was immune to flattery was the nicest thing he had heard someone say about him in a long time. — John C. Wright