"Intellectual progress, artistic creativity, the ecvolution of rational thought and technical change came to a virtual standstill during the Empire, and in some areas ground was actually lost. Instead the arts of copying, compilation, and technical virtuosity flourished." --Paul Zank*r, Th* Pow*r of Imags in th* Ag* of Augustus (1988)


"I'll never understand the kind of writer who genuinely advances the proposition that life is a dream or fiction. To me that's the voice of privilege, whether it's money, class, sex, color, or what have you. Most of us can't find refuge in anything so false." --Joanna Russ,in: Across th* Wound*d Galaxi*s


"The whole idea of going from your own world to an alien world makes sense only if you're not an alien in your own world." --ibid