Gene Wolfe

Some writers say they cannot write in front of a window; many say they cannot function without almost perfect quiet. A writer…

— Gene Wolfe

“Sometimes driven aground by the photon storms, by the swirling of the galaxies, clockwise and counterclockwise, ticking with light down the dark…

— Gene Wolfe

Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story.…

— Gene Wolfe

“There are beings—and artifacts—against which we batter our intelligence raw, and in the end make peace with reality only by saying, “It…

— Gene Wolfe

Science has so accustomed us to devising and accepting theories to account for the facts we observe, however fantastic, that our minds…

— Gene Wolfe

“The experienced feel love or desire, or both. The inexperienced are sick with a thousand feelings, most of them unformed: fearful that…

— Gene Wolfe

“For those who have never attended a science fiction convention, masquerades are features of most of the larger ones. Awards are presented…

— Gene Wolfe

“He had a wild yellow beard and long, tangled hair that stood out from his head in a way that made it…

— Gene Wolfe

...in some situations winning consist[s] of disentangling oneself.

— Gene Wolfe

“For after all, if the lives of most men are examined in detail, it will be found that they have been experts…

— Gene Wolfe

You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.

— Gene Wolfe

There is no magic. There is only knowledge, more or less hidden.

— Gene Wolfe

“...the progress of science depends much less upon either theoretical considerations or systematic investigation than is commonly believed, but rather on the…

— Gene Wolfe

“Whatever we may say, all of us suffer from disturbed sleep at times. Some in truth hardly sleep, though some who sleep…

— Gene Wolfe

“. . .Consciousness came and went. Consciousness went and came like the errant winds of spring, and I, who so often have…

— Gene Wolfe

“It seems to me that you can almost define civilization by saying it's people who are not willing to hurt other people…

— Gene Wolfe

“I felt that pressure of time that is perhaps the surest indication we have left childhood behind.”

— Gene Wolfe

I get a lot of people complaining about my ambiguity, often in cases which there is nothing ambigous at all. As far…

— Gene Wolfe

Then I could not help wondering what the watching gods thought of us, with our clever masks and our jokes. What we…

— Gene Wolfe

There is no limit to stupidity. - Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond…

— Gene Wolfe

“The castle? The monster? The man of learning? I only just thought of it. Surely you know that just as the momentous…

— Gene Wolfe

“My rule is never save bits. They get in the way, and you don't think of anything new. Put 'em in. Make…

— Gene Wolfe

Online publication is fine with me, in part because I hope to collect those stories later.

— Gene Wolfe

Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And…

— Gene Wolfe

“I have noticed that in books this sort of stalemate never seems to occur; the authors are so anxious to move their…

— Gene Wolfe