Novelists From The United States

"This matter of racial differences—or the nonsense notion of “racial equality”—had never been examined scientifically; there was too much emotion on both sides. No one wanted honest data…. Nevertheless, this confused matter of races would never be straightened out—because almost nobody wanted the truth."

"He tried to tell himself that no one is ever responsible for another person’s actions. He believed it, he tried to live by it. But he found that cold wisdom no comfort."

"He did not want Barbara ever to feel the deadening load of hopelessness that could—and had, all through history—turned chaste women into willing concubines. Much as he loved her, he had no illusions that Barbara was either angel or saint; the Sabine women had stood no chance and neither would she. “Death before dishonor!” was a slogan that did not wear well. In time, it changed to happy cooperation."

"If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgment."

"“Why do you think this gossip is true?” “Uh…I heard it and checked around. Everybody knows it.” “So? Everybody knew the Earth was flat, at one time.”"

"Hugh shut up. He was thinking glumly that Ponse was not a villain. He was exactly like the members of every ruling class in history: honestly convinced of his benevolence and hurt if it was challenged."

"We are all free—to walk our appointed paths. Just as a stone is free to fall when you toss it into the air. No one is free in the abstract meaning you give the word."

"The concept of change baffled them."

"We have everything for a still; I stocked the items to build one if a war came along—not just for us but because liquor is money in any primitive society."

"You know that color does not matter to me. I want to know other things about a man. Is his word good? Does he meet his obligations? Does he do honest work? Is he brave? Will he stand up and be counted?"

"“It is impossible for anyone to be responsible for another person’s behavior. I spoke of myself as ‘responsible’ for this group, that was verbal shorthand. The most I can do—or you, or any leader—is to encourage each one to be responsible for himself.”"

"“We’re going to die. Aren’t we?” “Yes.” “I thought so. Before morning?” “Oh, no! I feel sure we can live till noon.”"

"No government has yet been able to repeal natural laws, though they keep trying."

"“Mr. Farnham!” You think they are going to attack?” Her host shrugged. “The Kremlin doesn’t let me in on its secrets.”"

"Democracy can't work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that's all there is — so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group."

"Logic is a feeble reed, friend. "Logic" proved that airplanes can't fly and that H-bombs won't work and that stones don't fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow."

"Poddy’s greatest weakness—the really soft place in her head, she’s not too stupid otherwise—is her almost total inability to grasp that some people are as bad as they are. Evil. Poddy never has understood evil. Naughtiness is about as far as her imagination reaches."

"“Anything that is moral for a group to do is moral for one person to do.” There must be a flaw in that, since I’ve always been taught that it is wrong to take the law in your own hands. But I can’t find the flaw and it sounds axiomatic, self-evident. Switch it around. If something is wrong for one person to do, can it possibly be made right by having a lot of people (a government) agree to do it together? Even unanimously? If anything is wrong, it is wrong—and vox populi can’t change it."

"I told him it was wrong, I said that he mustn’t take the law in his own hands. “What law?” he said. “There isn’t any law here. And you aren’t being logical, Pod. Anything that is right for a group to do is right for one person to do.”"

"In sober truth no person can ever be truly responsible for another human being. Each one of us faces up to the universe alone, and the universe is what it is and it doesn’t soften the rules for any of us—and eventually, in the long run, the universe always wins and takes all. But that doesn’t make it any easier when we try to be responsible for one another—as you have, as I have—and then look back and see how we could have done it better."

"A baby is lots more fun than differential equations."

"The tragedy about Romeo and Juliet is not that they died so young but that the boy-meets-girl reflex should be so overpowering as to defeat all common sense."

"Oh, sure, I learned about other systems in school—but it didn’t soak in. Now I am beginning to grasp emotionally that There Are Other Ways Than Ours…and that people can be happy under them."

"It’s lots better to be miserable than to be bored."

