163 quotes
She had always admired the way bureaucracies spontaneously produced leaden prose, blandly sliding from the mouths of people who absolutely believed everything they said.
The Sunborn (2005)
In popularizing a scientific development it was always crucial to sail the narrow strait between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public befuddlement.
Artifact (1985)
It was getting the results that made science worth doing; the accolades were a thin, secondary pleasure.
Timescape (1980)
Weeds sprouted in spaces where once-important people had proclaimed that their presumptions were imperishable.
Beyond Infinity (2004)
Deep ignorance, but still a kind that knew its limits. The limits were crucial.
Timescape (1980)
“He was guilty of the heresy of humanism.”
“How can that be heresy?”
“The narcissistic devotion to things human? ‘Man is the measure of all things?’ Easily.”
Beyond Infinity (2004)
As a political commentator of the time put it, most real-world people she knew thought of Washington, D.C., as a whorehouse where every four years ordinary folk got to elect a new piano player.
Cosm (1998)
She sighed. “We’re just guessing.”
“When you have a Ph. D., you call them hypotheses, not guesses.”
Cosm (1998)
“Viktor! Don’t tell me you cheated! A gentleman doesn’t cheat at cards.”
“Am captain, not gentleman.”
The Martian Race (1999)
I agree with the Emperor. Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Slow Symphonies of Mass and Time (1998)
She could not understand why people feared new ideas. She was frightened by the old ones.
Vortex (2016)
Ruth felt that math was like sex—get all you can, but best not done in public.
The Sigma Structure Symphony (2012)
“How can you shrug off history?”…
“By studied neglect.”
Beyond Infinity (2004)
“You’ll never get it to follow orders.”
“Slaves follow orders, Colonel. You want something done a slave can’t, you don’t ask for a slave to do it.”
Against Infinity (1983)
“Diversity” had come to mean Balkanization.
Cosm (1998)
In his view, the true deep human fantasy was the conviction of safety. Men believed their women were devoted; wives felt that their men were dependable. Both ignored contrary evidence.
Beyond Infinity (2004)
Still, Claire hated Charlotte Brontë’s comment that she would have given all her talent to be beautiful. That condemned you always to play somebody else’s game—and, when your looks failed—finally to lose.
Artifact (1985)
Archeology is mostly a process of making associations between objects, and every discovery opens up possible resonances with things we already have. Sometimes, simply wandering through a museum or a site can open your eyes.
Artifact (1985)
A rich bank account did not mean rich ideas; in fact, often the reverse. The bigger your ass, the more you want to cover it.
The Man Who Sold The Stars (2013)
This was what never failed to stir her—the unfathomable gulf between today’s thinking and the way the ancients thought. They were truly alien, not merely innocent agrarians with a foolish faith.
Artifact (1985)