Ted Chiang

The Story Of Your Life

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  • Humsterrhas quoted8 years ago
    “First Goldilocks tried the papa bear’s bowl of porridge, but it was full of Brussels sprouts, which she hated.”
    You’ll laugh. “No, that’s wrong!” We’ll be sitting side by side on the sofa, the skinny, overpriced hardcover spread open on our laps.
    I’ll keep reading. “Then Goldilocks tried the mama bear’s bowl of porridge, but it was full of spinach, which she also hated.”
    You’ll put your hand on the page of the book to stop me. “You have to read it the right way!”
    “I’m reading just what it says here,” I’ll say, all innocence.
    “No you’re not. That’s not how the story goes.”
    “Well if you already know how the story goes, why do you need me to read it to you?”
    “Cause I wanna hear it!”
  • нhas quoted2 years ago
    The result is a contradiction: the Book of Ages must be right, by definition; yet no matter what the Book says she'll do, she can choose to do otherwise. How can these two facts be reconciled?
  • нhas quoted2 years ago
    "It doesn't matter: you still have to go to bed."

    "But why?"

    "Because I'm the mom and I said so."

    I'm actually going to say that, aren't I? God, somebody please shoot me. I'll pick you up and carry you under my arm to your bed, you wailing piteously all the while, but my sole concern will be my own distress. All those vows made in childhood that I would give reasonable answers when I became a parent, that I would treat my own child as an intelligent, thinking individual, all for naught: I'm going to turn into my mother. I can fight it as much as I want, but there'll be no stopping my slide down that long, dreadful slope.
  • нhas quoted2 years ago
    The idea of thinking in a linguistic yet non-phonological mode always intrigued me. I had a friend born of Deaf parents; he grew up using American Sign Language, and he told me that he often thought in ASL

    instead of English. I used to wonder what it was like to have one's thoughts be manually coded, to reason using an inner pair of hands instead of an inner voice.
  • нhas quoted2 years ago
    I'm not sure if I'm ready to have children. I asked a friend of mine who has children, 'Suppose I do have kids. What if when they grow up, they blame me for everything that's wrong with their lives?' She laughed and said, 'What do you mean, if?'
  • нhas quoted2 years ago
    What I'll think is that you are clearly, maddeningly not me. It will remind me, again, that you won't be a clone of me; you can be wonderful, a daily delight, but you won't be someone I could have created by myself.
  • Pichkurov Sergeyhas quoted4 years ago
    In contrast, the physical attributes that the heptapods found intuitive, like “action” or those other things defined by integrals, were meaningful only over a period of time. And these were conducive to a teleological interpretation of events: by viewing events over a period of time, one recognized that there was a requirement that had to be satisfied, a goal of minimizing or maximizing. And one had to know the initial and final states to meet that goal; one needed knowledge of the effects before the causes could be initiated.
  • Lola Lobahas quoted6 years ago
    From the beginning I knew my destination, and I chose my route accordingly. But am I working toward an extreme of joy, or of pain?
  • Lola Lobahas quoted6 years ago
    Even if I had never laid eyes on you before, I’d be able to pick you out from a sea of babies: Not that one. No, not her either. Wait, that one over there.
    Yes, that’s her. She’s mine.
  • Lola Lobahas quoted6 years ago
    Your face will still be all red and pinched, puffy eyelids squeezed shut, the gnome-like phase that precedes the cherubic.
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