Barry N. Malzberg

Barry Nathaniel Malzberg (born July 24, 1939) is an American science fiction author.

Quotes

• …as indifferent to the meaning and central absurdity of the situation as swallows in a cathedral.
  • Tripping with the Alchemist (2003), reprinted in Jack Dann (ed.), Nebula Awards Showcase 2005 (2005), p. 192

• Great recrimination demands a large subject, will invent one if it does not exist.
  • Tripping with the Alchemist (2003), reprinted in Jack Dann (ed.), Nebula Awards Showcase 2005 (2005), p. 200

Beyond Apollo (1972)

• There is no truth which cannot be given in fifty words; the truth is always concise.
  • Chapter 16
• “Events,” I say to the Captain, “events control our lives, although we have no understanding of them nor do they have any motivation. Everything is blind chance, happenstance, occurrence; in an infinite universe anything can happen. After the fact we find reasons.”
  • Chapter 60

Corridors (1982)

Nebula Award nominee for Best Short Story in 1982

• Nothing matters at all. Survival is the coin of the realm. Time is a river with banks.
  • p. 144 in The Nebula Awards 18 edited by Robert Silverberg

• Ruthven surmised that he had hit upon some of the central deceptions which had wrecked him and reduced him and so many of his colleagues to this condition. To surmise was not to conquer, of course; he was as helpless as ever but there was a dim liberation in seeing how he had been lied to, and he felt that at least he could take one thing from the terrible years through which he had come: he was free of self-delusion.
  • p. 145 in The Nebula Awards 18 edited by Robert Silverberg