491 quotes
Narby had no particular respect for engineers, largely because he had no particular talent for engineering.
Off the Main Sequence (2005)
This sort of nonsense should be lumped with transubstantiation. If true, it can’t be proved.
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)
It was fairly evident that at least 90 per cent of all magic, probably more, was balderdash and sheer mystification.
The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (1999)
“But you were right!”
“Since when has being right endeared a man to his boss?”
Off the Main Sequence (2005)
They were both of the extremely opposite sex and just being around them was fun.
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)
"Do you know who is responsible?" "Why of course, it's the government!" "Jill, 'the government' is several million people."
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
From my point of view it is better to be alive and young again, and broke, than it is to be the richest corpse in Forest Lawn.
I Will Fear No Evil (1970)
Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe — in fact, random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance.
Stranger in a Strange Land (1960)
I don't gamble, if you will concede that poker is a game of skill.
“I guess I don’t understand women.”
“That’s an understatement.”
Starman Jones (1953)
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.
Time Enough for Love (1973)
Digby was a floccinaucinihilipilificator at heart—which is an eight-dollar word meaning a joker who does not believe in anything he can't bite.
The Puppet Masters (1951)
Age is not an accomplishment, and youth is not a sin.
Methuselah's Children (1958)
He was finding it ruinously expensive to be rich.
Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)
Doc says the Company set-up is just one big happy family, and the idea that it is a non-profit corporation is the biggest joke since women were invented.
Red Planet (1949)
Since Thorby had no talent he became an actor.
Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)
The tragedy about Romeo and Juliet is not that they died so young but that the boy-meets-girl reflex should be so overpowering as to defeat all common sense.
Podkayne of Mars (1963)
I didn’t want him dead. Unless you are on a battlefield or in a hospital, a corpse is an embarrassment, hard to explain. The management was bound to be stuffy about it.
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)
Earth, seen from space, looked as it had looked in color-stereo pictures, but he found that the real thing is as vastly more satisfying as a hamburger is better than a picture of one.
Off the Main Sequence (2005)
For three hundred years the race had glazed windows. Then they shut themselves up in little air-conditioned boxes and stared at silly television pictures instead. One might as well be on Luna.
Farmer in the Sky (1950)