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"Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable."
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"A great story is impossible to forget."

"At the end of your story, you get down to the purity of it all. It's like distilling something."

"Storytelling answers questions and solves mysteries."

"Experience is the catalyst for all great stories."

"All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.All of them?Sure, he says. Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist."

"What you need to remember is that there's a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not."

"When I was a child, I pestered my elders for stories."

"As I quietly stare off into space, eyes glazed over and brow thoughtfully taut, know that I am going about my business. I am a storyteller. Daydreaming is the best part of my job."

"I made this story up to make me feel better. Now I'm writing it down. It's not true."

"The Marquis sighed. "I thought it was just a legend," he said. "Like the alligators in the sewers of New York City."Old Bailey nodded, sagely: "What, the big white buggers? They're down there. I had a friend lost a head to one of them." A moment of silence. Old Naeiley handed the statue back to the Marquis. Then he raised his hand, and snapped it, like a crocodile hand, at the Carabas. "It was OK," gurned Old Bailey with a grin that was most terrible to behold. "He had another."
Explore more quotes by Gene Wolfe

"I don't think anyone is more intrinsically holy. People experience God in many ways; and it seems to me that God does what the rest of us do: He chooses the means that best gets His message across."

"A youthful American voice isn't particularly challenging - I've been a young American, and they're all around me. I can walk from my house to Barrington High School."

"My whole life experience feeds into my writing. I think that must be true for every writer. Clearly the Army and combat were major influences; just the same, you need to understand that many of the writers we have now couldn't load a revolver."

"Whether the medium is ready for consumers is better judged by those consumers. I sometimes read online - but not often. The stigma is attached to pay scales. Much online publication is no pay or small pay."

"He's not rewarding us by talking to us. He's talking to us because He has something to say to us directly, as opposed to the things He says to all humanity."

"You seem to think that the only genuine existence evil can have is conscious existence - that no one is evil unless he admits it to himself. I disagree."

"I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them."

"Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable."
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