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Арабские красавицы на фестивале в Дубаи. ТОП-10Арабские красавицы на фестивале в Дубаи. ТОП-10 14 самых удивительных вертикальных садов мира14 самых удивительных вертикальных садов мира Крупнейшие радиационные аварии и катастрофы современностиКрупнейшие радиационные аварии и катастрофы современности
Dan Simmons

Once upon a time ... the only ...

Once upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

Want to talk about Shakespeare...

Want to talk about Shakespeare's sonnets?" asked Orphu of Io. Are you shitting me?" The moravecs loved the ancient human colloquial phrases, the more scatological the better. Yes," said Orphu. "I am most definitely shitting you, my friend.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

Gass once wrote: "Language se...

Gass once wrote: "Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it." Here is the essence of mankind's creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatozoa attacking an ovum. It might be argued that the Siamese twin infants of word/idea are the only contribution the human species can, will, or should make to the raveling cosmos.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

Anticlimax is, of course, the ...

Anticlimax is, of course, the warp and way of things. Real life seldom structures a decent denouement.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

How could anyone stay sane wit...

How could anyone stay sane with entire lifetimes stored in one human mind?

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

Most of us do know we have no ...

Most of us do know we have no immortality. And when you've found a genius, someone who has already purchased his immortality in musical or literary terms, it's maddening.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

To see and feel one's beloved...

To see and feel one's beloved naked for the first time is one of life's pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow. To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

I think all the simple things ...

I think all the simple things can and do still work - holding your child's hand while walking across the street will do it. But we can hardly hear it for all the noise which has turned love into a cliche, and most people can't even hear John Lennon's "All You Need Is Love" anymore without wincing.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

The beauty of that June day wa...

The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

She had always felt that the e...

She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things - the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

Wilkie Collins was a rival and...

Wilkie Collins was a rival and competitor of Dickens. His novel Moonstone sold more copies at the time than Dickens' last two books. But that meant nothing in the long run. Right now, to be honest, Wilkie Collins is what he deserved to be back then: a footnote, an almost lost memory. And he knew he would become that.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

I know what cancer was. How is...

I know what cancer was. How is it like humankind?" Sek Hardeen's perfectly modulated, softly accented tones showed a hint of agitation. "We have spread out through the galaxy like cancer cells through a living body, Duré. We multiply without thought to the countless life forms that must die or be pushed aside so that we may breed and flourish. We eradicate competing forms of intelligent life.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

It's odd how violence and hum...

It's odd how violence and humor so often go together, isn't it?

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

But it's not just a game of f...

But it's not just a game of finding literary references.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

It's odd how violence and humo...

It's odd how violence and humor so often go together, isn't it?

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

Writing, I'm convinced, should...

Writing, I'm convinced, should be a subversive activity - frowned on by the authorities - and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

I loved almost everything abou...

I loved almost everything about being a teacher, but I was an unusual teacher.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

There's a unique bond of trust...

There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form as a reader, I trust a novelist to give me his or her best effort, however flawed.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

It's one of the strangest attr...

It's one of the strangest attributes of this profession that when we writers get exhausted writing one thing, we relax by writing another.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes
Dan Simmons

No one inspired me to write, b...

No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.

Dan Simmons 113 quotes

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