Author: Robert Silverberg

Cites

• Graham Greene (1)
  • IN: Kingdoms of the Wall (1992) Fiction, Science Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And yet all the time, below the fear and the irritation, one was aware of a curious lightness and freedom... one was happy all the same; one had crossed the boundary into country really strange; surely one had gone deep this time.
    FROM: Journey Without Maps, (1936), Book, UK
• NULL (4)
  • IN: Hot Sky at Midnight (1994) Fiction, Science Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: O Western wind, when wilt thou blow, That the small rain down can rain? Christ, that my love were in my arms And I in my bed again!
    FROM: Western Wind, (1525), Poem, US
  • IN: Lord of Darkness (1983) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: He that is shipped with the Devil must sail with the Devil
    FROM: English proverb, (None), Proverb, UK
  • IN: Thebes of the Hundred Gates (1991) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Flame which came forth backwards, I have not stolen the god’s-offerings. O Bone-breaker who came forth from Heracleopolis, I have not told lies. O Eater of entrails who came forth from the House of Thirty, I have not committed perjury. O You of the darkness who came forth from the darkness, I have not been quarrelsome. O Nefertum who came forth from Memphis, I have done no wrong, I have seen no evil.
    FROM: The Negative Confession from The Papyrus of Ani (The Egyptian Book of the Dead), (-50), Book, Egypt
  • IN: The Pain Peddlers (1963) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Pain is Gain.
    FROM: Greek Proverb, (None), Proverb, Greece
• Sir Thomas Browne (2)
  • IN: To Live Again and The Second Trip (2013) Fiction, Science Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: There is therefore but one comfort left, that though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death: God would not exempt himself from that; the misery of immortality in the flesh he undertook not, that was in it immortal.
    FROM: Religio Medici, (1642), Book, UK
  • IN: To Live Again (1969) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: There is therefore but one comfort left, that though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death: God would not exempt himself from that; the misery of immortality in the flesh he undertook not, that was in it immortal.
    FROM: Religio Medici, (1642), Book, UK
• Koran (1)
  • IN: The Alien Years (1997) Fiction, Science Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: When the sun no longer shines, when the stars drop from the sky and the mountains are blown away, when camels great with young are left untended and the wild beasts come together, when the seas are set on fire and men's souls are reunited, when...the record of men's deeds are laid open, and heaven is stripped bare, when Hell burns fiercely and Paradise approached; then each soul shall understand what it has done.
    FROM: The Koran 81st Surah, (632), Koran, NULL
• Seneca Thyestes (1)
  • IN: Valentine Pontifex (1983) Fiction, Science Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: ...I live in mighty fear that all the universe will be broken into a thousand fragments in the general ruin, that formless chaos will return ad vanquish the gods and men, that the earth and sea will be engulfed by the planets wandering the heavens. ... Of all the generations, it is we who have been chosen to merit this bitter fate, to be crushed by the falling pieces of broken sky.
    FROM: Thyestes, (50), Play, Italy
• Bible (2)
  • IN: Downward to the Earth (1970) Fiction, Science Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
    FROM: Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:21, (-165), Bible, NULL
  • IN: The Face of the Waters (1991) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
    FROM: Bible, Genesis 1:2, (-165), Bible, NULL
• Virgil (1)
  • IN: Starborne (1996) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Friends, take heart, banish all fear. One day — who knows? — we will look back even on these things and laugh.
    FROM: The Aeneid, Book One, (-19), Poem, Italy
• Laplace (1)
  • IN: The Stochastic Man (1975) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: It is remarkable that a science which began with the consideration of games of chance should have become the most important object of human knowledge… The most important questions of life are, for the most part, really only problems of probability.
    FROM: Théorie Analytique des Probabilités, (1812), Book, France
• Carlos Castaneda (2)
  • IN: The Stochastic Man (1975) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Once a man learns to see, he finds himself alone in the world with nothing but folly.
    FROM: A Separate Reality, (1971), Book, US
  • IN: NULL (None) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere…Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good, if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life.
    FROM: The Teachings of Don Juan, (1968), Book, US
• Elder Edda (1)
  • IN: At Winter's End (1988) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: An axe-age, a sword-age, shields shall be sundered; A wind-age, a wolf-age, ere the world falls. The sun turns black, Earth sinks in the sea, The hot stars down from heaven are whirled; Fierce grows the steam and the life-feeding flame Till fire leaps high about heaven itself.
    FROM: Poetic Edda, (None), Poem, Iceland
• Robert Silverberg (1)
  • IN: At Winter's End (1988) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Everyone on Earth for a million years or more had known that the death-stars were coming, that the Great World was doomed. One could not deny that; one could not hide from that. They had come before and surely they would come again, for their time was immutable, every twenty-six million years, and their time had come ‘round once more. One by one they would crash down terribly from the skies, falling without mercy for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, bringing fire, darkness, dust, smoke, cold, and death: an endless winter of sorrows. Each of the peoples of Earth addressed its fate in its own fashion, for genetics is destiny — even, in a strange way, for life-forms that have no genes. The vegetals and the sapphire-eyes people knew that they would not survive, and they made their preparations accordingly. The mechanicals knew that they could survive if they cared to, but they did not care to. The sea-lords understood that their day was done and they accepted that. The hjjk-folk, who never yielded any advantage willingly, expected to come through the cataclysm unharmed, and set about making certain of that. And the humans— the humans—
    FROM: NULL, (1988), Fictional, NULL
• Cicero (1)
