William Tenn Quotes

1920–2010 United States

William Tenn was the pseudonym of Philip Klass (May 9, 1920 – February 7, 2010), a British-born American science fiction author, notable for many stories with satirical elements.

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Random William Tenn quote

27 quotes

Science, my forward-looking friend, is a complex of interlocking theories, all derived from observation.

Time in Advance (1958)

Scrabbling like mad at their beloved fence, the politicians tried to avoid taking a definite position on either side.

The Wooden Star (1968)

The pull of fashion has always been that of the stampeding herd.

The Wooden Star (1968)

Haven’t you ever heard it said that money isn’t everything, but that what it isn’t it can buy?

Time in Advance (1958)

A man doesn’t volunteer for a hitch in hell just so he can knock off one of the devils.

Time in Advance (1958)

“Creatures trained in warfare are what he calls ‘philosophically anti-life.’”

The Wooden Star (1968)

The delegate returned to tell his countrymen that the Americans, always notorious for their madness, had finally specialized in cretinism.

The Wooden Star (1968)

Laws produce lawbreakers, Bernie, like hens produce eggs. Civilization has nothing to do with it.

The Seven Sexes (1968)

His clothes, he knew, were in almost ostentatious good taste—they screamed restraint and expensive lowness of key.

The Seven Sexes (1968)

The sad truth about political saints of any given past is that nobody but a scholar will take the trouble to read their complete works and try to see them whole.

The Seven Sexes (1968)

Thank you very much for your lesson, but now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go on, please. Some of us aren’t civil service workers: our time is valuable.

Time in Advance (1958)

Don’t be bitter, young sir. If you want to go on living you have to be alert. And you can’t be alert and bitter at the same time.

The Wooden Star (1968)

He reached into his soul for an article of fundamental faith, found it. “I can make money,” he quoted to himself. “That’s what I’m good for. That’s what I can always do.”

Time in Advance (1958)

He knew what the score was—and from here on out, he would be acting on what he knew rather than on what others told him.

Medusa Was a Lady! (1951)

The real world. As good a name for it as any other. Carter was a mystic never and a Freudian only when the occasion suited him. His credo was simple: anything that is, is real.

The Seven Sexes (1968)

People quoted Henry Dorselblad’s indictment of modern society: “Women needed the law’s special protection when they were legally inferiors of men. Now they have equality and special protection. They can’t have both!”

The Wooden Star (1968)

“Wh-who are you? And what do you want?”
“Joseph Burns, a poor but honest newspaperman.” He considered for a moment. “Well, poor, anyway.”

Of All Possible Worlds (1955)

Irving Bommer looked like a man who had gone down into the Valley of the Shadow and had seen much more there to fear than such picayune things as Evil.

Of All Possible Worlds (1955)

“It's a rough war, isn't it?”
I smiled back. “Rough? Why, if you're not careful, they tell me, you can get killed in it.”

Of All Possible Worlds (1955)

But now he had to have another look. It might not be so bad the second time. “It’s always darkest,” he told himself with determined triteness, “before the dawn.” And then found himself involuntarily adding, “Except on days when there’s an eclipse.”

The Human Angle (1956)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Tenn (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.