12 quotes
“We are forever trying to sell science because somebody somewhere will get a better toothbrush,” she grumbled. “Whatever happened to sheer curiosity?”
Infinity Beach (2000)
When she’d mentioned it to Matt, he had piously denied everything. Piety was always how you knew Matt was lying.
Infinity Beach (2000)
Truth is like nudity: It is on occasion indispensable, but it is dangerous and should not be displayed openly. It is truth that gives life its grandeur, but the polite fictions that make it bearable.
Infinity Beach (2000)
He was a good salesman, which was to say he could look people directly in the eye while making the most preposterous claims.
Infinity Beach (2000)
Starships, of course, have few limitations with regard to design, the prime specification being simply that they not disintegrate during acceleration or course change.
Infinity Beach (2000)
What people do with their leisure tells us a great deal about the nature of a society, what its values really are, for example, as opposed to what its members say its values are.
Infinity Beach (2000)
“How are you going to define ‘spiritual’?” asked Mona. No one had any idea.
Infinity Beach (2000)
Emily had not been trained as a scientist, so she tended to draw conclusions based on emotional need rather than on evidence.
Infinity Beach (2000)
The belief that society was in decline was a permanent characteristic of every era. People always believed they lived in a crumbling world. They themselves were of course okay, but everyone around them was headed downhill.
Infinity Beach (2000)
Never look for complexity in diplomatic decisions. With very few exceptions, actions always devolve—and that’s the exact term—from someone’s self-interest. Not the national self-interest, by the way. We are talking here about individual careers.
Infinity Beach (2000)
Those who rise to the top of organizations, who live to direct others, to wield power, are inevitably afflicted by weak egos, by a need to prove themselves. This explains why they are so easily frightened and so easily manipulated. And why they are so dangerous.
Infinity Beach (2000)
Sheyel had always maintained that few actions are driven by reason. People act out of emotion, perception, prejudice. They will believe what they’ve always believed, filtering out all evidence to the contrary. Until they go too far and run onto the rocks of reality.
Infinity Beach (2000)