American writer (1937-1995)
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
introduction, "Passion Play"
Beware the meek ... for we shall attempt to inherit the Earth.
ROGER ZELAZNY
He Who Shapes
Even a mirror will not show you yourself, if you do not wish to see.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Lord of Light
Be warned, therefore, that one does not go to hell to light a cigarette.
ROGER ZELAZNY
This Immortal
The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe.
ROGER ZELAZNY
He Who Shapes
The function of criticism should not be confused with the function of reform.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Home is the Hangman
The most difficult thing about Time, I have learned, is doing it.
ROGER ZELAZNY
The Guns of Avalon
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
Isle of the Dead
If I get enough letters saying you never explained this or that, I suppose I'll have to write another book.
ROGER ZELAZNY
"A Conversation with Roger Zelazny", Science Fiction, Apr. 8, 1978
After a while the business end of writing takes too much of the writing time. Better to pay someone ten percent and find that you're still more than ten percent ahead in the end. Which is true. My present agent says that he always feels that a good agent during the course of a year should earn back for his client at least the ten percent he takes by way of commission, so the client's really nothing out. And what he should ideally do is make him more money than the ten percent.
ROGER ZELAZNY
interview, Phlogiston, 1995
I'm a lost soul. We do wail.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Jack of Shadows
Death is the only god that comes when you call.
ROGER ZELAZNY
"24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai"
There's really nothing quite like someone's wanting you dead to make you want to go on living.
ROGER ZELAZNY
This Immortal
An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time. One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to have a chance of succeeding.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Lord of Light
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
This Immortal
I worked out a book which I thought was just straight science fiction -- with everything pretty much explained, and suddenly I got an idea which I thought was kind of neat for working in a mythological angle. I'm really struggling with myself. It would probably be a better book if I include it, but on the other hand I don't always like to keep reverting to it. I think what I'm going to do is vary my output, do some straight science fiction and some straight fantasy that doesn't involve mythology, and composites.
ROGER ZELAZNY
"A Conversation with Roger Zelazny", Science Fiction, Apr. 8, 1978
There's no such thing as civilization. The word just means the art of living in cities.
ROGER ZELAZNY
The Great Book of Amber
The enemy of the moment is not as important as our own inner weakness. If this is not mended we are already defeated, though no foreign conqueror stands within our walls.
ROGER ZELAZNY
The Hand of Oberon
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
"Passion Play"
To paraphrase Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, and all those guys, "I wish I had known this some time ago."
ROGER ZELAZNY
Sign of the Unicorn