Gene Wolfe Quotes

Gene Wolfe is one of the giants of Fantasy Literature, and I have read next to nothing by him! Which, for reason or reasons unknown, fascinates and amuses me to no end.

I can honestly tell you that I've read one short story by him; I may have read more^*, but not realized who I was reading. (I've done that before, specifically with Harlan Ellison). I can't teven ell you what the one story's title is. It's realtively new, dealing with a Victorian age child's encounter with a vampire. It's one of the best vampire stories I have ever read.

Vauge remembrances a side, I was doing a bit of surfing toaday and stumbled across two quotes from him that I thought worth sharing/talking about. They are as follows:

All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it

I've had this exact thought. I find that very cool.

I’m not nearly as good a writer at e-mail as I am on paper. I’m an old-fashioned guy. I need time to print it out and look at it and revise, scratch my head, pencil out words and pencil in words. The computer drives me nuts. I always remind people who talk about how writing is going to be revolutionized by the computer that Shakespeare wrote with a feather that he had to resharpen every page or so, and look what he did!

You look at a lot of the major writers of the fantastic from years past, and you'll see that a lot of them share this sentiment. You get locked into doing something a certain way if you do it long enough.

Which is why its wise to be able to write in as many different ways as you can. On the computer, on a regulation typewritter, by hand. Just to keep yourself from being locked into one way or another.

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure

Me, I think if you have readers reread your works for pleasure, period, you've done your job as a writer.

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^{*FUTURE CULLEN SEZ: I have read another Gene Wolfe story. "Seven American Nights" in Dark Descent. Shows you what kind of memory I have...}