Gene Wolfe

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.

All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it

People don't want other people to be people.

What a man knows hardly matters. It is what he does.

Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real.

You seem to think that the only genuine existence evil can have is conscious existence - that no one is evil unless he admits it to himself. I disagree.

That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin.

Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he had believed himself to be.

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

There's a certain kind of lonely man who rejects love, because he believes that anyone who offers it wouldn't be a lover worth having.