Roger Zelazny quotes - page 2

Do you work for the government, any government?” "I pay taxes, which means I work for the government, part of the time. Yes. (Roger Zelazny)
Strygalldwir is my name. Conjure with it and I will eat your heart and liver." "Conjure with it? I can't even pronounce it, and my cirrhosis would give you indigestion.
Roger Zelazny
I'm a lost soul. Wewail.
Roger Zelazny
The power to hurt... has evolved in a direct relationship to technological advancement.
Roger Zelazny
Why do you tell me this?” "Perhaps because I am a cat and it amuses me to be arbitrary and do you a good turn.
Roger Zelazny
When you talk about being an ‘anticipator,' of having a pretty good idea of when something's going to happen-or how, or who will be there-isn't that a kind of divination?” "No. I think it's more a kind of subconscious knack for dealing with statistics, against a fairly well-known field of actions.
Roger Zelazny
Everything that's miserable in the world,” Nick the dwarf once said to me, "is because of beauty.” "Not truth or goodness?” I'd asked. "Oh, they help. But beauty is the culprit, the real principle of evil.” "Not wealth?
Roger Zelazny
I got the idea for that story in May of 1979. I didn't know what it was going to be; I just thought it would be neat to write something about Jack the Ripper's dog, and ask Gahan Wilson to illustrate it, partly because of the fact that a dog is such an unusual person. No matter who owns a dog, if that person is nice to the animal, the dog is going to love him. I thought at the time, if you take a really despicable person, a serial killer or someone like that, and tell a story from his dog's point of view it would make him look pretty good.
Roger Zelazny
While I had often said that I wanted to die in bed, what I really meant was that in my old age I wanted to be stepped on by an elephant while making love.
Roger Zelazny
I enjoy slaughtering beasts, and I think of my relatives constantly.
Roger Zelazny
I try to sit down at the typewriter four times a day, even if it's only five minutes, and write three sentences. (Roger Zelazny)
When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.
Roger Zelazny
... even a mirror will not show you yourself, if you do not wish to see.
Roger Zelazny
The day of battle dawned pink as the fresh-bitten thigh of a maiden.
Roger Zelazny
His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god.
Roger Zelazny
Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?" "Because the world has need of your humility, your piety, your great teaching and your Machiavellian scheming.
Roger Zelazny
Then you must reconcile yourself to the fact that something is always hurt by any change. If you do this, you will not be hurt yourself.
Roger Zelazny
So do not speak to me of souls when you have never seen one, man.
Roger Zelazny
It is a city of neat cottages and cobbled streets where wander cats without number, for the enlightened legislators of long ago laid down laws for our protection. A good, kind village, where travelers take their ease and pet the cats, making much of them, which is as it should be.
Roger Zelazny
I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.
Roger Zelazny
Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects. (Roger Zelazny)
No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.
Roger Zelazny
There's no such thing as civilization. The word just means the art of living in cities.
Roger Zelazny
To paraphrase Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, and all those guys, "I wish I had known this some time ago.
Roger Zelazny
I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.
Roger Zelazny