Quotessence
Home / Authors / Dexter Palmer

Dexter Palmer Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllDexter PalmerThe Dream Of Perpetual MotionVersion ControlTime TravelAlternate UniverseMetaphorScience FictionDreamsNarratorMary Toft Or The Rabbit QueenPossibilitiesScienceScientific TheorySimileForeshadowingFutureHumorLanguageMetaPossibility

Famous Dexter Palmer Quotes

“I shouldn't tell you this, but I've been having these weird dreams like every single night for three weeks now where I'm being contacted. Not by ghosts, exactly, but people from other histories, where things turned out differently than they did here. And they're all envious. And they all say: You are so lucky. You live in the best of all possible worlds. And you don't even know it.”

DreamsTime TravelGhostsDexter PalmerVersion ControlParallel LivesAlternate UniverseAlternate Universes
Book:Version Control
Create image

“Her voice never stops: even when I sleep, it is a shining silver thread running through most of my dreams and all my nightmares, whispering, beseeching, threatening: One word from you is all I want. Just speak one word, and we'll begin. Name, rank, and serial number, perhaps the misquoted lyrics from a popular song: anything will do. From there we'll move with slow cautious steps to gentle verbal sparring, twice-told tales, descriptions of the scarred and darkest places of our old and worn-out souls. I'll love you back; I'll tell you secrets—”

TalkingDreamsNightmaresDexter PalmerThe Dream Of Perpetual Motion
Book:The Dream of Perpetual Motion
Create image

“Two moral forces shaped how we think and live in this shining twentieth century: the Virgin, and the Dynamo. The Dynamo represents the desire to know; the Virgin represents the freedom not to know. What's the Virgin made of? Things that we think are silly, mostly. The peculiar logic of dreams, or the inexplicable stirring we feel when we look on someone that's beautiful not in a way that we all agree is beautiful, but the unique way in which a single person is. The Virgin is faith and mysticism; miracle and instinct; art and randomness. On the other hand, you have the Dynamo: the unstoppable engine. It finds the logic behind a seeming miracle and explains that miracle away; it finds the order in randomness to which we're blind; it takes the caliper to a young woman's head and quantifies her beauty in terms of pleasing mathematical ratios; it accounts for the secret stirring you felt by discoursing at length on the nervous systems of animals.”

ArtScienceDreamsMiraclesTwentieth CenturyDexter PalmerThe Dream Of Perpetual Motion
Book:The Dream of Perpetual Motion
Create image