It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind.
Samuel R. DelanyThe idea that certain things in life - and in the universe - don't yield up their secrets is something that requires a slightly more mature reader to accept.
Samuel R. DelanyScience fiction doesnโt try to predict the future, but rather offers a significant distortion of the presentโฆWe sit around and look at what we see around us and we say how can the world be different
Samuel R. DelanyNow for me, you're the irreplaceable one: I've never see you up so close before, and I do not understand you at all. You say sometimes I act like I don't see you? I don't even know where to look! Living with you around is like is like living with a permanent dazzle. The fact that you even like me, or look at me, or brush by me, or hug me, or hold me, is so surprising that after it's over I have to go back through it a dozen times in my head to savor it and try and figure out what it was like because I was too busy being astounded while it was happening.
Samuel R. Delany