Michael Moorcock Quotes & Sayings

It remains a mystery to me why some of that [pulp] fiction should be judged inferior to the rafts and rafts of bad social [literary] fiction which continues to be treated by literary editors as if it were somehow superior, or at least worthier of our attention. The careerist literary imperialism of the Bloomsbury years did a lot to produce fiction's present unseemly polarities. — Michael Moorcock

The problems for which I could find no solution in fact had no solution. — Michael Moorcock

Corum knew that he was mad, in Vadhagh terms. But he supposed that he was sane enough in Mabden terms. And this was, after all, now a Mabden world. He must learn to accept its peculiar disorders as normal, if he were going to survive. — Michael Moorcock

In many ways the recent history of the Ukraine can be seen as an intensified version of the history of our era. Most of the political issues are familiar to us. Most of the methods used to meet those issues are also familiar. Events in the Ukraine prefigured events through the rest of the world ... — Michael Moorcock

Then the earth grew old, its landscapes mellowing and showing signs of age, its ways becoming whimsical and strange in the manner of a man in his last years ... — Michael Moorcock

Our scientific advances will be merely obscene unless they help the large part of our world's population emerge from miserable uncertainty and debilitating terror. — Michael Moorcock

They offer you so much power. All that patriarchy! So tempting to take advantage of it. — Michael Moorcock

I am a thousand time more evil than thou! — Michael Moorcock

Man may trust man, Prince Elric, but perhaps we'll never have a truly sane world until men learn to trust mankind. That would mean the death of magic, I think. — Michael Moorcock

Is the prisoner a prisoner because he lives in a cage or because he knows that he lives in a cage? — Michael Moorcock

She had enjoyed a phase where she found it easier to divide herself and argue, as it were, face to face, than to attempt to arrange her thoughts in the conventional manner. — Michael Moorcock

IT IS THE colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody, and from the loose sleeves of his yellow gown emerge two slender hands, also the colour of bone, resting on each arm of a seat which has been carved from a single, massive ruby. — Michael Moorcock

Farewell, friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou! — Michael Moorcock

I can accept then, that we are more than forsaken, because there was never anything there to forsake us. — Michael Moorcock

One avoids becoming a Tolkien clone precisely by returning to the same roots that inspired The Lord of the Rings. — Michael Moorcock

If the people at the top think that reaching for a gun will solve the problem, why shouldn't the people at the bottom think the same? — Michael Moorcock

We would all be better off dead, useless eaters of the lotus that we are. — Michael Moorcock

The Lords of Chaos are
the enemies of Logic,
the jugglers of Truth,
the molders of Beauty — Michael Moorcock

I really did have a very egalitarian upbringing. — Michael Moorcock

Legends are best left as legends and attempts to make them real are rarely successful — Michael Moorcock

Man was not born to a world of justice. But he can create such a world! — Michael Moorcock

Life's not easy, it is a hard task to live it well and with grace - but, by Hades, let's not complicate it with deities and water-nymphs! — Michael Moorcock

The albino found himself brooding upon the nature of all unholy bargains, of his own dependency upon the hellsword Stormbringer, of his willingness to summon supernatural aid without thought of any spiritual consequences to himself and, perhaps most significant, of his unwillingness to find a way to cure himself of the occult's seductive attraction; for there was a part of his strange brain that was curious to follow its own fate; to learn whatever disastrous conclusion lay in store for it - it needed to know the end of the saga: the value, perhaps, of its torment. — Michael Moorcock

For this was the other thing that Elric knew: that to compromise with Tyranny is always to be destroyed by it. The sanest and most logical choice lay always in resistance. — Michael Moorcock

When I had first been hurled into the world of the 1970s I had thought I found Utopia. And now I was discovering that it was only a Utopia for some. Shaw wanted a Utopia which would exist for all. — Michael Moorcock

At which Charion Pratt blushed girlishly, to her own furious embarrassment, yet the eye she cast upon the little coxcomb was not unlike that which a certain toad had once cast upon her: for there is never anything but apparent paradox in the choices made by lovers. — Michael Moorcock

'No one lives in Ameeron by choice.'A veritable City of the Damned.'As the poet might remark, aye.' Rackhir offered Elric a sardonic wink. 'But I sometimes think all cities are that.' — Michael Moorcock

Why should their pain produce such marvelous beauty? he wonders. Or is all beauty created through pain? Is that the secret of great art, both human and Melnibonen? — Michael Moorcock

Americans need bullshit the way koala bears need eucalyptus leaves. They've become totally addicted to it. They get so much of it back home that they can't survive without it. — Michael Moorcock

