264 quotes
In case you haven't noticed, we are now almost as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis were.
I Love You, Madame Librarian (2004)
I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.
Bluebeard (1987)
Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.
A Man Without a Country (2005)
My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse."
I Love You, Madame Librarian (2004)
"I would say, 'Is there anything I can do?'—but Skip once told me that that was the most hateful and stupid expression in the English language."
The Sirens of Titan (1959)
A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees.
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be.
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.
A Man Without a Country (2005)
The only thing I ever learned was that some people are lucky and other people aren't and not even a graduate of the Harvard Business School can say why.
It may surprise you to learn that I take a certain pride, no matter how foolishly mistaken that pride may be, in making my own decisions for my own reasons.
The Sirens of Titan (1959)
If you can do no good, at least do no harm.
Slapstick (1976)
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends.
Bennington College address (1970)
The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.
Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled "Science Fiction" … and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (1974)
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
A Man Without a Country (2005)
People hate it when they're tickled because laughter is not pleasant, if it goes on too long. I think it's a desperate sort of convulsion in desperate circumstances, which helps a little.
And I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.
Palm Sunday (1981)
He was too good a soldier to go around asking questions, trying to round out his knowledge.
A soldier's knowledge wasn't supposed to be round.
The Sirens of Titan (1959)