Life & Wisdom Quote by Gene Wolfe

Wolfe takes a scalpel to a common spiritual vanity: the idea that God speaking to you is a prize you’ve earned, a gold star for being especially devout or interesting. The first sentence punctures that ego with almost clinical bluntness. “Not rewarding us” is deliberately transactional language, aimed at a mindset that treats prayer like customer service and revelation like a loyalty program. Wolfe’s tone is not cruel, just unsentimental: if God addresses you, it’s not because you’ve impressed Him.

Then he pivots to the unsettling consolation of the second line. God “has something to say to us directly” suggests intimacy, but it’s an intimacy of purpose, not flattery. The subtext is that a personal message is less a compliment than a summons: instruction, correction, warning, vocation. Wolfe’s “as opposed to” draws a boundary between the broad, public utterances of religion - scripture, doctrine, the big generalities offered to “all humanity” - and the private, targeted communication that demands an individual response. It’s the difference between a sermon and being called out by name.

That distinction is very Wolfe: a Catholic-inflected imagination wary of self-deception, fascinated by hidden levels of address, and alert to the ways humans misread narrative as affirmation. In his fiction, characters often mistake significance for favor; this line insists significance can be weight. If God speaks directly, it may not be a cuddle. It may be an assignment.