Samuel R. Delany - Matter Quotes

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Bear in mind that the novel—no matter how intimate, psychological, or subjective—is always a historical projection of its own time.

Samuel R. Delany
A lesson which history should have taught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home. No man can wield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind. For no matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his alternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of other people and ultimately his own, terrifies him. Only a man afraid of freedom would want this power, who could conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedom will turn him into a slave of this power.

Samuel R. Delany
One would almost think that they [straight white males] felt empowered to take anything the society produced, no matter how marginal, and utilize it for their own ends — dare we say "exploit it"? — certainly to take advantage of it as long as it's around. And could this possibly be an effect of discourse? Perhaps it might even be one we on the margins might reasonably appropriate to our profit... or perhaps some of us already have.

Samuel R. Delany
The whole problem, I suppose, is that any time some piece of communication strikes poor Fred, or any of the remaining Beasts, for that matter, as possibly meaningful—or is it meaningless? It's been explained to me a dozen times and I still can't get it right—anyway, his religious convictions say he has to either stop it or—barring that—refuse to be a party to it.

Samuel R. Delany