Karl Schroeder Quotes & Sayings

To read is to make love to the world," he said. "But to make love to a woman is to feel like the world is reading you. — Karl Schroeder

The secret to life, she had said, was to find the little things, the unimportant ones that would nonetheless always remind you of the precious things they accompanied - and hold onto them. — Karl Schroeder

The point is, if you treat reality like a game, it's going to show in your decisions. — Karl Schroeder

It's not that simple." "Ah! That phrase is Male for 'I'm afraid to. — Karl Schroeder

that we be there to be spoken to than absent to be spoken about. — Karl Schroeder

Peter Watts has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course. Blindsight is such a book. — Karl Schroeder

I intended to be famous by the time I was 16 and rich by the time I was 20. Curiously, it didn't pan out! — Karl Schroeder

So now I ask you, what will happen to me? I have fulfilled my purpose, but I can no longer cease to exist by myself. I have inherited Calandria May's sorrow, and am lost myself without the purpose I once had. I can never be a ship again. So please, I beg you, shut me down now. I never wanted to have a soul. — Karl Schroeder

Give people the power of the gods, and they'll eventually run down like wind-up toys for lack of reasons to go on. — Karl Schroeder

The one thing we know about the future is that it will not be like today. I don't think that people should be too anxious about not knowing what they are going to do in the future, because we really can't know. — Karl Schroeder

I thought of myself as an outsider in a lot of ways as I was growing up. Not in a bad way; more as an observer. I often find myself thinking as an observer of science fiction rather than as a participant. — Karl Schroeder

Maybe it's because I look into the future professionally, but I see great possibilities for both humanity and our planet. I don't believe the thriving of one has to come at the expense of the other, and I'm deeply concerned to find out whether other people do think that. — Karl Schroeder

The way I usually put it is that as an SF writer, I'm never required to be right. — Karl Schroeder

The countryside they — Karl Schroeder

Foresight is not about predicting the future, it's about minimizing surprise. — Karl Schroeder

My stage projection's a puppet; I could moon the crowd and the projectors would compensate and make it look like I'd bowed. — Karl Schroeder

Frankenstein's monster speaks: the computer. But where are its words coming from? Is the wisdom on those cold lips our own, merely repeated at our request? Or is something else speaking? - A voice we have always dreamed of hearing? — Karl Schroeder

Around 2005, the Canadian army tapped me to do a dramatization for a series of foresight workshops they'd done. They had stacks of papers and needed it boiled down to something simple enough for a 4-star general to understand. We decided to do it as a story. That's how I created 'Crisis in Zefra.' — Karl Schroeder

But the soldiers would have gladly given up their beds to a woman." "Yes, and I hate them for it." She pushed him away. "It's the arrogance of men that leads them to sacrifice themselves. Not real consideration. — Karl Schroeder

Introducing a technology is not a neutral act
it is profoundly revolutionary. If you present a new technology to the world you are effectively legislating a change in the way we all live. You are changing society, not some vague democratic process. The individuals who are driven to use that technology by the disparities of wealth and power it creates do not have a real choice in the matter. So the idea that we are giving people more freedom by developing technologies and then simply making them available is a dangerous illusion. — Karl Schroeder

There's no possibility that foresight work will ruin my creativity. It goes to a different area than the creative wellspring of SF. — Karl Schroeder

Per Diem 10 dites/day Visitors' Card 75 — Karl Schroeder

You must listen!" the tiny monster squeaked. She grabbed it as it made to climb onto the dashboard, and then she shook it fiercely. "No!" she bellowed. "You must listen! — Karl Schroeder

If I want to speculate wildly about the future, I have my science fiction. Anybody who tells you they can predict the future is either crazy or lying. — Karl Schroeder

Mediation wishes to speak of other things. So Mediation will quote from an ancient human book. The Hamburg Manifesto says, "Thalience is an attempt to give nature a voice without that voice being ours in disguise. It is the only way for an artificial intelligence to be grounded in a self-identity that is truly independent of its creator's. — Karl Schroeder

An ancient sage held that in different ages, humans held the senses in different ratios, according to the media by which they communicated and expressed themselves. Hence before writing, the ear was the royal sense. After writing, the eye. — Karl Schroeder