  • IN: The World Inside (1971) Novel, Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Speculative fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: We were born to unite with our fellow-men and to join in community with the human race.
    FROM: De finibus, IV, (-45), Book, Italy
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1)
  • IN: The World Inside (1971) Novel, Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Speculative fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Of all animals, men are the least fitted to live to herds. If they were crowded together as sheep are they would all perish in a short time. The breath of man is fatal to his fellows.
    FROM: Emile, I, (1762), Book, France
• Joseph Conrad (1)
  • IN: The Face of the Waters (1991) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The ocean has no compassion, no faith, no law, no memory. Its fickleness is to be held true to man’s purpose only by an undaunted resolution and by sleepless, armed, jealous vigilance in which, perhaps, there has always been more hate than love.
    FROM: The Mirror of the Sea, (1906), Novel, Ukraine/England
• John Aylmer (1)
  • IN: Lord of Darkness (1983) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: God is English!
    FROM: An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trew Subjects, 1558, (1558), NULL, NULL
• Emily Dickinson (1)
  • IN: The Red Blaze is the Morning (1995) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The Red—Blaze—is the Morning— The Violet—is Noon— The Yellow—Day—is falling— And after that—is none—
    FROM: #469, (1945), Poem, US
• The Liturgy of Amon (1)
  • IN: Thebes of the Hundred Gates (1991) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Heaven is opened, the company of gods shines forth! Amon-Re, Lord of Karnak, is exalted upon the great seat! The Great Nine are exalted upon their seats! Thy beauties are thine, O Amon-Re, Lord of Karnak!
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, NULL
• Christopher Marlowe (1)
  • IN: Gilgamesh in the Outback (1986) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Faust. First I will question thee about hell. Tell me, where is the place that men call hell? Meph. Under the heavens. Faust. Ay, but whereabout? Meph. Within the bowels of these elements, Where we are tortur’d and remain for ever: Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib’d In one self place; for where we are is hell, And where hell is, there must we ever be: And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that are not heaven. Faust. Come, I think hell’s a fable. Meph. Ay, think so still, till experience change thy mind.
    FROM: Dr Faustus, (1604), Play, UK
• Norman O. Brown (1)
  • IN: The Feast of St. Dionysus (1975) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Sleepers, awake. Sleep is separateness; the cave of solitude is the cave of dreams, the cave of the passive spectator. To be awake is to participate, carnally and not in fantasy, in the feast; the great communion
    FROM: Love’s Body, (1966), Book, US
• Eliot,T.S (1)
  • IN: Born with the Dead (1975) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And what the dead had no speech for, when living, They can tell you, being dead: the communication Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
    FROM: Little Gidding, (1942), Poem, UK
• Josephine Saxton (1)
  • IN: A Sea of Faces (1974) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Are not such floating fragments on the sea of the unconscious called Freudian ships?
    FROM: Falling., (None), NULL, NULL
• Lesser Hekhaloth (1)
  • IN: The Sixth Palace (1965) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Ben Azai was deemed worthy and stood at the gate of the sixth palace and saw the ethereal splendor of the pure marble plates. He opened his mouth and said twice, “Water! Water!” In the twinkling of an eye they decapitated him and threw eleven thousand iron bars at him. This shall be a sign for all generations that no one should err at the gate of the sixth palace.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, NULL
• W. H. Auden (1)
  • IN: The Time Hoppers (1967) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: One can conceive of Heaven having a Telephone Directory,-but it would have to be gigantic, for it would include the Proper Name and address of every electron in the universe. But Hell could not have one, for in Hell, as in prison and the army, its inhabitants are identified not by name but by number. They do not have numbers, they are numbers.
    FROM: Infernal Science, (1962), NULL, US/England
• J.W Dunne (1)
  • IN: The Time Hoppers (1967) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: That Time should be a length travelled over is, all said and done, a rather elaborate conception; yet that this is the way we do habitually think of Time is agreed to by everyone, both educated and—which is much more curious—uneducated. … How did we arrive at this remarkable piece of knowledge?
    FROM: An Experiment with Time, (1927), Book, UK
• Aithin Furvain (1)
  • IN: The Book of Changes (2003) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And Lord Stiamot wept when he heard them singing the ballad of his great victory at Weygan Head, because the Stiamot of which they sang was not the Stiamot he knew. He was not himself any more. He had been emptied into legend. He had been a man, and now he was a fable.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, NULL

Cited by

• Robert Silverberg (1)
  • IN: At Winter's End (1988) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Everyone on Earth for a million years or more had known that the death-stars were coming, that the Great World was doomed. One could not deny that; one could not hide from that. They had come before and surely they would come again, for their time was immutable, every twenty-six million years, and their time had come ‘round once more. One by one they would crash down terribly from the skies, falling without mercy for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, bringing fire, darkness, dust, smoke, cold, and death: an endless winter of sorrows. Each of the peoples of Earth addressed its fate in its own fashion, for genetics is destiny — even, in a strange way, for life-forms that have no genes. The vegetals and the sapphire-eyes people knew that they would not survive, and they made their preparations accordingly. The mechanicals knew that they could survive if they cared to, but they did not care to. The sea-lords understood that their day was done and they accepted that. The hjjk-folk, who never yielded any advantage willingly, expected to come through the cataclysm unharmed, and set about making certain of that. And the humans— the humans—
    FROM: NULL, (1988), Fictional, NULL