Top 90 Anne McCaffrey Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “There’s something wrong in not appreciating one’s own special abilities, my girl. Find your own limitations, yes, but don’t limit yourself with false modesty.”

— Anne McCaffrey

52. “Given the infinite variety of human personalities, it was impossible to like everyone.”

— Anne McCaffrey

53. “I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage.”

— Anne McCaffrey

54. “Living was struggling to do something impossible – to succeed, or die, knowing you had tried!”

— Anne McCaffrey

55. “I didn’t raise Todd to be a writer, but he happened to be one anyway.”

— Anne McCaffrey

56. “I didn’t mean to stay up all night to finish Windhaven, but I had to!”

— Anne McCaffrey

57. “Isn’t this planet big enough for differences?”

— Anne McCaffrey

58. “And so we must arm ourselves with tongues of flame.”

— Anne McCaffrey

59. “Scuse me, lady, but I’m Wisp, ‘cause that’s all I am, a wisp of a thing, not much good for changing a thing in the world,” said the boy for when he stepped inside, the light from the grimy window gave her a good view of his anxious, pointed little face.”

— Anne McCaffrey

60. “It does not matter what the media say, so long as they say something with one’s name in it.”

— Anne McCaffrey

61. “Lessa lay in the straw of the redolent cheeseroom she shared as sleeping quarters with the other kitchen drudges.”

— Anne McCaffrey

62. “True portraits are never realistic.”

— Anne McCaffrey

63. “Don’t store guilt for future use. Afra.”

— Anne McCaffrey

64. “What I used to do between writing fits was feed my kids, ride my horse and go shopping for cat and dog food.”

— Anne McCaffrey

65. “How could she have believed such an artificial life as the theatre was suitable?”

— Anne McCaffrey

66. “Pick on our clients, will you, you parasitical, piratical, putrefied parcels of puking pus-filled perverts.”

— Anne McCaffrey

67. “Ramoth’s huge golden wedge-shaped head swiveled around as the sleepy dragon instinctively sought her Wyermate.”

— Anne McCaffrey

68. “The important things to remember she remembered, she told herself. The rest was chaff, which time would have winnowed out of active memory anyway.”

— Anne McCaffrey

69. “If Man was the highest achievement of Nature’s grand design, then Nature had a sense of humor. Whereas.”

— Anne McCaffrey

70. “Calum patted her shoulder and prayed to the Gods of Balanced Equations.”

— Anne McCaffrey

71. “There were two bronzes, three browns, a blue and two greens.”

— Anne McCaffrey

72. “It’s easier to flatter a man than fight him.”

— Anne McCaffrey

73. “I think writers need windows on a view to remind them that a whole world is out there, not the minutiae with which they might be dealing on a close scale.”

— Anne McCaffrey

74. “Each egg hatched a different way, but a crack at the right time speeded things up.”

— Anne McCaffrey

75. “I did not have a chance to write novels until my youngest child started school fulltime.”

— Anne McCaffrey

76. “And you were ready to silence a Harper, and that is a greater wrong, for when speech is restricted, all men suffer, not just I.”

— Anne McCaffrey

77. “Physical injury is the least of the harmful accidents that this universe inflicts on its inhabitants; it is soonest mended.”

— Anne McCaffrey

78. “Children’s voices – even those who couldn’t carry the tune – are always appealing.”

— Anne McCaffrey

79. “Has been done. Can be done. Must be done...”

— Anne McCaffrey

80. “Lessa was Ramoth’s and Ramoth was hers, mind and heart, irrevocably attuned. Only death could dissolve that incredible bond.”

— Anne McCaffrey

81. “Queens can, too, fly,” she blurted out, daring him. His grin broadening to suffuse his face, he put his hands on her shoulders and gave her an affectionate shake. “Of course they can fly,” he assured her, his voice full of pride and respect. “That’s why they have wings!”

— Anne McCaffrey

82. “Dear God, Yes, there is a Virginia who helped me create this planet and the marvels thereon. And for whom I thank you. AMJ.”

— Anne McCaffrey

83. “But Lord Raid and Lord Sifer had an unpleasant habit of reminding Benden Weyr riders of their loyalty at every opportunity. Gratitude is an ill-fitting tunic that can chafe and smell if worn too long. Lord.”

— Anne McCaffrey

84. “Reading has not gone out of fashion in the last number of years, nor in the ones while you slept in the asteroid belt. Your relatives do not wish to expose themselves to deep thought, lest they be affected by it.”

— Anne McCaffrey

85. “The mind that will not admit it has something more to learn tomorrow is in danger of stagnating.”

— Anne McCaffrey

86. “Looking ahead is far more constructive than looking behind,” said Robinton. He held his clenched fist up. “I’d all the facts in my grasp and I couldn’t see the water for the waves.”

— Anne McCaffrey

87. “Exchange information, learn to speak sensibly about any subject, learn to express your thoughts, accept new ones, examine them, analyze. Think objectively. Think toward the future.”

— Anne McCaffrey

88. “What has to be done can scarcely be termed heroic!” Master.”

— Anne McCaffrey

89. “I speak of the skill of working together, the technique of crossing the arbitrary lines of land, craft, and status, because we must learn more from each other than the simple fact that none of us can stand alone and survive!”

— Anne McCaffrey

90. “It is the voice we communicate with, the voice which utters the words we seek to impress on men’s minds, the voice which evokes emotional response; tears, laughter, sense. Your voice is the most important, most complex, most amazing instrument of all.”

— Anne McCaffrey

91. “One can forgive almost anything except one’s own stupidities.”

— Anne McCaffrey

92. “Your initial mistake, my dear F’lar,” and the Harper’s voice was at its drollest, “was in providing salvation from the last imminent disaster in a scant three days by bringing up the Five Lost Weyrs. The Lord Holders really expect you to provide a second miracle in similar short order.”

— Anne McCaffrey