Dan Simmons

“Pain is a god. And he commands obedience.”

“In such seconds of decision entire futures are made.”

“The shortest distance between two points is a straight line in the opposite direction.”

“It's one of the things that makes us human, the difference between knowing and believing.”

“History is the blood-wine that good men drink with the gods.”

“Memory and identity are burdens from the past preventing us from living freely in the present.”

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

“Both progress and regression are the result of choices made by men and women.”

“The difference between a fairy tale and a horror story is that the fairy tale tells us that dragons can be defeated. The horror story tells us that they can't always be.”

“Survival is a matter of instinct and adaptation.”

“The universe is a thing of ultimate terror.”

“God is not discoverable or demonstrable by pure reason.”

“It is a wise man who knows that there is something to be learned from everyone.”

“In the end, it was the secrets that held us together, not the love.”

“There are two things that kill creativity: urgency and efficiency.”