If you destroyed a man here and reconstituted him somewhere else, you’re fooling yourself if you think that the reconstituted man is the same as the original man. The man who goes into the matter transmitter is going to go dark; he’s going to die. You can create a new man with the memories of the dead man; but that doesn’t mean that the dead man is still alive. The dead man is dead.
“I would like to be a really, really good writer, a fine writer. One of the things that took me a quarter of my life to learn was that the only way to really succeed is to do the thing that you do best. I’m one of those unfortunate kids who were bright enough to be a second rate mathematician. It takes more than bright, it takes a real talent for mathematics, a certain genius. And writing is one thing and I’ve found I seem to do best. And of course, I enjoy it.”
Gene Wolfe