Novelists From The United States

"“Flattery will get you nowhere,” I said, “unless you accompany it with large sums of money.”"

"I took it with equanimity, however: I have long known that fortune’s a whore and life itself a kind of stupid muddle. I am not a religious man. Far from it. I hold, if anything, a belief which I believe was once ascribed to the Gnostics: that Satan won out over God, not the other way around, and the Dark Prince runs things in the dismal and disastrous way that suits his nature. I knew that everything was just chance and bad luck, in a universe in which things were stacked against us and even our ruling deity hated us."

"I know you’re sane and you know you’re sane. But what if we’re both wrong?"

"It is not very logical to look over the attributes you possess and then declare that they are the most important attributes in the universe."

"In this talk I have tried to present some of my own reality, as far as I am able, at one particular time in my life. These are the things that make up my momentary universe. No summary is possible, even though I am at the end of my time here. Everything must remain unresolved, just as it in fact is. My subject matter escapes the confines of my definitions, for there is no datum that is not somehow pertinent to my situation. It is all part of the vast and uncompleted jigsaw puzzle that is our lives."

"As a matter of fact, I am amazed at what has happened to science fiction in recent years. It has become a heavy academic field. And science fiction writers are being accorded a respect now, which I, as one of their peers and well-wishers, can only view with alarm and suspicion. It seems like only yesterday, though it was in fact some 20 years ago, that all of us were writing pulp-action stories about a nebulous and ill-defined region that we called the future. Now our yarns are analysed in university classrooms for virtues we never suspected that they had. This is particularly true in America, the country that coined the word ‘overkill’ and then demonstrated its practical applications."

"Esotericism, which is legal, but not too much fun, prescribes to our condition. But when one tries to follow a spiritual path, nothing much happens for most of us. Faced with this lack of results, the esoteric schools put the blame squarely on us rather than on any insufficiency in their doctrines or methods. Finally, they explain our failure by taking refuge in paradoxes. They tell us, for example, that we can attain only by not wanting to attain—a neat double bind. Some esoteric schools caution the disciple not to practise the extraordinary powers which we will acquire in the course of our work. This is surely an extraordinary statement. Most of us can’t muster the power to give up smoking, much less to levitate."

"Although the mystics have left us many ways and means for achieving this enlightened state of mind, few of us ever realise it. It is self-defeating to believe in a method when it does not bring the desired results, not for you nor for anyone you know. The tool for encountering enlightenment is meditation—a word one usually intones in reverential manner. Meditation purports to do for the mind what organic foods do for the body. It is extremely good for you, although admittedly not as much fun as a good movie. Or even a bad movie. It is a disarmingly simple practice, but there are difficulties. I have followed an ancient system of counting my breaths. You count up to ten, and then begin again, always focusing on the breath. Unfortunately, I usually lose count and after I’ve lost count a few times I lose interest. But when I finally do succeed in quieting my mind and achieving a measure of one-pointedness, something very strange happens. I find that I have plugged into my own internal music station. This music system broadcasts in my head continually, interrupted only by spot news flashes from 1951. I don’t even like most of the stuff it dishes up, and the arrangements are uniformly terrible. So, in my own experience, meditation is just like waiting at an airport, with its piped-in music and meaningless announcements. But with one important difference—in an airport you know that sooner or later you are going to takeoff and fly. So much for meditation. And so much for backpacking through the inner world."

"I believe that many people read science fiction for a sense of participation in the wonders to come. The quest for non-ordinary reality is something more than curiosity and wishful thinking. We are too crowded in our every day lives by replicas of ourselves and by the repetitious artifacts of our days and nights. But we do not quite believe in this prosaic world. Continually we are reminded of the strangeness of birth and death, the vastness of time and space, the unknowability of ourselves. One would like to live differently, more significantly. One would like to participate in events more meaningful than our daily round, feel sensations more exquisite than is our usual lot. One reads science fiction in order momentarily to transcend the dull quality of everyday life. There is a reason behind the search for the ineffable. The death of God is argued by the theologians; but for most of us it is a fact of everyday life. ‘God’ is a word with unfortunate connotations for many. By it I mean the fundamental mystery forever untouched by our rationality.… This mystery is what we do not have any more. Our meagre substitute is the religion of man living on the Earth. We understand our ethical duties very well, we believe in them and try to follow them. But there is the secret sadness still remaining, the sense that we were born to quest, that our essence is unknowable, that we are plant and phantom, creatures of unknown dimensions. But all we come face to face with is our actual condition: we are ghosts smothered in bread and butter."

