Quotes

These quotes are here because they are funny, insightful, pithy, or help me remember the book/article from which they are taken.

Date	Title	Author	Quote
9/2/01	Mars	Ben Bova	“Jamie sat alone at the table, staring at his damaged helmet, wondering why human beings had to inflict pain on one another to gain respect.”
9/9/01	Computer User	Nelson King, from Stanislavski (Russian actor & director)	“Pick up the end of a piano and see if you can do arithmetic.”
9/9/01	Computer User, 9/01	Lincoln Spector	“The fog out of the valley was as thick as a Windows error message. The L.A. night was as dark as the blue screen of death.”
9/14/01	Mars	Ben Bova	“Doctors, he grumbled to himself. The more they poke you the more they find that is wrong.”
10/7/01	Return to Mars	Ben Bova	“Scientists do not like to change their opinions any more than theologians or truckdrivers do, yet when the facts contradict their convictions, they cannot hide from the facts or conveniently ignore them.”
10/7/01	Return to Mars	Ben Bova	“A new understanding flooded through him. It was as if he’d been lost in a trackless wilderness and suddenly a path opened up before his eyes, the path to harmony and beauty and safety.”
10/12/01	Voyagers	Ben Bova, from Lee Dubridge	“Either we are alone or we are not; either way is mind-boggling.”
10/12/01	Voyagers	Ben Bova	“Stoner said nothing. His brain seemed to be short-circuited: no output.”
12/18/01	IEEE Spectrum, 12/01	James Albert Michener	“Scientists are men who dream about doing things. Engineers do them. If you want to be an engineer but find you have ten thumbs, become a scientist.”
12/21/01	Moonbase	Ben Bova	“Figures don’t lie, but liars sure can figure.”
12/22/01	Moonbase	Ben Bova	“If it is to be, it’s up to me.”
12/24/01	The Multiple Man	Ben Bova	“Old Reporter’s habit: mouth first, then brain. Instinct followed by rationalization.”
12/28/01	Stranger in a Strange Land	Robert A. Heinlein	“Remind me,” Jubal told her, “to write an article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses can be traced to the unhealthy habit of wallowing in the troubles of five billion strangers…”
1/4/02	Moonwar	Ben Bova	“That’s the sweet part of religion, Doug though, you can be as fanatical as you want in the name of God.”
1/31/02	Friday	Robert A. Heinlein	“It is not written in the stars that I will always understand what is going on – a truism that I often find damnably annoying.”
2/8/02	Darwin’s Radio	Greg Bear	“How nice it would be to know nothing about all the inner workings. Animal innocence; the unexamined life is the sweetest. But things go wrong and prompt introspection and examination. The root of all awareness.”
2/10/02	Darwin’s Radio	Greg Bear	“In a world of fragile self-justification, the truth made no one happy.”
3/3/02	Anvil of Stars	Greg Bear	“Time wounds all heels …”
3/3/02	Anvil of Stars	Greg Bear	“No villain comes in black, screaming obscenities. All evil has children, homes, regard for self, fear of enemies.”
3/3/02	Anvil of Stars	Greg Bear	“Of all the illusions of childhood, the one he hated to lose most was this: that humans worked according to unspoken but noble goals, that they followed an intrinsic path to justice, that they would resist error and move toward self-understanding.”
5/4/02	Empire Builders	Ben Bova	“When the going gets tough,” he announced to anyone who would listen, “the tough get going – to where the going’s easier.”
5/6/02	The Martian Race	Gregory Benford	“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, is the reverse.”
5/11/02	The Martian Race	Gregory Benford	" ... journalism is the first draft of history."
5/18/02	Against Infinity	Gregory Benford	"He was not sure why he felt a sense of accomplishment and anticipation, but like a boy, he did not puzzle over it."
5/23/02	Legacy	Greg Bear	"Self-truth is a luxury leaders can seldom afford, or perhaps tolerate."
5/25/02	Eon & Eternity	Greg Bear	"Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount, but I sure as hell can't understand everything."
5/31/02	Eon & Eternity	Greg Bear	"Human convention could trivialize even the most momentous occasions, and perhaps that was its purpose - to bring enormous events down to a human scale."
6/2/02	Eon & Eternity	Greg Bear	"That had taught him something about human nature, that challenge and difficulty mattered less to the great majority than accomplishment and gain, even in the Hexamon."
6/16/02	Cosm	Gregory Benford	"She remembered hearing once that research types had a tolerance for ambiguity, for not knowing where they were headed while still keeping going."
6/17/02	Cosm	Gregory Benford	"When you have a Ph.D., you call them hypotheses, not guesses."
6/27/02	Eater	Gregory Benford	"Life is complex; it has real and imaginary parts."
7/21/02	Chekov's Journey	Ian Watson	"My dear Sir, just because science tells us that an atom can't be divided and uses a Greek word to say so, doesn't make it a fact for ever more."
8/10/02	The Sky So Big and Black	John Barnes	"How do you know something's a principle till it gives you some trouble, hunh? If you won't put yourself to some trouble about it, it's not a principle, it's just a comforting slogan."
8/18/02	In the Ocean of Night	Gregory Benford	"He said things spontaneously; his entire life was done in first draft."
8/29/02	In the Ocean of Night	Gregory Benford	"Cynical? 'Cynic' is a word invented by optimists to criticize realists."
9/18/02	Across the Sea of Suns	Gregory Benford	"They picked up weak radio signals from us. Mulled them over. To get our attention, they figured the smartest strategy was, send back the same thing." [The Bracewell Hypothesis]
10/18/02	A Door Into Ocean	Joan Slonczewski	" 'Each force has an equal and opposite force,' Merwen said. 'So who rules without being ruled?' "
12/18/02	A Fall of Moondust	Arthur C. Clarke	"He had sometimes windered if the real reason why men sought danger was that only thus could they find the companionship and solidarity which they unconciously craved."
12/23/02	Nightfall	Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg	"Scientists who think they know the real story can argue away anything that threatens their beliefs."
12/26/02	The Sentinel	Arthur C. Clarke	"Ninety percent of everything is crud." - Theodore Sturgeon's Law
12/27/02	Breaking Strain	Arthur C. Clarke	"Three days without food, it is said, is long enough to remove most of the subtle differences between a civilized man and a savage."
12/27/02	Space Habitats in Story and Science	Larry Niven	"The dinosaurs died because they didn't have a space program."
4/12/03	Times of India	Mahatma Gandhi	"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism of the holy name of liberty?"
8/12/03	Earth Made of Glass	John Barnes	" 'You always need to know everything right now but you can never know everything all at once.' "
8/12/03	Earth Made of Glass	John Barnes	" 'What other choice is there, really? All I can do is my own actions, all I can say are my own words, I can only be myself. If I make those right I have reached my limit. The rest I must leave to others.' "
8/17/03	The Merchants of Souls	John Barnes	"The room was too warm, with the sort of cat-barf-beige carpet that has been standard for meeting rooms for a millennium because it hides coffee stains."
9/27/03	Humans	Robert J. Sawyer	"You Gliksins drink alcohol, smoke, and engage in hazardous sports to demonstrate your residual capacity. You are saying to those around you, see, here, during flush times, I can run myself down substantially, and still function well, thereby proving to prospective mates that I am not currently operating at the peak of my abilities. Therefore, in lean times, I will obviously have the excess strength and endurance to still be a good provider."
2/13/04	Beyond the Blue Event Horizon	Frederik Pohl	"There is a Carnot law to pain. It is measured not by absolutes but the difference between source and ambience, and my ambience had been too safe and too pleasurable for too long to equip me for this. I was in shock."
2/20/04	Calculating God	Robert J. Sawyer	"'I wonder if violence is innate in all intelligent species,' I said. 'Evolution is driven by struggles for dominance. I've heard it suggested that no herbivore could ever develop intelligence because it doesn't take cunning to sneak up on a leaf.' 'It does create an odd dynamic,' said Hollus. 'Violence is required for intelligence, intelligence gives rise to the ability to destroy one's species, and only through intelligence can one overcome the violence that gave rise to that intelligence.' 'We'd call that a Catch-22,' I said."