"I really am a good listener because you never can tell when you will pick up something useful—and all in the world any woman has to do to be considered “charming” by men is to listen while they talk."

"Clark just looked bored and contemptuous and said nothing, because Clark would not bother to interfere with Armageddon unless there was ten percent in it for him."

"I called after him but he just kept going. Clark is not hard of hearing but he can be very hard of listening."

"Old age is not an accomplishment; it is just something that happens to you despite yourself, like falling downstairs."

"“So you say ‘Politics!’ as if it were a nasty word—and you think that settles it.” He sighed. “But you don’t understand. Politics is not evil; politics is the human race’s most magnificent achievement. When politics is good, it’s wonderful…and when politics is bad—well, it’s still pretty good.” “I guess I don’t understand,” I said slowly. “Think about it. Politics is just a name for the way we get things done...without fighting. We dicker and compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody’s head bashed in. That’s politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in...and that is what happens when one or both sides is no longer willing to dicker. That’s why I say politics is good even when it is bad…because the only alternative is force—and somebody gets hurt.”"

"Here is this poor little caryatid who has tried — and failed, fallen under the load. She's a good girl — look at her face. Serious, unhappy at her failure, but not blaming anyone else, not even the gods… and still trying to shoulder her load, after she's crumpled under it. But she's more than good art denouncing some very bad art; she's a symbol for every woman who has ever tried to shoulder a load that was too heavy for her — over half the female population of this planet, living and dead, I would guess. But not alone women — this symbol is sexless. It means every man and every woman who ever lived who sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude, whose courage wasn't even noticed until they crumpled under their loads."

"Ben, the ethics of sex is a thorny problem. Each of us is forced to grope for a solution he can live with — in the face of a preposterous, unworkable, and evil code of so-called "morals." Most of us know the code is wrong; almost everybody breaks it. But we pay Danegeld by feeling guilty and giving lip service. Willy-nilly, the code rides us, dead and stinking, an albatross around the neck. You, too, Ben. You fancy yourself a free soul — and break that evil code. But faced with a problem in sexual ethics new to you, you tested it against that same Judeo-Christian code ... so automatically your stomach did flip-flops ... and you think that proves you're right and they're wrong. Faugh! I'd as lief use trial by ordeal."

"Jealousy is a disease; love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often confuses one for the other, or assumes the greater the love, the greater the jealousy. In fact they are almost incompatible; both at once produce unbearable turmoil."

"Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."

"Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be."

"Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level."

"The best things in history are accomplished by people who get “tired of being shoved around.”"

"When a fact came along, he junked theories that failed to match."

"“Die trying” is the proudest human thing."

"I've heard all the usual Sweetness and Light that kids get pushed at them—how they should always forgive, how there’s some good in the worst of us, etc. But when I see a black widow, I step on it; I don’t plead with it to be a good little spider and please stop poisoning people. A black widow spider can’t help it—but that’s the point."

"The less respect an older person deserves the more certain he is to demand it from anyone younger."

"“Peewee!” I said sharply. “You're not listening.” “What were you doing talking,” she answered reasonably, “when I wasn’t listening?”"

"Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation."

"Some people insist that “mediocre” is better than “best.” They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can’t fly. They despise brains because they have none. Pfah!"

"You're in bad shape when your emotions force you into acts which you know are foolish."

"I missed my slipstick. Dad says that anyone who can't use a slide rule is a cultural illiterate and should not be allowed to vote. Mine is a beauty — a K&E 20-inch Log-log Duplex Decitrig. Dad surprised me with it after I mastered a ten-inch polyphase. We ate potato soup that week — but Dad says you should always budget luxuries first. I knew where it was. Home on my desk."

"When I don’t understand, I have an unbearable itch to know why."

"We lived like that “Happy Family“ you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently."

"Daddy says that, in a dilemma, it is helpful to change any variable, then reexamine the problem."

"Television leaves no external scars."

"There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe."