John Shirley Quotes & Sayings

from the end of John Shirley's Black Glass, something like: "the Singularity guys don't understand, they aren't copying us, our brains, just the noise we make — John Shirley

He liked living simply. And he liked living alone. He had grown to dislike physical affection. It was intrusive, and it bullied his self esteem, because he wasn't good at it. — John Shirley

Misha's importance and distinctiveness are beginning to be noticed, there's beginning to be some kind of rip-tide here that will soon become a wave of recognition for a book that the world is beginning to catch up to ... We weren't ready before. We'd better be ready now. Because it's the 21st century, any minute now, and that means that Misha's time has come. In more ways than one. — John Shirley

I get drunk writing words. I don't drink or do drugs, but I get so carried away with writing that I get inebriated from it. — John Shirley

I'm disturbed when people let superstition, magical thinking, extreme conspiracy theories and so on blur their minds. — John Shirley

I'm incapable of writing without social commentary. I like to think that it's integrated and not really heavy handedly didactic. — John Shirley

He had know guys all his life who gave him that feeling. Even as a kid. People who were always lying, even when they didn't have to. — John Shirley

I do sometimes watch 'Dr. Who' and while the stories barely make sense, if at all, the doctor is such great company I don't care. — John Shirley

I'm not quite pompous enough to think of myself as an educator or a man capable of definitive refutation of falsehoods. — John Shirley

Labels only confuse people. The smarter people recognize artists who transcend categories. But I always try to entertain. It's in my nature; writers are born to entertain. If that means working ostensibly within a genre, fine. — John Shirley

Some automatic responses are good - they're skills, and we need them for life and labor. But the tendency to accumulate programming tends to have a life of its own - or more accurately, to steal the life that belongs to us. — John Shirley

Almost anyone could be Fascist under the right circumstances. If they get scared enough. It's because, you see, most people live their lives like sleepwalkers. They're not really awake, though they think they are. And sleepwalkers are easily lead. That's why we have to fight so hard. Because it never quite goes away. — John Shirley

As far as I know Misha wrote the first cyberpunk poetry. — John Shirley

the so-called free world was a dictatorship that used media and conformist conditioning to enforce its dominion. — John Shirley

Social conventions were avenues as much as barriers. — John Shirley

If the modern world were a patient in my care... I would diagnose it suicidal." - Dr. Sofia Lamb — John Shirley

People in extreme conditions are suddenly naked, realer than normal, perhaps even more alive. — John Shirley

Everyone was always in danger, after all. From cancer, from car crashes and plane crashes, from criminals. Most people managed denial; managed to pretend they were safe. — John Shirley

I'm trying to trick people into thinking about the unthinkable by using pop culture images. — John Shirley

Garner had to search for his little girl in this endless sea of irrelevancy and indifference and preoccupied people and deteriorating places. This is crazy, this is hopeless ... — John Shirley

No Gods Or Kings. Only Man. -Andrew Ryan — John Shirley

The greater the scope in implementing an activity, the greater the need for strict attention to small details. — John Shirley

Innocence could be considered a discrete state of mind. — John Shirley

Bob [Sachs] is not the only client who wants a more finished look. People from out of state still see the 'Old West,' mining-camp look as new and exciting, but most don't want splinters [from unfinished wood] in their houses. The taste is more grown-up. — John Shirley

When you serve a beer-cock an ear. — John Shirley

Okay; they've got to be kids - but why girls?" Fontaine asked. "People are even more protective about little girls." Tenenbaum winced and turned back to the microscope, muttering, "For some reason girls take sea-slug implant better than boys." Fontaine wondered what little boy they'd experimented on to determine that and what had become of him. But he didn't really care. He didn't. And in fact - there was one place that could supply children for all sorts of things. "So - just girls, eh? That's okay; that'll just be fewer bunks in the orphanage. — John Shirley

So you see, a man's history when other folks tell it is a pitiful confusion. — John Shirley

I do try to be of some use in the world. I sometimes do volunteer work with kids, and manage to help some people a little, but really making a significant difference can be hard. — John Shirley

I'm cursed with empathy. I'm also by nature way too opinionated. — John Shirley

I'm just the kind of person who seems designed, probably by nature, to try to make a difference. — John Shirley

A man must make of his life a ladder that he never ceases to climb
if you're not rising, you are slipping down the rungs, my friend. — John Shirley

Weekends are a bit like rainbows; they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them. — John Shirley

I think paranoia can be instructive in the right doses. Paranoia is a skill. — John Shirley

It was like the Iran/Contra hearings in the last century; then, too, the investigators had looked just so far and no further. — John Shirley