11 quotes
“Will it always stay like this?”
“Nothing,” said Hostetter, “ever stays always like anything.”
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
You can’t destroy knowledge. You can stamp it under and burn it up and forbid it to be, but somewhere it will survive.
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
Knowledge is not like sin. There is no mystical escape from it.
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
No matter which way I go I know now that I will never have peace.
For peace is certainty, and there is no certainty but death.
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
“Was he trying to frighten you?”
“I don’t think so,” said Len. “I think he was just telling me the truth.”
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
“I grew up with the idea of it,” said Hostetter. “Nobody ever taught me that it was evil or forbidden, or that God had put a curse on it, and that’s the difference.”
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
He could hear Pa’s voice saying, “A man’s religion, his sect, is his own affair. But those people have no religion or sect. They’re a mob, with a mob’s fear and cruelty, and with half-crazy, cunning men stirring them up against others.”
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
I am finished with running. Now I will stop and choose my way.
Sooner or later a man has to stop and choose his way, not out of the ways he would like there to be, or the ways there ought to be, but out of the ways there are.
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
“I guess we’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Quite a lot,” said Hostetter thoughtfully. “It won’t be easy, either. So many things will jar against every belief you’ve grown up with, and I don’t care how you scoff at it, some of it sticks to you.”
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
There’s never been an act done since the beginning, from a kid stealing candy to a dictator committing genocide, that the person doing it didn’t think he was fully justified. That’s a mental trick called rationalizing, and it’s done the human race more harm than anything else you can name.
The Long Tomorrow (1955)
“Hell, how do you think the human race ever learned anything, except by trial and error?”
“But it all takes such a long, long time,” said Len.”
“Everything takes a long time. Birthing takes nine months, and dying takes you all the rest of your life, and what are you complaining about, anyway?”
The Long Tomorrow (1955)