15 quotes
There’s ample human achievement in the universe, but not nearly enough beauty.
Alastor trilogy (1973)
It is all sheer egocentricity: the myth of self triumphant over destiny!
Alastor trilogy (1973)
A troubled society is like a man with a stomach-ache. When he purges himself, he improves.
Alastor trilogy (1973)
“I perceive your ideological bias.”
“It is not bias to favor the tried and true ways of the past; it is ordinary common sense.”
Alastor trilogy (1973)
Every Arrabin desperately asserts his individuality, with personal tricks and fads. A futile kind of life, no doubt, but isn’t all life futile?
Alastor trilogy (1973)
By an axiom of cultural anthropology, the more isolated a community, the more idiosyncratic become its customs and conventions. This of course is not necessarily disadvantageous.
Alastor trilogy (1973)
Perhaps you mistake assurance for insolence…Agreed, the qualities sometimes converge.
Alastor trilogy (1973)
The Rhune is not a likable man. He is so sensitive as to be truculent; he is contemptuous of all other races than the Rhune. He is self-centered, arrogant, unsympathetic in his judgments.
Alastor trilogy (1973)
“Why not cancel the affair? There’ll be opportunities in the future.”
“But I’m not confident of the future! It’s a spinning top which can totter in any direction!”
Alastor trilogy (1973)
“It’s not a knack at all,” said Jantiff. “I’ve had to practice for years.”
Tanzel said brightly: “Isn’t it elitism when someone tries to do something better can everyone else?”
Alastor trilogy (1973)
So much existed: so much to be felt and seen and known! A single life was not enough…
Alastor trilogy (1973)
The words must be spoken. The thoughts must be thought. The plans must be planned. The deeds must be done.
Alastor trilogy (1973)
“I wonder, sir, if you’d be good enough to advise me.”
“Certainly, within the limits of discretion,” said Eubanq. “I should warn you, however, that free advice is usually not worth its cost.”
Alastor trilogy (1973)
“As I listen to you I hear only ingenuousness and didactic theory.”
Lorcas compressed his lips. “Perhaps because you are hearing views which contradict your emotions.”
Alastor trilogy (1973)
Still, this way of life, peculiar as it seems, is not necessarily a bad system. I suspect that every style of life works our to be a tradeoff between various kinds of freedoms. There are naturally many different freedoms, and sometimes one freedom implies the absence of another.
Alastor trilogy (1973)