The essence of honor lay in the moment of combat between equals.

— Dan Simmons

The Great Change is when humankind accepts its role as part of the natural order of the universe instead of its role as a cancer

— Dan Simmons

The Hegemony had known how to treat cancer, but most of the gene-tailoring knowledge and technology had been lost after the Fall.

— Dan Simmons

The life of a poet lies not merely in the finite language-dance of expression but in the nearly infinite combinations of perception and memory combined with the sensitivity to what is perceived and remembered.

— Dan Simmons

The past is dead and buried. But I know now that buried things have a way of rising to the surface when one least expects them to.

— Dan Simmons

There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.

— Dan Simmons

There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always - always - returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred.

— Dan Simmons

The shortest route to courage is absolute ignorance.

— Dan Simmons

[The Void Which Binds] actual, but inaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit.

— Dan Simmons

The whole planet reeks of mysticism without revelation.

— Dan Simmons