59 quotes
Once he’d been in his twenties, looking forward. Now he was a shade past fifty, and what he looked back on was subtly less satisfactory than what he had looked forward to.
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)
Look, if I could guarantee what the results were going to be, I wouldn’t need a research program!
Rogue Moon (1960)
Young man, you’re living proof that our basic policy is right. I wouldn’t trust an ignoramus like you with the information required to cut his throat.
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)
Any intelligent race you can hope to someday relate to is going to have to come up essentially the same developmental roads and deal with the physical laws of the Universe in about the same way.
Hard Landing (1993)
The idea was to hang on to reality. It was the one crutch everybody used.
We are born of Humankind—
This our destiny:
To bitter dwell in discontent
Wherever we may be.
A man is a phoenix, who must be reborn from his own ashes, for there is no other like him in the universe. If the wind stirs the ashes into a clumsy parody, then the phoenix is dead forever. Nothing we know of can bring you back.
Rogue Moon (1960)
It hadn’t had to take the form of this terrible bubble. It might as easily have been a sudden sharp burst behind his eyes or a slower, subtler gnawing at his vitals. But he’d known it was coming, as every man knows and tries to forget it is coming.
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)
Are our souls so much perverted?
Can we not relent?
Or are the stars the madman’s cost
For his inborn discontent?
I had had a good life. A somewhat shorter one than I had anticipated, but I had had the money, I had had the girls, and nobody told me what to do. Is there, really, anything else? Are you sure?
Hard Landing (1993)
The horse is a stubborn, dirty, stupid animal that reminds me of a sheep. Its only use is to embody the wings a man feels within him, and to do this it lathers and sweats, defecates and steps in badger holes.
Michaelmas (1977)
People want to be safe, and comfortable. If safety and comfort is to be found in guns, then they will take up guns—of their own accord, in their own need. And when safety and comfort are found in libraries, then the guns rust.
Some Will Not Die (1961)
Of course, you have to remind yourself that you might be seeing things that were never there. You might be maneuvering your memories to bring them into line with what you’d want them to be. You can’t be sure you’re not just daydreaming.
Who? (1958)
Amnesia was the price of immortality.
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)
“You’re sincere enough.” She laughed shortly. “Heaven protect the human race from the sincere idealist!”
Some Will Not Die (1961)
It was understood on occasions of this sort that crew technicians are too busy to stay, since it had long ago been discovered that even one cameraman at a buffet was worth a horde of locusts, and tended to make awkward small talk.
Michaelmas (1977)
“Even so, we’re the only animal whose signals can’t be trusted by its own kind.” He smiled. “Except for thee and me, of course.”
Michaelmas (1977)
I do what seems best—I live, I let live; so far I’ve done well. I don’t see why I should act like a predator, simply because I’m in a predatory society. I’m a human being, I’m myself—if I make my life something vicious, who’ll give me another if, too late, I regret what I’ve done?
“Armies!” he burst out. “The day Freemen organize to invade another area is the day they stop being Freemen. They become soldiers, loyal to the army and their generals. They lose their identification with their homes and families. They become a separate class—an armed, organized class of military specialists no one family can stand against. And on that day, freedom dies for everybody.
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)