Atheists From The United States

"He was a devout believer in the second chance. To the man who asked, “What’s the point of closing the barn door after the horse has been stolen?” Murray would answer, “The point is that the door is now closed.”"

"“Pop, do we have heaven?” he’d asked on the day he discovered the (dead) cat. “You want to know a Jew’s idea of heaven?” his father had replied, looking up from his Maimonides. “It’s an endless succession of long winter nights on which we get paid a fair wage to sit in a warm room and read all the books ever written...Not just the famous ones, no, every book, the stuff nobody gets around to reading, forgotten plays, novels by people you never heard of. However, I profoundly doubt such a place exists.”"

"What enormous potential for intermittent happiness the world offered."

"“Are we innately aggressive?” asked Aquinas. “Was the nuclear predicament symptomatic of a more profound depravity? Nobody knows. But if this is so—and I suspect that it is—then the responsibility for what we are pleased to call our inhumanity still rests squarely in our blood-soaked hands. The killer-ape hypothesis does not specify a fate—it lays out an agenda. Beware, the fable warns. Caution. Trouble ahead. Genocidal weapons in the hands of creatures who are bored by peace.” “I think I’m going to throw up,” said Brat. “But the fable went unheeded. And the weapons, unchecked. And then, one cold Christmas season, death came to an admirable species—a species that wrote symphonies and sired Leonardo da Vinci and would have gone to the stars. It did not have to be this way. Three virtues only were needed—creative diplomacy, technical ingenuity, and moral outrage. But the greatest of these is moral outrage.”"

"“I’m really interested in this stuff.” Julie rubbed a carton labeled ELEMENTARY PARTICLES. “Physics?” “Physics, biology, stars, everything.” Howard said, “Good for you. These days most people prefer to impoverish their minds with mysticism.”"

"Be sure to convict that chucklehead. He thinks a country’s Christianity is measured by the size of its thermonuclear arsenal."

"To George, Overwhite still seemed like a windbag, but he was obviously a resourceful and intelligent one, a windbag woven of the finest material."

"Murray held his daughter at arm’s length. “Does God...er, visit you?” “She doesn’t even whisper to me. I listen, but she doesn’t talk. It’s not fair.” God didn’t talk. The best news he’d heard since Gabriel Frostig announced his embryo. “Look Julie, it’s good she doesn’t talk. God asks her children to do crazy things. It’s good she doesn’t whisper. Understand?” “I guess.” “Really?” “Uh-huh. Where’d the crab go? Is he looking for his friends?” A profound weariness pressed upon Murray. “Yes. Right. His friends. It’s good God doesn’t whisper.”"

"“You want a motive, William? I’ve got a motive. Vengeance may not be a pretty word, but it’s what’s expected of us.” “Right!” said Sverre. “We owe it to all those millions of dead people to make more millions of dead people. Be careful how you rewrite strategic doctrine, General, or you’ll come out of this war without a single medal.”"

"For moral reasons, the young Reverend Peter Sparrow declined to join the Saturday night gatherings of the Erebus Poker Club. Gambling, he knew, was Satan’s third favorite pastime, after sex and ecumenicalism."

"“In the end Humankind destroyed the heaven and the earth,” Soapstone began... “And Humankind said, ‘Let there be security,’ and there was security. And Humankind tested the security, that it would detonate. And Humankind divided the U-235 from the U-238. And the evening and the morning were the first strike.” Soapstone looked up from the book. “Some commentators feel that the author should have inserted, ‘And Humankind saw the security, that it was evil.’ Others point out that such a view was not universally shared.”... Casting his eyes heavenward, Soapstone continued. “And Humankind said, ‘Let there be a holocaust in the midst of the dry land.’ And Humankind poisoned the aquifers that were below the dry land and scorched the ozone that was above the dry land. And the evening and the morning were the second strike.”... “And Humankind said, ‘Let the ultraviolet light destroy the food chains that bring forth the moving creature!’ And the evening and the morning—”... “And Humankind said, ‘Let there be rays in the firmament to fall upon the survivors!’ And Humankind made two great rays, the greater gamma radiation to give penetrating whole-body doses, and the lesser beta radiation to burn the plants and the bowels of animals! And Humankind sterilized each living creature, saying, ‘Be fruitless, and barren, and cease to—’”"

"Maybe I’ll end up on the fun side of her pants some day."

"Gravestones, he knew, were educational media, teaching that life has limits: don’t set your sights too high."

"Now we’re getting somewhere, George told himself, although he sensed that this situation would not endure."

"The fission bomb was a costly mistress. Consider, your Honors. In 1979 this planet celebrated the International Year of the Child. Of the one hundred and twenty-two million children born that year, one of every ten was dead by 1982, and most died for lack of inexpensive food and vaccines. Yet in 1982 the world spent one trillion dollars on weapons. One trillion dollars!"

"Curse God, and die. To George it seemed like remarkably sage and relevant advice."

