211 quotes found
“It really seems to me that in the midst of great tragedy, there is always the horrible possibility that something terribly funny will happen.”
“And," my dad concluded, calming down a little, "all our dignity consists in just that. I mean, man's little and can't fill time and space, but he sure can make use of the brain God gave him.”
“If this place were closer to Terra thered be empty beer cans and plastic plates strewn around. The trees would be gone. Thered be old jet motors in the water. The beaches would stink to high heaven...”
“Its not just the drive. Theyre right out front. Everywhere. Waiting for me. All day and night.Who are, dear?Robots selling things. As soon as I set down the ship. Robots and visual-audio ads. They ...”
“You know, the way I feel, if I read a science fiction book by a new writer which is a lot better than what I do, instead of going on a bummer right away and saying, Oh Christ, Im obsolete, Im outda...”
“God's M.O., he reflected, is to transmute evil into good. If He is active here, He is doing that now, although our eyes can't perceive it; the process lies hidden beneath the surface of reality, an...”
“Love isn't just wanting another person the way you want to own an object you see in a store. That's just desire. You want to have it around, take it home and set it up somewhere in the apartment li...”
“When I was a child, I thought as a child. But now I have put away childish things.”
“Masochism is more widespread than we realize because it takes an attenuated form. The basic dynamism is as follows: a human being sees something bad which is coming as inevitable. There is no way h...”
“The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequence...”
“What sort of an imaginary voice is that? I asked myself, suppose Columbus had heard an imaginary voice telling him to sail west. And because of it he had discovered the New World and changed human ...”
“Because of an imaginary voice, Nicholas had become a whole person; rather than the partial person he had been in Berkeley. If he had remained in Berkeley he would have lived and died a partial pers...”
“...hence the very best science fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create - and enjoy it; joy is the essential and final ingredient of science...”
“I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, then do as I tel...”
“Tomorrow morning, he decided, I'll begin clearing away the sand of fifty thousand centuries for my first vegetable garden. That's the initial step.”
“There, at her console, he dialed 594: pleased acknowledgement of husband's superior wisdom in all matters”
“A law of survival, Ragle had said. Those who refused to respond to the new stimulus would perish. Adapt or perish . . . version of a timeless rule.”
“What you should do," she told Fat during one of his darker hours, "is get into studying the characteristics of the T-34." Fat asked what that was. It turned out that Sherri had read a book on Russi...”
“Grief causes you to leave yourself. You step outside your narrow little pelt. And you cant feel grief unless youve had love before it - grief is the final outcome of love, because its love lost. []...”
“You know what the doctor said to me to cheer me up?" Fat said. "There are worse diseases than cancer.""Did he show you slides?"We both laughed. When you are nearly crazy with grief, you laugh at wh...”
