“But I don’t believe in heroes anymore. I just believe in people coping with their lives as best they can. You do what you have to do, and in some ways you have no more choice about it than a… — John Varley Copy Share Image
“He was an extraordinarily ugly person, Lilo thought, with the ugliness that only caricature can achieve. As repulsive as a twisted, stunted ghost from… — John Varley Copy Share Image
“We all love after-the-bomb stories. If we didn't, why would there be so many of them? There's something attractive about all those people being gone, about wandering in a depopulated world, scrounging cans of Campbell's pork and beans, defending one's family from marauders. But some secret part of us thinks it would be good to survive. All those other folks… — John Varley Copy Share
“He couldn't think of a good place. At first he thought she hated all living beings equally. Lately he had come to believe he… — John Varley Copy Share Image
“The public had an endless appetite for stories like that. Subconsciously, I think they think the gods of luck will favor them when the tromp of doom starts to thump. As for survivor interviews, I find them very boring, but I'm apparently in the minority. At least half of them had this to say: "God was watching over me." Most… — John Varley Copy Share
“There is a certain concentrated, avid-for-blood look that appears on the faces of reporters on the trail of a very big story that you'd have to visit the big cat house at the zoo to see duplicated in its primal state. From the look on Brenda's face, if a tiger was standing between her and this story right now, the… — John Varley Copy Share
“But I don’t believe in heroes anymore. I just believe in people coping with their lives as best they can. You do what you… — John Varley Copy Share Image
“river burial had a certain rustic poetry, but Ophion cared not at all about preserving the decency of the dead. The river deposited Psaltery… — John Varley Copy Share Image
“I wasn’t around, and I guess if I had been, I would have been part of the oppressor class and think it was the way things should be. But I have been told that things are a lot better now. I won’t say they’re perfect. Things don’t get perfect. But most of the women I know are happy. They don’t… — John Varley Copy Share
“Looking around me, I saw that all my colleagues were busy at the same task. Eyes were rolled up, mouths hung open, here and… — John Varley Copy Share Image
“There are carnivores, but not many. Symbiosis is the basic fact of life. That, and worship. Whistletop says all of the higher life forms… — John Varley Copy Share Image
“Gas chamber, gallows. Electric chair, stake, firing squad. Hang by the neck till you’re dead, dead, dead, and may God recycle your soul.” — John Varley Copy Share Image