He combed his milk-white hair and crooned a tune to himself, clipped on his yellow chamois shoulder holster and stepped out into the soft night and his smooth car.
As he drove, he considered the stars. It would all be over in a flash. — Michael Moorcock

I have sometimes wondered what social stability is. It is probably just a question of points of view and personal experience. — Michael Moorcock

In an infinite universe, all may become real sooner or later. Yet it is always up to mankind to make real what it really wishes to be real. — Michael Moorcock

Here, I thought, I had found the human race in its final stages of decadence perverse, insouciant, without ambition. And I could not blame them. After all, they had no future. — Michael Moorcock

He knew that for all his admission of Chaos he would be better able to do what he wished in a world ordered by some degree of Law. The — Michael Moorcock

The sentiment may perceive and love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentiment. The universe sees no distinction between the multitude of creatures and elements which comprise it. All are equal. None is favoured. The universe, equipped with nothing but the materials and the power of creation, continues to create: something of this, something of that. It cannot control what it creates and it cannot, it seems, be controlled by its creations (though a few might deceive themselves otherwise). Those who curse the workings of the universe curse that which is deaf. Those who strike out at those workings fight that which is inviolate. Those who shake their fists, shake their fists at blind stars. — Michael Moorcock

Man can live by bread alone when all his energies are devoted to attaining that bread, but once his mind is clear, once he has ceased to labour through all his waking hours to find food, then he begins to think. — Michael Moorcock

For the mind of man alone is free to explore the lofty vastness of the cosmic infinite, to transcend ordinary consciousness, to roam the secret corridors of the brain where past and future melt into one ... And universe and individual are linked, the one mirrored in the other, and each contains the other. — Michael Moorcock

I think the notion of worldbuilding is a failure of literary sophistication. — Michael Moorcock

It was a world ruled these days by the gun, the guitar, and the needle, sexier than sex, where the good right hand had become the male's primary sexual organ ... — Michael Moorcock

You Mabden seem to think that happiness must be bought with misery ... It is not easy for Vadhagh to understand that. We believe
believed
that happiness was a natural condition of reasoning beings. — Michael Moorcock

And now, Elric had told three lies. The first concerned his cousin Yyrkoon. The second concerned the Black Sword. The third concerned Cymoril. And upon those three lies was Elric's destiny to be built, for it is only about things which concern us most profoundly that we lie clearly and with profound conviction. — Michael Moorcock

A moment later, the world's first all-purpose human being strode eastward, whistling.
'A tasty world,' it reflected cheerfully. 'A very tasty world.'
'You said it, Cornelius! — Michael Moorcock

To seek pain as a form
of salvation is to destroy oneself. — Michael Moorcock

It is almost impossible to have a baseless snobbish opinion of the General Theory of Relativity. — Michael Moorcock

Heroes betray us. By having them, in real life, we betray ourselves. — Michael Moorcock

What happened to fantasy for me is what also happened to rock and roll. It found a common denominator for making maximum money. As a result, it lost its tensions, its anger, its edginess and turned into one big cup of cocoa. — Michael Moorcock

There is less danger, gentlemen, in living according to a set of high moral principles than most politicians believe. — Michael Moorcock

Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your novel. If you are writing a plot-driven genre novel make sure all your major themes/plot elements are introduced in the first third, which you can call the introduction. Develop your themes and characters in your second third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries and so on in the final third, the resolution. — Michael Moorcock

The note took long moments to fade and, when it had at last died away, there was an absolute hush over the world, the milling millions were still, there was an air of expectancy. And then the White Lords came. — Michael Moorcock

There was no more dangerous kind of madman than one who devoted a good brain and a courageous heart to unhealthy ambitions. — Michael Moorcock

Religion was the creation of fear. Knowledge destroys fear. Without fear, religion can't survive. — Michael Moorcock

Who told you that the world was just?' Elric — Michael Moorcock

People are not alarmed by the unusual so long as it is placed in an acceptable context. — Michael Moorcock

The legends which offer a race their sense of pride and history eventually become putrid. — Michael Moorcock

Memory is the foundation of identity. Through our sense of identity, we act. We determine our moral judgements. We rewrite our own memories, of course, all the time. We create fresh narratives to use in our survival. We agree on fresh histories enabling us to take action. It is part of what makes us such flawed creatures. Creatures of such narrative fiction creating cause and effect. — Michael Moorcock

We live in a world where many kinds of regression dignify themselves with the mantle of progress. — Michael Moorcock

Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralyzed body of the youthful poet who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed him of an exquisite existence they would never appreciate, never know they were taking. — Michael Moorcock

The subtlest lie of all is the full truth. — Michael Moorcock

Treasures are not won by care and forethought
but by swift slaying and reckless attack. — Michael Moorcock

He was talking about hire purchase. precredit cards. A different way of getting the poor into debt, but I think he was right. It was nice when ordinary people could take a holiday in Spain, of course, but easy credit is what started the cultural rot. Tourism depends on lots of people everywhere with loads of disposable wealth, which means all kinds of changes through a place a cultivates it. The real, messy, informative past disappears to be overlaid with bad fiction, with simplified folklore, easy answers. Memory needs to remain complex, debatable. Without those qualities it is mere nostalgic sentimentality. Commodified identity. Souls bough and sold. — Michael Moorcock

I know not which I prefer the look of - those who attack us or that which defends us! — Michael Moorcock

It's History that's caused all the troubles in the past. — Michael Moorcock

Everything means nothing that is the only truth. — Michael Moorcock

But people may do great good accidentally, though with evil intentions - conversely people may do great evil though having the best of intentions. — Michael Moorcock

And you, Prince Elric?" She attracted the albino's wandering attention. "Do you know his story?"
Elric shook his head.
"I only know," he said, "that he is a shape-changer and, that most cursed of souls, a person of rare goodness and sanity. Imagine such torment as is his! — Michael Moorcock

Arthuriana has become a genre in itself, more like TV soap opera where people think they know the characters. All that's fair enough, but it does remove the mythic power of the feminine and masculine principles. So I prefer it in its original form, even if you have to wade through Mallory's 'Le Morte d'Arthur'
people smashing people for pages and pages! It still has the resonances of myth about it, which makes it work for me. I don't want to know if Mordred led an unhappy childhood or not. — Michael Moorcock

We were all serious readers, sitting on wooden chairs at rows of lecterns, turning the pages, united in mutual love of isolation. — Michael Moorcock

Unsettled by the sudden appearance of Captain Quire within her court, Gloriana resolved to forego all frivolous entertainments and shun the more unnecessary pleasures. Yet, the queen reasoned, this surely did not apply to healthful exercise, such as riding in the royal park. Nor could she refuse to spend the remainder of the afternoon in quiet seclusion, lying face down upon a cushioned bench in her private dressing room while gentle Lady Mary rubbed all the soreness from her muscles. Such occupations were safe, and harmless. It was only afterwards, when she was sleeping deeply, that Captain Quire came to her in a dream. — Michael Moorcock

There was certainly much to be said for being at the mercy of the primeval elements, to be swept along by circumstances one could not in any way control, but it was good to return, to feel one's identity expand again, unchecked. — Michael Moorcock

Because I had sought to challenge Destiny, Destiny had taken vengeance. — Michael Moorcock

I walk the moonbeam roads a silver web connecting the many worlds of the Multiverse. — Michael Moorcock

Then Lu Wing entered, no longer in chauffeur's uniform but wearing a high-buttoned, deep blue silk tunic, an entourage of smooth, modern men of south China at his heels, ready, I heard him say, to do any further work required of them. The conversation turned to a more distant moment when his father died and he would claim the crown of the Wing emirates, to rule over a subcontinent and its colonies again. Sending his men off, he said, upon their errands and to visit their many relatives in Limehouse, Lu Wing leaned against the bar, as relaxed as he had probably been during his student days at Oxford. — Michael Moorcock

Now Elric was caught up in a kind of intradimensional hurricane, in which a thousand reverses ocurred within his brain at once and he became a thousand other creatures for an instant, and where he lived through more than ten other lives; a fate only minimally different from the one that was familiar to him; and so vast did the multiverse become, so unthinkable, that he began to go mad as he attempted to make sense of just a fraction of what laid siege to his sanity. — Michael Moorcock

What the local politicians actually meant was that they hoped to claim the land in the name of the public and then make the usual profits privatizing it. There was a principle at stake. They had to ensure their friends and not outsiders got the benefit. — Michael Moorcock

Death is the promise we're all born with, sir. A good
death is better than a poor one. — Michael Moorcock

It's getting late. I must return to my ship or my men will think I've drowned and be celebrating. — Michael Moorcock

Time is the enemy of identity — Michael Moorcock

Our Di had, according to her myth, been hounded to death by the baying werewolves of the yellow press. Of course it was now plain I was one. Maybe even the worst of them. Some people claimed they had actually seen me baying. In the tunnel. With the blood of their angel on my hands. — Michael Moorcock

