Caitlín R. Kiernan

"I sincerely hope Im not as big a fool as that. Whatever else I may be, I like to think that Im not an idiot."

"Orpheus mistake wasnt that he turned and looked back towards Eurydice and Hell, but that he ever thought he could escape. Same with Lots wife. Averting our eyes does not change the fact that we are marked."

"The divine is always abominable."

"A writer who does not write is nothing. One may as well be a fisherman who doesnt fish, a stripper who doesnt strip, or a beggar who doesnt beg."

"Originality is the most deadly mirage in all of art. You can chase it from now until doomsday, and youll only find yourself lost and dying of thirst."

"No matter what you may have heard elsewhere or however you may have romanticized the life of working writers, know this: it is, with very, very few exceptions, a brutal, ugly, and unrelentingly difficult existence. It is a grind, no matter how much you may love to write or feel driven to tell stories. Personal demons aside, you will encounter at almost every turn no shortage of idiots and shitheels upon whom you must depend to get your work to readers. Occasionally, there will be a fortunate aberration: a wonderful, brilliant editor, or a copyeditor who doesnt try to express herhimitself vicariously by attempting to rewrite your work, or an agent who busts hisherits ass for you. You may even be so fortunate as to encounter a publisher who cares more about herhisits authors than the bottom line. Those things do happen. But dont ever fucking count on it. If you come to this life, and if you "make it" and can actually eek out some sort of living writing, you will likely learn these things for yourselves. Plenty of people will tell you Im full of shit on this account. And you are certainly free to listen to whomever you please. But after fourteen years as a full-time writer, during which time I have had great successes and profound failures, seen modest fortune and considerable poverty and everything in-between, been appreciated and reviled, awarded and ignored, helped and hindered — one thing remains true. Its a tough row to hoe, as my Grandfather Ramey would have said. And you do yourself and all working authors a disservice if you dare believe otherwise."

"On our present course, this may eventually stand as the ultimate achievement of Homo sapiens sapiens. We should take a bow. We are obviously planet killers. The question is, can we also be planet saviors? Id say that seems unlikely. Happy Earth Day."

"Every month, the US is spending more on the Iraqi war than it took to reach Saturn and Titan. Mass murder is expensive, and good science is relatively cheap."

"The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she — the author — should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary."

"Art should never be a slave to commerce, but for all working artists thats exactly what it must be."

"Im not sure if erotica should be angry and grim and terrifying and bitter, but it works for me. I rode my frustration. I kicked the bitch in the ribs until it spat up what I needed."

"Ive seen so goddamn much — Ive seen so much that theres no reasonable excuse for looking away, because there cant be anything left thats more terrible than what has come before."