Every enlightened path can turn on itself and become a new tyranny, — Karl Schroeder

Oh, I inherited my emotions from Calandria May, and I understand now that each human has a ruling passion, one that serves as the fountainhead from which flow all semblances of happiness, sadness, anger, and joy. — Karl Schroeder

She herself had told him that you can never hold onto anything. The harder you try, the more precious things slip through your fingers. The secret to life, she had said, was to find the little things, the unimportant ones that would nonetheless always remind you of the precious things they accompanied - and hold onto them. Like the fine furniture her husband had carved for her, seemingly centuries ago. — Karl Schroeder

Andy Clark has several books you can find on Amazon, including 'Natural Born Cyborgs' and 'Being There.' I particularly recommend 'Being There' to anybody who still thinks the Cartesian separation of mind and body should be taken seriously. — Karl Schroeder

Andy Clark refers to humans as 'natural-born cyborgs.' What he means is that we habitually extend and change our body-concept without even thinking twice about it. — Karl Schroeder

Starting on February 1, 2010, and running through until May 30, I will be Toronto Public Library's Writer in Residence, working out of the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculation at the Lillian H. Smith branch at College and Spadina. — Karl Schroeder

My mother wrote a couple of romances when I was a kid, and I always saw books in our bookshelf with 'Schroeder' on the spine. — Karl Schroeder

They had left the demigod they now called the Voice in a government creche in orbit. The Archipelago had facilities for newly born artificial sentients - a revelation that still astonished and unsettled Marya when she thought about it. The Voice had gone willingly into the maw of the jewellike orbiting structure; as the doors closed she had looked back, but Marya could read nothing in her gaze - neither hope nor fear. — Karl Schroeder

I know that traditionally, monsters hang around empty places for no apparent reason - and — Karl Schroeder

Makers?" said Toby. Jaysir nodded.

"We're not loners, you know. There just weren't any on Wallop. We love to get together, we just refuse to engage in social relations that are based on material inequity. — Karl Schroeder

He spun in clear air, weightless again but traveling too fast to breathe the air that tore past his lips. As his vision darkened he turned and saw bike number two impact the side of the battleship, crumpling its hull and spreading a mushroom of flame that lit a name painted on the metal hull: Arrogance. — Karl Schroeder

I have been doing technology foresight for a number of years now on the level of scenario design, primarily. I want to become more rigorous with research methodology and statistical methods. I want to shift from creating clever SF scenarios to being a professional forecaster able to make rigorous predictions. — Karl Schroeder

I remember the moon landings, and Apollo was the paradigm by which all progress was measured at that time. And I knew that creating a true space-faring civilization was both possible and practical. What I failed to realize was that the effort would fail due to bureaucratic inertia and political apathy. — Karl Schroeder

DON'T ABUSE ME, I've never flown one of these things before." Richard Reiss put the tip of his tongue between his teeth and squinted at the controls. While he did this, building blocks, tree limbs, and swirling leaves scudded past the plastic windscreen. Chaison stared at the ambassador. "Richard, why are you dressed as a clown?" Ballooning pantaloons and a polka-dotted top spilled out around the edges of Reiss's seat; he had red smudges on his cheeks that he'd obviously been trying to rub off. The ambassador turned with great dignity, fixed Chaison with a steely eye and said, "It is a very long story, and one I find I would rather not relate. — Karl Schroeder

The whole glittering nebula of shapes was framed by midnight colors - black, bruised blue, indigo, all textured into intricacy by clouds and the reachless vaults between them. Here, darkness was not simple; it hinted at structures and meanings, hidden activity and watchful eyes. Beacons flickered, miles away, then disappeared behind fog banks. Half-glimpsed ropes twisted and contorted their way up, down, and to every side, synapses reaching to contact the outlier towns and factories of Sere's hinterland. One or two of those ropes, if you followed them far enough, would emerge into sunlight at other nations' borders. — Karl Schroeder

Any object that lost its nanotags automatically became government property, so hard-working people and those who had lived for generations in ancestral homes here would see their properties expropriated. The farmers who had brought their produce to sell no longer owned that produce. The government knew this would drive people into the rebel cause in droves, but they had no alternative. Their orders came from Earth, after all. Earth was very far away, and the Rights Owners there would not be sympathetic. — Karl Schroeder