Quotes by Dan Simmons

“I remember that day in early May after Le Vescontes and Private Pilkingtons brief joint burial service, one of the men suggested that we name the small spur of land where they were buried Le Vesconte Point, but Captain Crozier vetoed that idea, saying that if we named every place where one of us might end up buried after the dead person there, wed run out of land before we ran out of names.”

“To be a poet, I realized, a true poet, was to become the Avatar of humanity incarnate; to accept the mantle of poet is to carry the cross of the Son of Man, to suffer the birth pangs of the Soul-Mother of Humanity.”

“The day before the Queens Ball, Father had a visitor--a very young girl with literary aspirations, someone Lord Lytton had recommended visit Father and sent over–and while Father was explaining to her the enjoyment he was having in writing this Drood book for serialisation, this upstart of a girl had the temerity to ask, But suppose you died before all the book was written? [...] He spoke very softly in his kindest voice and said to her, One can only work on, you know--work while it is day.”