Ted Chiang Quotations

The universe began as an enormous breath being held. I am glad that it did... until this great exhalation is finished, my thoughts live on.

There have always been arguments showing that free will is an illusion: some based on hard physics, others based on pure logic.

We don't normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology.

I can't recommend technical writing as a day job for fiction writers because it's going to be hard to write all day and then come home and write fiction.

I started submitting stories for publication when I was about 15, but it was many years before I sold anything. I don't make my living writing science fiction, so in that sense, I'm still not a pro.

Probably the most formative experience was reading the 'Foundation' trilogy when I was about twelve years old. That wasn't the first science fiction I had ever read, but it's something that stands out in my memory as having had a big impact on me.

When I was a kid, I figured I would be a physicist when I grew up, and then I would write science fiction on the side. The physicist thing didn't pan out, but writing science fiction on the side did.

Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.

Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it.

It is a misconception to think that during evolution humans sacrificed physical skill in exchange for intelligence: wielding one's body is a mental activity.

Women who work with animals hear this all the time: that their love for animals must arise out of a sublimated child-rearing urge. Ana's tired of the stereotype. She likes children just fine, but they're not the standard against which all other accomplishments should be measured. Caring for animals is worthwhile in and of itself, a vocation that need offer no apologies.

Brain damage is never a good idea, no matter what your friends say.

Physics admits of a lovely unification, not just at the level of fundamental forces, but when considering its extent and implications. Classifications like "optics" or "thermodynamics" are just straitjackets, preventing physicists from seeing countless intersections.

Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know.

Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.

Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.