Explore Quotes by Dan Simmons

How could anyone stay sane with entire lifetimes stored in one human mind?

I loved almost everything about being a teacher, but I was an unusual teacher

Writing, Im convinced, should be a subversive activity - frowned on by the authorities - and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher.

It started 25 years ago, when I was teaching elementary school in a small town in Missouri

I knew that I wanted to be a writer even before I knew exactly what being a writer entailed

As for the depiction of the Catholic church, it's not meant to be a prediction

As long as my sixth graders showed an average improvement of five years, the principal and district pretty much left me alone to create my own curriculum and teach whatever I wanted

The whole planet reeks of mysticism without revelation.

Nobody gets beyond a petroleum economy. Not while there's petroleum there.

The life of a poet lies not merely in the finite language-dance of expression but in the nearly infinite combinations of perception and memory combined with the sensitivity to what is perceived and remembered.

Barbarians, we call them, while all the while we timidly cling to our Web like Visigoths crouching in the ruins of Rome's faded glory and proclaim ourselves civilized.

Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier. And poets are the snipers.

It no longer matters who consider themselves the masters of events. Events no longer obey their masters.

History viewed from the inside is always a dark, digestive mess, far different from the easily recognizable cow viewed from afar by historians.

The Great Change is when humankind accepts its role as part of the natural order of the universe instead of its role as a cancer

Sometimes ... dreams are all that separate us from the machines.

Those who ignore history's lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them ... they may be forced to die by them.

The love of violence is an aspect of our humanity. Even the weak wish to be strong primarily so they can wield the whip.

Once upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way.

There is no doubt that I have discovered the ultimate in stagnant human societies. The Bikura have realized the human dream of immortality and have paid for it with their humanity and their immortal souls.

The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.