Skip to content

To understand why George fell for this story, one must remember his stifled romanticism, his sense of personal failure, his deep need to believe. The thing came to him like, or rather instead of, a religious conversion.

— Fritz Leiber A Pail of Air (1964)

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: “Time Fighter” (p. 67); originally published in Fantastic Universe, March 1957
Work: A Pail of Air, 1964
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Fritz Leiber

They’ve heard about space but they still don’t believe in it.

The Wanderer (1964)

What is superstition, but misguided, unobjective science?

Conjure Wife (1953)

Devils may be nothing but beings intent on their purpose, which now happens to collide with yours.

The Wanderer (1964)

Know it or not, man treads between abysses a tightrope that has neither beginning nor end.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)

He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)

Unlike men, rubies and emeralds do not rest quietly in their graves.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)

That is as far from the truth as I am from the Secret of the Sphinx.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)

Let never the gems of business be mixed with the jewels of pleasure.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)

All Fritz Leiber quotes →

More quotes by Fritz Leiber

And the mighty are great worriers and spend much time preventing anything that troubles their peace of mind.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)

I thought of how people are like planets—lonely little forts of mind with immense black distance barring them off from each other.

Night's Black Agents (1947)

Women have power over men almost as great as gods do.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)

To Space-Age man, every mystery is a greed-magnet.

The Silver Eggheads (1962)

Too much good luck was always dangerous.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939)

All Fritz Leiber quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Fritz Leiber (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.