Joan Slonczewski

Joan Lyn Slonczewski (born in 1956) is an American microbiologist at Kenyon College and a science fiction writer who explores biology and space travel.

Joan Slonczewski in 2015

Quotes

A Door into Ocean (1986)

All page numbers from the hardcover edition published by Arbor House (book club edition)

• A thousand fools believe a lie, and it’s good as truth.
  • Part 1, “Ashore” - Chapter 5 (p. 28)

• She tended to keep her eyes half closed, as if full sight of the world’s absurdity might be too much to bear.
  • Part 2, “A Door Into Ocean” - Chapter 4 (p. 71)

• “People fear stone,” Usha said, “because it contains never-life.”
  “Non-life? You mean, death?”
  “Nonsense,” she repeated vehemently. “What’s to fear about death? Death is natural. Stone is never-life.”
  Spinel took another tack. “If they fear it, then how come enough Sharers want it so the traders stock shelves full?”
  “How should I know? Why do Valans drink the toxic waste product of sugar-eating yeast?”
  • Part 2, Chapter 7 (p. 95)

• Few fears are rational.
  • Part 2, Chapter 7 (p. 95)

• A life postponed too long might never be lived.
  • Part 2, Chapter 9 (p. 111)

• Of all the well-meant emotions pity is the cruelest to share.
  • Part 3, “When the Sea Swallows” - Chapter 3 (p. 128)

• “Magic is nonsense.”
  “Magic is anything you don’t understand.”
  • Part 3, Chapter 3 (p. 128)

• Usha had said that males were not all that different, just bigger outside to make up for what they lacked within.
  • Part 3, Chapter 4 (p. 134)

• Death can be hastened but never shared.
  • Part 4, “Star of Stone” - Chapter 1 (p. 165)

• There was no time for bitterness now: eat bitterness, and bitterness eats you.
  • Part 4, Chapter 11 (p. 204)

• Death hastens those who hasten death.
  • Part 5, “Night of Cinnabar” - Chapter 1 (p. 217)

• You are as responsible for what you let happen as for the actions you share.
  • Part 5, Chapter 6 (p. 239)

• She watched the indigo sky, and the stars coming out tranquil as ever, as if this were any ordinary evening. Only humans knew what an evil time this was.
  • Part 5, Chapter 8 (p. 247)

• If every planet in the Patriarchy refused to be ruled, we all would be free.
  • Part 6, “The Last Door” - Chapter 15 (p. 363)

• “I can’t change what I am ovenight.”
  “Nor can I. And yet, one can’t stop changing, either.”
  • Part 6, Chapter 16 (p. 368)