45 quotes
“I’ve never heard you talk like this before.”
“We all change with the passing of the days.”
Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy (1992)
Throwing some light on the subject had only made the mystery deeper.
Starplex (1996)
Not wanting to die was another universal constant, it seemed.
Calculating God (2000)
“Children play with toy soldiers,” said Keith, looking now at Jag. “Child races play with real ones. Maybe it’s time all of us grew up a bit.”
Starplex (1996)
You are spoiled by being a sociologist, Lansing. In the hard sciences, we occasionally have to face the reality that some of our theories will actually be disproven.
Starplex (1996)
And Canadians didn’t like guns, either—they had no Second Amendment, or whatever damned thing it was that made Americans think they could go around armed.
Flashforward (1999)
“Good luck—and God protect.” I was sure that little reference to God was for the sake of the network cameras. Ching-Mei was an atheist. She only had faith in empirical data, in experimental results.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
I shook my head. “Have you ever noticed how many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities come at the end of a person’s life? Count me out.”
It had to begin somewhere—maturity, the stage after the midlife crisis, peace. It had to begin somewhere.
Starplex (1996)
I did learn one valuable lesson, though.
I learned that you can’t choose the ways in which you’ll be tested.
Calculating God (2000)
You know his dictum: nothing is anything unless it is something. That is, a concept without material reality is meaningless.
Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy (1992)
...but there, because there is no grace of God, go I.
Frameshift (1997)
“But you get along with humans now, which is something my people are having trouble managing. How do you do it?”
Longbottle barked, “Accept their weaknesses, welcome their strengths.”
Jag was silent.
Starplex (1996)
“I have no choice, do I?”
Afsan turned his blind eyes on his friend. “That’s the funny thing about being a leader, Dybo: you rarely do.”
Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy (1992)
As one of my Jewish friends has been known to observe, the Jews who survived World War II were either now atheists or hadn’t been paying attention.
Calculating God (2000)
I do remember her favorite expression: the Lord works in mysterious ways.
Perhaps so. But I found it hard to believe he would work in shoddy, haphazard ones.
Calculating God (2000)
It turned out that big-bucks science had been a purely mid-twentieth-century phenomenon, starting with the Manhattan Project and ending with the fall of the Soviet Union.
I believe the creator may have a specific reason for wanting a universe that has life in it, and, indeed, as you say, for wanting multiple sentiences to emerge simultaneously. But it seems clear beyond dispute that the creator takes no interest in specific individuals.
Calculating God (2000)
Sagan may not have believed in the God of the Bible, but he at least allowed the possibility of a creator.
Or did he? Carl was no more obliged to believe what he wrote in his sole work of fiction than George Lucas was required to believe in the Force.
Calculating God (2000)
It embodies, perhaps more clearly than anything else I've written, the central theme of all my work: namely, that clearheaded, unflinching, rational thinking is the only effective way to deal with reality.