Skip to content

Quotes from Summertide — Charles Sheffield

1935–2002 England

← All quotes by Charles Sheffield

12 quotes

Mathematics is universal. But very little else is.

Summertide (1990)

No purpose is served by making private suffering into a public event.

Summertide (1990)

What does one do when a madman suggests an appealing course of action? One worries—but probably goes along with it.

Summertide (1990)

But humans had to learn to ignore appearance. No two beings who shared common thinking processes and common goals should be truly alien to each other.

Summertide (1990)

Be an optimist! It’s the only way to live.

Summertide (1990)

The partners were there; gravity was calling the changes, and the cosmic dance was ready to begin.

Summertide (1990)

But mere plausibility did not make the statement true.

Summertide (1990)

We are creatures of conditioning, Commander. We assume that what we know is easy, and we find mysterious whatever we do not.

Summertide (1990)

“We’re just too nosy, Commander,” he went on. “Most humans have their patience level set a little too low, and their curiosity a bit too high.”

Summertide (1990)

That’s what logic says. But I say, phooey, who wants logic? Not you, and not me. We want results.

Summertide (1990)

Everyone was polite; no one was happy.

Summertide (1990)

It might be an impossible task, but at least it was a well-defined one. The rules for performance were no problem. He had learned them long ago on Teufel: you succeed, or you die trying. Until you succeed, you never relax. Until you die, you never give up.

Summertide (1990)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Sheffield (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.