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Quote by Gene Wolfe

“There are children who sweep hoping to be rewarded, and there are children who sweep because the floors need sweeping and Mother's tired. And there is an abyss between them far deeper than the abyss that separates us from Blue.”

Quote by Gene Wolfe

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Author

Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe is a renowned American science fiction and fantasy writer, born on May 7, 1931. His works are known for their unique narrative style and profound philosophical insights, with notable series such as 'The Book of the New Sun' and 'The Urth of the New Sun'. Wolfe's writing career spans over half a century, and his influence on science fiction and fantasy literature has been profound. more

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“I thought the most likely explanation was that most of the people in the world just didn't know they were allowed not to have kids. Either that, or they were too unimaginative to think of anything else to do, or too beaten-down to do whatever it was they thought of. That had been a big reason why I had wanted so much to get into Harvard: I'd been sure it would be full of fortunate, resourceful, courageous people who had some better-conceived plan for life that I could learn about. It was a great disappointment to find that, even at Harvard, most people's plan was to have children and amass money for them. You would be talking to someone who seemed like they viewed the world as a place of free movement and the exchange of ideas, and then it would turn out they were in a huge hurry to get everything interesting over with while they were young.”

“Still, I found the idea of an aesthetic life to be tremendously compelling. It was the first time I had heard of an organizing principle or goal you could have in your life, other than making money and having kids. Nobody ever said that was their organizing principle, but I had often noticed it, when I was growing up: the way adults acted as though trying to go anywhere or achieve anything was a frivolous dream, a luxury, compared to the real work of having kids and making money to pay for the kids. Nobody ever explained what was admirable about having the kids, or why it was the default course of action for every single human being. If you ever asked a why a particular person had had a kid, or what good a particular kid was, people treated it as blasphemy--as if you were saying they should be dead, or the kid should be dead. It was as if there was no way to ask what the plan had been, without implying that someone should be dead.”

“It's only the human male species that seeks to play the role of a Mother to an offspring. Human males use all their resources and power to aleniate children from being mothered as God intended. Yet, other species such as lions allow their female counterparts to keep and safeguard the role of a Mother in a young's life. How ironic.”