32 quotes
In physical pursuits Luli was considerably less passionate. Her idea of a good time in bed was breakfast.
The Wine of Violence (1981)
It was not a question of regressive old ideas versus enlightened new ideas, but of reasonable caution versus arrogant caprice.
The Wine of Violence (1981)
“On your planet, how do you tell somebody that you love her?”
“It’s very complicated. You say, ‘I love you,’ and then you stand back and see what happens.”
The Wine of Violence (1981)
“I’ve always regretted not having a brother. Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“For me it’s always been like having pubic hair. You have it, but what the hell is it for?”
The Wine of Violence (1981)
Burne was tough. Burne practiced archeology, the most inconvenient of the sciences.
The Wine of Violence (1981)
In Francis’s view there was ultimate gold in this commitment to impractical knowledge, to theories that had no responsibilities other than to be true. On good days the new ideas inched human intellect toward the grand understandings that were science’s pride and joy.
The Wine of Violence (1981)
“That was a very pretty speech,” said Loloc, “but if it contained an answer to even one of my questions then I did not hear it.”
The Wine of Violence (1981)
Like all good friends, they hated seeing their relationship lose its emotional innocence, its chastity of good will, and now that the thing was lost, now that searing statements had changed hands and left scars, neither looked forward to the future.
The Wine of Violence (1981)
Like most visionaries, The Teller saw the distant future with optical-glass clarity, the intermediate future with beeswax clarity, and the immediate future with the clarity of dark glasses dipped in tar.
The Wine of Violence (1981)
Francis had always been ecumenical in his atheism. He was as prepared to disbelieve in this Tolca character as he was to disbelieve in Yahweh, Jesus, Buddha, Vishnu, or any of the other words for what his father used to call “forcing yourself to misperceive the obvious.”
The Wine of Violence (1981)
Naturally you expect the moral thing from me. But I’ve learned something, friend. Morals don’t count for a hell of a lot in this galaxy. I rank them somewhere between straight teeth and the ability to carry a tune.
The Wine of Violence (1981)
Smugness kills all utopias.
The Wine of Violence (1981)