Stanisław Lem
Born
in Lviv, Poland (now Ukraine)
September 12, 1921
Died
March 27, 2006
Website
Genre
Influences
Solaris
by
325 editions
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published
1961
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The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy
95 editions
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published
1971
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The Cyberiad
by
110 editions
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published
1965
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The Invincible
102 editions
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published
1964
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The Star Diaries: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy
102 editions
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published
1971
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Tales Of Pirx The Pilot
by
64 editions
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published
1961
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Eden
86 editions
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published
1959
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Return From the Stars
by
80 editions
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published
1961
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His Master's Voice
by
71 editions
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published
1968
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Fiasco
63 editions
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published
1986
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“We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.”
― Solaris
― Solaris
“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”
― Solaris
― Solaris
“On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...
Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”
― Solaris
Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”
― Solaris
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The InvincibleThe Invincible by Stanisław Lem
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