"The scientist, who examines everything, should look at himself. Tentatively I would define him as a discovery-producing animal whose products fall from him as naturally and as thoughtlessly as a hen produces eggs. Like the hen, he is largely indifferent to the use made of his products. Scientists are mostly not in favour of atom bombs, of course, and hens presumably dislike omelettes; but both are realists and go along with the conditions they find. The trouble is, science is oriented towards practical results, with no regard for the possible consequences. Thus, science is morally an imbecile, dishing up its confections blindly for whoever is able to use them. The likeliest user is always the exploiter—the manufacturer, military man, businessman and politician. Science produces what these highly motivated men require—processes characterized by repeatability and controllability, with which populations can be enchanted and enslaved. For what, after all, is the politician’s dream? It is a docile and predictable population, cheerful and well content with their compensations. This sheep-like state is precisely the great hope that the sciences hold out to us. For science is not deeply concerned about our differences but focuses instead on our similarities, the vulnerable places through which we can be manipulated and controlled. If the unseen worlds that surround and interpenetrate us were ever understood according to the criteria of science, what a nightmare existence would become! For discovery is followed by exploitation, which is followed by laws which confirm the exploiters in the possession of their spoils. That is to say, after the scientist comes the industrialist, and after him comes the lawyer. And after the lawyer, cheerfully smiling, ready to explain the divine inevitability of it all, comes the cleric."

"When the first man sets foot on the surface of Mars, we will participate only to the extent of watching a shadowy replay of the great event on television. You know already how it will go: announcers with sonorous voices will tell us exactly what is happening. And they will also cue us as to the proper emotions we should feel it every stage of the great adventure. That will be our share in the conquest of other worlds."

"From one viewpoint there were (potentially) a multiplicity of Gleisters; but from another viewpoint there was only one, and he was that one. After all, it didn’t matter what these other people called themselves or where they came from; he was only the person he was here and now, the person whom he experienced. Reality is positional, ego is relational, and nature doesn’t deal in abstractions."

"Not only can you not step into the same river twice; it is not even the same you who can’t step into the same river twice. Everything modifies everything. There is no niche in the past waiting for him to come back and occupy it. Nature will tolerate a paradox, but she abhors a vacuum."

"Linguistic accommodation as well. Are they speaking my language or am I speaking theirs? I can never know: the transaction cannot watch itself being transacted."

"It is all so familiar! I suppose that an electron, traveling from one atom to another, also expects to enter a realm of unimaginable novelty. But perhaps the scenery in every part of the universe is roughly similar; since one sees in accordance with who one is rather than with what is there."

"Nothing happens for the first time, especially if what you’re trying to do is to invent something absolutely novel and unprecedented. Of course, if nothing happens for the first time, that leaves the apparent problem of how anything happens at all. But the difficulty is entirely semantic: in the eternal recurrence of subatomic configurations of which our world is a simulacrum, there is no question of beginnings or endings. There are only middles, continuations, repetitions. Originality is a concept possible only to a limited viewpoint."

"Charlie Gleister had invented a time machine, but he hadn’t invented it right because it didn’t work."

"I found her charming, went home and thought no more about her. Or, I thought I would think no more about her. But in the following days and nights her image remained obsessively before my eyes. My appetite fell off and I began sleeping badly. My computer checked out the relevant data and told me that I might conceivably be having a nervous breakdown; but the strongest inference was that I was in love."

"“I’m going to leave you here,” Margraves said. “I’ve got some unfinished business to attend to.” “Right,” Branch said, since it was all he could say. He knew that Margraves’ unfinished business concerned a bottle."

"It was one hell of an inspection when you went around finding how many sane men you had left."

"Hope could be dangerous, desire could be catastrophic."

"A tremor ran through him. He had chosen, he reminded himself. He alone was responsible. The psychological test had proved that. And yet, how responsible were the psychologists who had given him the test? How responsible was Mike Terry for offering a poor man so much money? Society had woven the noose and put it around his neck, and he was hanging himself with it, and calling it free will."

