Roger Zelazny

I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.

Once a Buddha, always a Buddha, Sam. Dust off some of your old parables. You have about fifteen minutes.' Sam held out his hand. "Give me some tobacco and a paper.

A totally nondenominational prayer: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness._ Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which I may be eligible after the destruction of my body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

When inspiration is silent reason tires quickly.

Good evening, Lord Corwin,' said the lean, cadaverous figure who rested against a storage rack, smoking his pipe, grinning around it.Good evening, Roger. How are things in the nether world?'A rat, a bat, a spider. Nothing much else astir. Peaceful.'You enjoy this duty?'He nodded.I am writing a philosophical romance shot through with elements of horror and morbidity. I work on those parts down here.

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.

If someone asks you why you're oppressing a world and you reply with a lot of poetic crap, no. I guess there can't be a meeting of minds.

The day of battle dawned pink as the fresh-bitten thigh of a maiden.

It was my turn to be silent while a small family of moments crossed my path, single file, from the left, sticking their tongues out at me.

Besides, I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.

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.

Good-bye and hello, as always.

Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak."Yes__nd no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape__hen the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect.""Oh? And what may that be?""It is not a supernatural creature.""But it is all those other things?""Yes.""Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not__o long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will.""Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy__t is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable.

You are one of the few successful persons I know.""Me? Why?""You know precisely what you are doing and you do it well.""But I don't really do much of anything.""And of course the quantity means nothing to you, nor the weight others place upon your actions. In my eyes, that makes you a success.""By not giving a damn? But I do, you know.""Of course you do, of course you do! But it is a matter of style, an awareness of choice_

He smelled the smells of commerce and listened to the cursing of the sailors, both of which he admired: the former, as it reeked of wealth, and the latter because it combined his two other chief preoccupations, these being theology and anatomy.

In the State of Denmark there was the odor of decay...

Do you work for the government, any government?_"I pay taxes, which means I work for the government, part of the time. Yes.

It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm raised, gesturing anywhere. The great beast that he rode was striped, black and red, with a wild red mane and tail. But it really was a horse, and its eyes rolled and there was foam at its mouth and its breathing was painful to hear. I saw then that he wore his blade slung across his back, for its haft protruded high above his right shoulder. Still slowing, eyes fixed upon me, he departed the road, bearing slightly toward my left, jerked the reins once and released them, keeping control of the horse with his knees. His left hand went up in a salute-like movement that passed above his head and seized the hilt of his weapon. It came free without a sound, describing a beautiful arc above him and coming to rest in a lethal position out from his left shoulder and slanting back, like a single wing of dull steel with a minuscule line of edge that gleamed like a filament of mirror. The picture he presented was burned into my mind with a kind of magnificence, a certain splendor that was strangely moving. The blade was a long, scythe like affair that I had seen him use before. Only then we had stood as allies against a mutual foe I had begun to believe unbeatable. Benedict had proved otherwise that night. Now that I saw it raised against me I was overwhelmed with a sense of my own mortality, which I had never experienced before in this fashion. It was as though a layer had been stripped from the world and I had a sudden, full understanding of death itself.