12 quotes
Psychiatry is becoming too popular. Everybody talks of complexes and neuroses and psychoses and compulsions and whatnot. One man’s guilt complex is another man’s good night’s sleep.
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
It’s funny the respectable names you can give to superstition.
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
“Surely you believe in God?”
“Well, said R.E., “I believed a lot of things about Him that would probably startle you.”
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
It is no one’s privilege to despise another. It is only a hard-won right after long experience.
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
The newsmen were writing down sentences busily as Hoskins spoke to them. They did not understand and they were sure their readers would not, but it sounded scientific and that was what counted.
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
Printing will tell you such useful things and such interesting things that not being able to read would be as bad as not being able to see.
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
“Why didn’t people just use a computer?”
“That was before they had computers,” cried Paul.
“Before?”
“Sure. Do you think people always had computers? Didn’t you ever hear of cavemen?”
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
I don’t say it was deliberate fraud. He was probably madly sincere, and sincerely mad.
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
He could almost wish he were superstitious. He could then console himself with the thought that the casual meaningless meeting had really been directed by a knowing and purposeful Fate.
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
“You are an important man–”
Ralston snorted.
“You do not consider that to be so?” asked Blaustein.
“No, I don’t. There are no important men, any more than there are important individual bacteria.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
We face eternity now. We have no universe left, no outside phenomena, no emotions, no passions. Nothing but ourselves and thought. We face an eternity of introspection, when all through history we have never known what to do with ourselves on a rainy Sunday.
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)
“If you can see the future –”
“Why am I not the richest man on earth? Is that it? But I am rich—in all I want. You want recognition and I want to be left alone. I do my work. No one bothers me. That makes me a billionaire.”
The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)