Robert Charles Wilson - Julian Quotes

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Deacon Hollingshead: The history of the world is written in Scripture, and it ends in a Kingdom.
Julian Comstock: The history of the world is written in sand, and it evolves as the wind blows.

Robert Charles Wilson
Truth is a perilous commodity, Julian admitted, but so is ignorance, Adam—more so.

Robert Charles Wilson
Evolution can't be predicted, Julian used to tell me; it's a scattershot business; it fires, but it doesn't aim.

Robert Charles Wilson
Julian read the Bible as if it were a work of contemporary fiction, open to criticism or even revision. Once, when I queried him about the purpose of his unusual reinterpretations, he said to me, I want a better Bible, Adam. I want a Bible in which the Fruit of Knowledge contains the Seeds of Wisdom, and makes life more pleasurable for mankind, not worse. I want a Bible in which Isaac leaps up from the sacrificial stone and chokes the life out of Abraham, to punish him for the abject and bloody sin of Obedience. I want a Bible in which Lazarus is dead and stubborn about it, rather than standing to attention at the beck and call of every passing Messiah.

Robert Charles Wilson
But you're a Philosopher! Julian exclaimed at one point. This is Philosophy, not Religion, since you rule out supernatural beings—you know that as well as I do!
I suppose it is Philosophy, looked at from one angle, Stepney conceded. But there's no money in Philosophy, Julian. Religion is far more lucrative as a career.

Robert Charles Wilson
Later Julian would give me another book he had culled from among the Archival duplicates, a short novel called The Time Machine by Mr. H. G. Wells, about a marvelous but apparently imaginary cart which carried a man into the future—and it fascinated me—but the Archive itself was a Time Machine in everything but name. Here were voices preserved on browning paper like pressed flowers, whispering apostasies into the ear of a new century.

Robert Charles Wilson