John Shirley

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I think paranoia can be instructive in the right doses. Paranoia is a skill.
- John Shirley
Image of John Shirley
I'm cursed with empathy. I'm also by nature way too opinionated.
- John Shirley
Image of John Shirley
I get drunk writing words. I don't drink or do drugs, but I get so carried away with writing that I get inebriated from it.
- John Shirley
Image of John Shirley
Labels only confuse people. The smarter people recognize artists who transcend categories. But I always try to entertain. It's in my nature; writers are born to entertain. If that means working ostensibly within a genre, fine.
- John Shirley
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Innocence could be considered a discrete state of mind.
- John Shirley
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I'm trying to trick people into thinking about the unthinkable by using pop culture images.
- John Shirley
Image of John Shirley
I'm incapable of writing without social commentary. I like to think that it's integrated and not really heavy handedly didactic.
- John Shirley
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People in extreme conditions are suddenly naked, realer than normal, perhaps even more alive.
- John Shirley
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I'm not quite pompous enough to think of myself as an educator or a man capable of definitive refutation of falsehoods.
- John Shirley
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I do try to be of some use in the world. I sometimes do volunteer work with kids, and manage to help some people a little, but really making a significant difference can be hard.
- John Shirley
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I do sometimes watch 'Dr. Who' and while the stories barely make sense, if at all, the doctor is such great company I don't care.
- John Shirley
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I'm disturbed when people let superstition, magical thinking, extreme conspiracy theories and so on blur their minds.
- John Shirley
Collection: Thinking
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A man must make of his life a ladder that he never ceases to climb -- if you're not rising, you are slipping down the rungs, my friend.
- John Shirley
Collection: Men
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Misha's importance and distinctiveness are beginning to be noticed, there's beginning to be some kind of rip-tide here that will soon become a wave of recognition for a book that the world is beginning to catch up to... We weren't ready before. We'd better be ready now. Because it's the 21st century, any minute now, and that means that Misha's time has come. In more ways than one.
- John Shirley
Collection: Rip
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As far as I know Misha wrote the first cyberpunk poetry.
- John Shirley
Collection: Firsts
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I'm just the kind of person who seems designed, probably by nature, to try to make a difference.
- John Shirley
Collection: Differences