5/18/04	The Terminal Experiment	Robert J. Sawyer	"In fact, I think I know exactly what humor is now: Humor is the response to the sudden formation of unexpected neural nets." "I don't get it," said Peter.
5/27/04	The Engines of God	Jack McDevitt	"In the streets of Hau-kai, we wait. Night comes, winter descends, The lights of the worlds grow cold. And, in this three-hundredth year, From the ascendancy of Bilat, He will come who treads the dawn, Tramples the sun beneath his feet, And judges the souls of men. He will stride across the rooftops, And he will fire the engines of God." -Uranic Book of Prayer (Quraqua) (Translated by Margaret Tufu)
8/28/04	The Uplift War	David Brin	"We do not have to see ourselves as monsters in order to teach an ethic of environmentalism. It is now well known that our very survival depends upon maintaining complex ecological networks and genetic diversity. If we wipe out Nature, we ourselves will die. But there is one more reason to protect other species. Perhaps we are the first to talk and think and build and aspire, but we may not be the last. Others may follow us in this adventure. Someday we may be judged on just how well we served, when alone we were Earth's caretakers."
9/21/04	Infinity Beach	Jack McDevitt	"'There is,' he'd said, 'an inverse correlation between the amount of power a person has and the level at which his or her mind functions. A person of ordinary intelleigence who acquires power, of whatever kind, tends to develop an exaggerated view of his own capabilites. Sycophants gather. There is little or no criticism of decisions. As his ability to disrupt the lives of others advances, these tendencies become stronger ...'"
10/29/04	Ancient Shores	Jack McDevitt	"That was what he disliked most about them: that they sought to know all things, and did not realize that a forest without dark places has value only to the woodcutter."
11/11/04	Kiln People	David Brin	"Still, they came from a tradition that had saved the world. The tolerance-and-inclusion reflex was strong for good reason - because it took centuries of pain to acquire. Confused or not, these folk stood on high moral ground."
1/15/05	The Teeth of the Tiger	Tom Clancy	"Everybody made mistakes, and the size of any mistake was directly proportional to the seniority of the man making it. But such people didn't like to be reminded of that universal truth. Well, nobody really did."
5/28/05	Standard Candles	Jack McDevitt	"'How do you lose the secret of the ages?' [time travel] he asked rhetorically. 'The answer is that anyone smart enough to figure it out knows too much about human nature - or the nature of intelligent creatures - to let them get their hands on it. Or even to let them know it's there.'"
6/17/05	Relations in Public	Erving Goffman	"In a public space, the individual appears to be indifferent to the strangers in his presence; but actually he is sufficiently oriented to them so that, among other things, show he feel the need to perform corrective rituals, he can transform the strangers around him into an audience to receive his show."
12/10/05	Gaudeamus	John Barnes	"We sat and watched the band for a while, and they maintained a pretty constant level; nothing was any worse or any better. I visualized them as following an isosuckage plane in suck space."
2/19/06	Dune	Frank Herbert	"'When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all though of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.'"
4/19/06	The Left Hand of Darkness	Ursula K. LeGuin	"As they say in Ekumenical School, when action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep. I was not sleepy, yet."
1/5/07	The Gods Themselves	Isaac Asimov	"'... In any case, there are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass. We've passed this one safely, I think, and we'll worry about the others as they come and as they can be foreseen ..."
4/15/07	The Moral Animal	Robert Wright	"The essence of addiction, after all, is that pleasure tends to dissipate and leave the mind agitated, hungry for more. The idea that just one more dollar, one more dalliance, one more rung on the ladder will leave us feeling sated reflects a misunderstanding about human nature - a misunderstanding, moreover, that is built into human nature; we are designed to feel that the next great goal will bring bliss, and the bliss is designed to evaporate shortly after we get there. Natural selection has a malicious sense of humor; it leads us along a series of promises and then keeps saying, 'Just kidding.'"