"Sven had the sensation of discovering a new world, a world no civilized man had ever encountered. He was amazed to discover that weirder customs could be found on Earth than anywhere else in the galaxy."

"Had he been right or was he just another visionary?"

"You simply can’t throw strangers together at random and expect the fiery, quick romance to turn into love. Love has its own rules and enforces them rigidly."

"“You must remember,” the doctor said, “Society must be protected against the individual.” “Yes,” Feerman said drowsily, “but who is to protect the individual against society?”"

"Society as a whole, he reminded himself, must be protected against the individual, just as a human body must be protected against malfunction of any of its parts. As fond as you might be of your gall bladder, you would sacrifice it mercilessly if it were going to impair the rest of you."

"I poured Franklin another cup of coffee and he looked at me, his big eyes pleading. The deadheads always look like that when we reach this point. They think that Mars is like Alaska in the ’70s, or Antarctica in 2000; a frontier for brave, determined men. But Mars isn’t a frontier. It’s a dead end."

"We denizens of Earth have a common vice: We take what we’re offered, whether we need it or not. You can get into a lot of trouble that way."

"Mr. Rath’s iron face registered a rather corrugated disgust. People were useless as witnesses. Worse than useless, since they were frequently misleading. For reliability, give him a robot every time."

"“The mind of Human Man is murky and dark,” said Gunga-Sam, “but it is as crystal compared to the mind of Human Woman.” “Where did you get that?” Flaswell asked. “It is an ancient robot proverb.”"

"That’s the whole point! Anyone can buy sex. Good Lord, it’s the cheapest thing in the universe, next to human life."

"“Love and war,” he said, “are Earth’s two staple commodities. We’ve been turning them both out in bumper crops since the beginning of time.”"

"“That’s so like you Terrans,” Melith remarked sadly. “You want responsibility only if it doesn’t incur risk. That’s a wrong attitude for running a government.”"

"“Credit is, of course, an automatic privilege. But, eventually, everything must be paid for.” Collins didn’t like the sound of that. Pay? This place wasn’t as civilized as he had thought. No one had mentioned paying. Why did they bring it up now? “Why didn’t someone stop me” he asked desperately. “They must have known I didn’t have a proper rating.” Flign shook his head. “The credit ratings are suggestions, not laws. In a civilized world, an individual has the right to his own decisions. I’m very sorry, sir.”"

"Few individuals of any race murder for pleasure. There are perfectly adequate reasons to kill, though, reasons which might satisfy any philosopher. But, once accepted, there are more reasons, and more and more. And murder, once accepted, is hard to stop. It leads irresistibly to war and, from there, to annihilation."

"Sometimes we have the absolute certainty there's something inside us that's so hideous and monstrous that if we ever search it out we won't be able to stand looking at it. But it's when we're willing to come face to face with that demon that we face the angel."

"There was a sense of security in old, familiar feelings in spite of their discomfort."

"I guess I had fun. But not enough to stay."

"They had all they needed. They had the madness of pain."

"A little sleep and then a little wakefulness. Then a slipping to some soothing place in between."

"He flowed deeper and deeper into himself, wrapped in the comforting strength of hate."

"Its quite an experience to be locked up all by yourself in any size room, no less a little cell."

"A cigarette only takes a certain amount of time to smoke and though this takes time it seems to take less and less with each one and you can only smoke so many, there comes a time when you have to stop, when you just cant light the next one . . . at least not for a while."

"Obviously, I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting."

"There is nothing worse than a cultural barbarian with pretensions."

"And the goddamn subway reeked like a sewer. All those goddamn animals jammed into the train like the ark . . . yeah, thats what they are, a bunch of stinking animals."

"And their love life got better with time. Familiarity bred excitement. They loved discovering those little things, the touch, that made the other respond with a quiver or a sigh, and, in turn, having the discovery made."

"They dont know the terrors that go through your mind as you lie there in the pit waiting for a hint of light to tell you that the night is over."

"He replaced the gray of the walls with a darker shade by closing his eyes. It felt good to shut out some of the light. Not all, but just some. Just enough so there was a gray without images or threatening corners. Not the blackness that gives birth to those sudden flashes of stinging light that slashes your eyes, or the velvety darkness that thickens and become animated and flows and somehow moves around and over you. Just a soothing gray. Nothing to see."