Roger Zelazny quotes

Roger Zelazny was an American writer renowned for his contributions to science fiction and fantasy literature. His works, such as "The Chronicles of Amber," received many prestigious awards and are celebrated for their imaginative storytelling. He remains an influential figure whose visionary style continues to inspire readers and writers alike. Here are 123 of his quotes:

The absence of a monument can, in its own way, be something of a monument also.

Roger Zelazny

Dwelling beside a body of water is tonic for the weary psyche. Sea smells, sea birds, seawrack, sands-alternately cool, warm, moist and dry-a taste of brine and the presence of the rocking, slopping bluegraygreen spit-flecked waters, has the effect of rinsing the emotions, bathing the outlook, bleaching the conscience.

Roger Zelazny

I see myself as a novelist, period. I mean, the material I work with is what is classified as science fiction and fantasy, and I really don't think about these things when I'm writing. I'm just thinking about telling a story and developing my characters.

Roger Zelazny

"Nothing we did in those days has caused a change.” "Because of what we did, things remained as they were, rather than getting worse,” I told him.

Roger Zelazny

A bizarrerie of fires, cunabulum of light, it moved with a deft, almost dainty deliberation, phasing into and out of existence like a storm-shot piece of evening; or perhaps the darkness between the flares was more akin to its truest nature - swirl of black ashes assembled in prancing cadence to the lowing note of desert wind down the arroyo behind buildings as empty yet filled as the pages of unread books or stillnesses between the notes of a song.

Roger Zelazny

My favorite form is the short story. From an aesthetics stand point you really have to pare down to the bone. You can't write a throw-away scene.

Roger Zelazny

I watched the spinning stars, grateful, sad and proud, as only a man who has outlived his destiny and realizes he might yet forge himself another, can be.

Roger Zelazny

Love is a negative form of hatred.

Roger Zelazny

The stars blazed like the love of God, cold and distant.

Roger Zelazny

The function of criticism should not be confused with the function of reform.

Roger Zelazny

At the end of the season of sorrows comes the time of rejoicing. Spring, like a well-oiled clock, noiselessly indicates this time.

Roger Zelazny

The dead are too much with us.

Roger Zelazny

My mind spun for a second before it drifted, and in that second I knew that of all pleasures-a drink of cold water when you are thirsty, liquor when you are not, sex, a cigarette after many days without one-there is none of them can compare with sleep. Sleep is best....

Roger Zelazny

Two days like icebergs-bleak, blank, half-melting, all frigid, mainly out of sight, and definitely a threat to peace of mind-drifted by and were good to put behind.

Roger Zelazny

I had troubles of my own, and even the most heartening of philosophical vistas is no match for, say, a toothache, if it happens to be your own.

Roger Zelazny

Be warned, therefore, that one does not go to hell to light a cigarette.

Roger Zelazny

I've always been impulsive. My thinking is usually pretty good, but I always seem to do it after I do my talking-by which time I've generally destroyed all basis for further conversation.

Roger Zelazny

Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant - you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon.

Roger Zelazny

Cute,” she said, smiling. "If the liberal arts do nothing else they provide engaging metaphors for the thinking they displace.

Roger Zelazny

Death is the only god that comes when you call.

Roger Zelazny

Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You've crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time.

Roger Zelazny

Nick swore he'd die with this boots on, on some exotic safari, but he found his Kilimanjaro in a hospital on Earth, where they'd cured everything that was bothering him, except for the galloping pneumonia he'd picked up in the hospital. That had been, roughly, two hundred and fifty years ago. I'd been a pallbearer.

Roger Zelazny