39 quotes
There’s nothing like a little slavery to make a man appreciate even a modest portion of freedom.
A Trace of Memory (1963)
One nice thing about working with a piece of machinery: you don’t waste time trying to justify your actions.
Dinosaur Beach (1971)
Are you sure you’re really the Devil and not someone else with the same name?
Timetracks (1972)
Most taboos have to do with eating, sex, elimination or gods; so remember, look before you sit down, lie down, squat down or kneel down!
Timetracks (1972)
“All right. Let’s begin with the world situation.”
“I’d prefer a more cheerful subject—like cancer.”
A Plague of Demons (1965)
“Why do you fight this war?”
The alien mind howled out its war slogan—as incomprehensible as an astrologer’s jargon.
A Plague of Demons (1965)
“I can see there’s been a miscarriage of justice.”
“An abortion, you mean!
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Galaxy (1968)
I’m arguing with myself and I can’t tell who’s winning.
A Trace of Memory (1963)
I wanted to tell him that all lives are the same length when viewed from the foreshortened perspective of death, and that life, like music, requires no meaning but only a certain symmetry.
A Trace of Memory (1963)
Sure—that’s the concept. It wouldn’t be the first concept that had to be modified in the face of experience.
Dinosaur Beach (1971)
To be adult is to be disillusioned. Only realities count.
Timetracks (1972)
“I say, old man, you’re developing something of a persecution complex, I’m afraid—”
“That’s easy, when you’re persecuted.”
The Other Side of Time (1965)
An idea was beginning to get through, and he wasn’t liking it very well.
Dinosaur Beach (1971)
He turned; she stood in the doorway, clad in an invisible negligee.
The Shape Changer (1972)
Don’t go female on me now. We don’t have time for nonsense.
Dinosaur Beach (1971)
Yours is not to reason why, eh? I guess you’re lucky at that. It’s not dying that hurts—it’s living.
A Plague of Demons (1965)
The Karg looked at her with the interested expression of a coroner who sees his customer twitch.
Dinosaur Beach (1971)
It was a nasty little village, poverty-stricken, ugly, hostile, much like little towns in all times and climes.
Dinosaur Beach (1971)
The Third Era had recognized the impossibility of correcting the effects of human interference with more human interference.
Timetracks (1972)
Man clings to his self-orientation at the psychological center of the Universe. You can face any challenge within that framework, suffer any loss, endure any hardship—so long as the structure remains intact.
Timetracks (1972)