"Say “rationalist” to the average New Age chucklehead, and you conjured up unappetizing images: killjoys obsessed with rules, boors fixated on order, logic-mongers skating around on the surface of things, missing the cosmic essence. Phooey. A rationalist could experience awe as readily as a shaman. But it had to be quality awe, Oliver believed, awe without illusions—the sort of awe he’d felt upon intuiting the size of the universe, or sensing the unlikeliness of his birth."

"“Talo, it would appear that our sons are growing up.” She tut-tutted in mock solemnity. “And we always said, ‘It can’t happen here.’”"

"Naturally you expect the moral thing from me. But I’ve learned something, friend. Morals don’t count for a hell of a lot in this galaxy. I rank them somewhere between straight teeth and the ability to carry a tune."

"“It must have been hard converting your elders in the Pentagon to this view.” “Ever try stuffing a melted marshmallow up a wildcat’s ass? It can be done, but you have to like your job.”"

"“Myriad contradictory worlds,” lectured Professor Jerome Delacato, “forever splitting off from each other like branches on a tree, so that, somewhere out there, I am presently giving a lecture explaining how the many-worlds hypothesis cannot possibly be true.”"

"What I love about fiction is the way this form of expression allows an author to wrestle an idea to the ground, as opposed to the bumper-sticker dialectics that pass for political and philosophical discourse in most sectors of our culture. In the age of mass communication, we need the quiet, contemplative and often ambiguous medium of the novel more than ever."

"“What do you want out of life, Francis Lostwax?” Francis smiled. “To never hurt anybody again.” His lack of hesitation surprised him. “To feel clean.”"

"Like all good friends, they hated seeing their relationship lose its emotional innocence, its chastity of good will, and now that the thing was lost, now that searing statements had changed hands and left scars, neither looked forward to the future."

"Every religion says war is evil, but one way or another they end up playing along."

"“That was a very pretty speech,” said Loloc, “but if it contained an answer to even one of my questions then I did not hear it.”"

"Forgive me if I’m confusing you with logic."

"Someday that man will be astonished to discover there’s a whole world marching along outside his buzzing head."

"Like most visionaries, The Teller saw the distant future with optical-glass clarity, the intermediate future with beeswax clarity, and the immediate future with the clarity of dark glasses dipped in tar."

"“Zolmec,” said Nazra, “has always taught that the greatest words are ‘I could very well be wrong.’”"

"Nature may not be benign, but she is reliable."

"“Everyone here does think as I do,” replied Nefertiti Jones’s double, “and consequently I have no enemies.”"

"In Francis’s view there was ultimate gold in this commitment to impractical knowledge, to theories that had no responsibilities other than to be true. On good days the new ideas inched human intellect toward the grand understandings that were science’s pride and joy."

"Tez always had warm feelings about paradoxes. It was the scientist in her."

"“On your planet, how do you tell somebody that you love her?” “It’s very complicated. You say, ‘I love you,’ and then you stand back and see what happens.”"

"Often Burne found himself saying, “I don’t think you would make a very good soldier,” and with grating predictability he heard that he wouldn’t make a very good pacifist."

"Francis had always been ecumenical in his atheism. He was as prepared to disbelieve in this Tolca character as he was to disbelieve in Yahweh, Jesus, Buddha, Vishnu, or any of the other words for what his father used to call “forcing yourself to misperceive the obvious.”"

"“I’ve always regretted not having a brother. Maybe I shouldn’t.” “For me it’s always been like having pubic hair. You have it, but what the hell is it for?”"

"Francis realized he was afflicted with what his father used to term “an erection of the curiosity organ.”"

"In physical pursuits Luli was considerably less passionate. Her idea of a good time in bed was breakfast."

"Francis’s office did not come with a videophone; at times he was surprised that his office came with a floor."

"It is far more arrogant to profess intuitive knowledge of the sacred than scientific knowledge of the tangible."

"Luli turned out to be uncompromising and brilliant. She could prosecute honey before a jury of bears and win."

"Smugness kills all utopias."

"Children, being close to the ground, have a special rapport with insects."

"It was not a question of regressive old ideas versus enlightened new ideas, but of reasonable caution versus arrogant caprice."

"Sneer, frown, and be miserable, for tomorrow you live."

"The world’s odd tolerance of fighting cropped up again and again in Francis’s study of history, particularly ancient history. On Earth, where his remotest forebears lived, a person could be indisputably responsible for the deaths of thousands and still go down in the history books as some sort of great hero. This was before Francis understood the biological inevitability of violence, so he was bewildered. Why, he wanted to know, were the names of Samson, Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Ulysses S. Grant, and Julius Caesar not obscenities, spoken after dark in whispers of revulsion and shame? The same teachers who couldn’t bring themselves to say shitbrain or ortwaddle openly discussed Alexander the Great. He never found anyone who had the answer. Until he got to Planet Carlotta, he never even found anyone who had the question."

"Let’s just hope that gravity isn’t as heavy as it used to be..."

"Burne was tough. Burne practiced archeology, the most inconvenient of the sciences."