I think of myself as a bad writer with big ideas, but I'd rather be that than a big writer with bad ideas. — Michael Moorcock

Elric knew that everything that existed had its opposite. In danger he might find peace. And yet, of course, in peace there was danger. Being an imperfect creature in an imperfect world he would always know paradox. And that was why in paradox there was always a kind of truth. That was why philosophers and soothsayers flourished. In a perfect world there would be no place for them. In an imperfect world the mysteries were always without solution and that was why there was always a great choice of solutions. — Michael Moorcock

When gods die, self-respect buds', murmured Orland Fank. 'Gods and their examples are not needed by those who respect themselves and, consequently, respect others. Gods are for children, for little, fearful people, for those who would have no responsibility to themselves or their fellows. — Michael Moorcock

I have a kind of innate sense of structure, which also makes me a good mimic. — Michael Moorcock

I come from an almost wholly secular background and have no quarrel with religion. — Michael Moorcock

His little black-and-white cat with the black-and-white wings would fly through the rooms sometimes, but most often it would be discovered sleeping somewhere where it was most inconvenient for it to sleep. And — Michael Moorcock

Trapped. Sinking. Can't be myself. Made into what other people expect. Is that everyone's fate? Were the great individualists the products of their friends who wanted a great individualist as a friend? — Michael Moorcock

By means of our myths and legends we maintain a sense of what we are worth and who we are. Without them we should undoubtedly go mad. — Michael Moorcock

I had this funny family. At one end, they were breeding dogs in south-east London - for greyhound racing - and at the other, my uncle was living in Downing Street. And I would actually go to Downing Street, which didn't strike me as funny. I'd get on the number 15 bus. — Michael Moorcock

On such ventures as these one is
inclined to forget much, as one forgets a dream. — Michael Moorcock

Though I don't have any serious argument with Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods', I believe that Americans cease to be Europeans - the land makes them become Americans. You see it happening all the time when you travel around America. — Michael Moorcock

he cursed the malevolent Gods for the black day when idly, for their amusement, they had spawned men. — Michael Moorcock

We must be bound to one another then," Elric murmured despairingly. "Bound by hell-forged chains and fate-haunted circumstance. Well, then - let it be thus so - and men will have cause to tremble and flee when they hear the names of Elric of Melinbone and Stormbringer, his sword. We are two of a kind - produced by an age which has deserted us. Let us give this age cause to hate us! — Michael Moorcock

I'd started doing fanzines from the age of nine. I'd been doing as many copies as you can get carbon paper into an upright typewriter, and I'd try to sell them at school. — Michael Moorcock

You make the mistake of considering Christianity as something that developed over the course of a few years, from the death of Jesus to the time the gospels were written. But Christianity wasn't new. Only the name was new. Christianity was merely a stage in the meeting, cross-fertilization, metamorphosis of Western logic and Eastern mysticism. Look how the religion itself changed over the centuries, reinterpreting itself to meet changing times. Christianity is just a new name for a conglomeration of old myths and philosophies. All the gospels do is retell the sun myth and garble some of the ideas from the Greeks and Romans. — Michael Moorcock

Ah, the world was ever so. How sad are heroes when their tasks are done ... — Michael Moorcock

Yet without Chaos there would be no Creation, and perhaps no Creator. That is the simple truth of all existence, Lord Elric. The promise of immortality. — Michael Moorcock

Some of my earliest work was in comics. I tend to think in pictures and always like to write scenes possessing the dynamic you find in comics. — Michael Moorcock

It happens to many like that," he said. "I have seen them. But you have to show them so much injustice first ... Nobody wants to believe that the world is cruel - or that one's own kind are cruel. Not to know cruelty is to remain innocent, eh? And we should all like to remain innocent. A revolutionist is a man who, perhaps, fails to keep his innocence but so desperately wants it back that he seeks to create a world where all shall be innocent in that way. — Michael Moorcock

Time is a dream - or a nightmare - from which there is never any waking. We who travel in Time are dreamers who occasionally share a common experience. — Michael Moorcock

She yawned. If the Lords of Entropy were to manifest themselves on Earth again as they had in the legendary past she felt she might welcome them as a relief, at least, to her boredom. Not, of course, that she believed in those terrible prehistoric fables, though sometimes she could not help wishing that they had really existed and that she had lived in them, for they must surely have been more colourful and stimulating than this present age, where dull Reason drove bright Romance away: granite scattering mercury. — Michael Moorcock

P.G. Wodehouse was a huge influence on me when I was younger, as were Edgar Rice Burroughs and George Bernard Shaw. — Michael Moorcock