Connie Willis quotes - page 2

That makes no sense,” I said. "This is the Victorian era,” she said. "Women didn't have to make sense. (Connie Willis)
It is a temporal universal that people never appreciate their own time, especially transportation. Twentieth-Century contemps complained about cancelled flights and gasoline prices, Eighteenth-Century contemps complained about muddy roads and highwaymen. No doubt Professor Peddick's Greeks complained about recalcitrant horses and chariot wheels falling off. View quote
Connie Willis
If they were part of the self-correction (i. e., of the space-time continuum) what did that do to the notion of free will? Or was free will part of the plan as well? View quote
Connie Willis
Kepe from haire. Der fevreblau hast bifallen us. View quote
Connie Willis
One of the greatest difficulties I encounter in my research is that people want to believe that their dreams mean something, but all the research I'm doing seems to indicate just the opposite. View quote
Connie Willis
A cage is a safe place as long as nobody has the key. View quote
Connie Willis
People will buy anything at jumble sales,' I said. 'At the Evacuated Children Charity Fair a woman bought a tree branch that had fallen on the table. View quote
Connie Willis
"The clerk is dying, Rosemund is dying, you've all been exposed. Why shouldn't I give up hope?” "God has not abandoned us utterly,” he said. "Agnes is safe in his arms.” Safe, she thought bitterly. In the ground. In the cold. In the dark. View quote
Connie Willis
My physics teacher used to say Diogenes shouldn't have wasted his time looking for an honest man,” Shirl said, "he should have been looking for somebody who thought for himself. View quote
Connie Willis
I would never save her. I looked at the woman mopping up the tea, and it came to me that I could not save her either. Enola or the cat or any of them, lost here in the endless stairways and cul-de-sacs of time. They were already dead a hundred years, past saving. The past is beyond saving. Surely that was the lesson the history department sent me all this way to learn. Well, fine, I've learned it. Can I go home now? View quote
Connie Willis
Therein lay the secret to all fads: the herd instinct. People wanted to look like everybody else. That was why they bought white bucks and pedal pushers and bikinis. But someone had to be the first one to wear platform shoes, to bob their hair, and that took the opposite of herd instinct. (Connie Willis)
Fred Astaire is my hero. I love him because he was willing to kill himself to make his art look effortless. And because he proved it's possible to be an artist and a good person. View quote
Connie Willis
They're absolutely necrotic, aren't they?” Colin whispered behind his order of service. "It's late twentieth century atonal,” Dunworthy whispered back. "It's supposed to sound dreadful. View quote
Connie Willis
That's what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about life and death! Listen to them! View quote
Connie Willis
I have great faith in the future of books - no matter what form they may take - and of science fiction. View quote
Connie Willis
Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms. View quote
Connie Willis
I watched the entire O.J. Simpson trial, and he was guilty. View quote
Connie Willis
They're absolutely necrotic, aren't they? View quote
Connie Willis
I wanted to come, and if I hadn't, they would have been all alone, and nobody would have ever known how frightened and brave and irreplaceable they were. View quote
Connie Willis
Come here, cat. You wouldn't want to destroy the space-time continuum, would you? Meow. Meow. View quote
Connie Willis
Baine, what do you think of this?” Tossie said, indicating the bishop's bird stump. "Don't you agree it's the most beautiful piece of art you've ever seen?” Baine straightened and looked at it, blinking water out of his eyes. There was a considerable pause while Baine wrung out his sleeve. "No.” "No?” Tossie said, making it into a screamlet. "No.”... "What do you mean, ‘no'?” "I mean the sculpture is a hideous atrocity, vulgarly conceived, badly designed, and shoddily executed,” he said, folding the shawl carefully and bending to lay it back in the bundle. "How dare you say that,” Tossie said, her cheeks very pink. Baine straightened. "I beg you pardon, miss. I thought you were asking my opinion.” "I was, but I expected you to tell me you thought it was beautiful. (Connie Willis)
I hate sequels. They're never as good as the first book. View quote
Connie Willis
Do you suppose Walter Hunt would have invented the safety pin if he had known that punk rockers would stick them through their cheeks? View quote
Connie Willis
In my opinion, dream interpretation as practiced by most Freudian psychiatrists, including some of mine at the Institute, is nothing more than a fancy system of guessing. I think trying to understand the ‘real' meaning of a dream without reference to the physical state of the dreamer is as pointless as trying to understand what a fever ‘means' without studying the body. View quote
Connie Willis