People From Lithuania

"I think people need spirituality, they are starving for it."

"Our government's program says Lithuania wants a more intense economic, cultural and scientific relationship with Taiwan. (But) I want to emphasize that this step does not mean any conflict or disagreement with the 'One China' policy."

"“I—ah—have some idea.” “You argue?” “I propose.” “Marriage?” “No. Another form of dialectical antagonism.”"

"“Even so, we’re the only animal whose signals can’t be trusted by its own kind.” He smiled. “Except for thee and me, of course.”"

"I don’t know...but then, if God had intended Man to think, He would have given him brains, I suppose."

"The horse is a stubborn, dirty, stupid animal that reminds me of a sheep. Its only use is to embody the wings a man feels within him, and to do this it lathers and sweats, defecates and steps in badger holes."

"“Bribes,” Michaelmas said. “They always go to bribes when they’re not sure they’re on top, and coercion when they are. That’s all they know. They really don’t believe anyone would help them just on their own merits.”"

"“I hate acting on probability.” “You go to your church and I’ll go to mine.”"

"Any intelligent race you can hope to someday relate to is going to have to come up essentially the same developmental roads and deal with the physical laws of the Universe in about the same way."

"It’s amazing how self-perpetuating ignorance is."

"Well, you know, you do that kind of thing when you’re young. Then you get older. I think maybe most of the elders know all about that. They see but they don’t say, because they know everybody gets older."

"Cars seemed to me to speak more clearly of Earth than any single thing else."

"I understood, even then, that without question the best way to understand these people was to understand their infatuation with cars."

"Nobody liked him. Nobody loved him—and this bothered him. But everyone kowtowed to him, and that, it seems, was what he held most precious."

"I had had a good life. A somewhat shorter one than I had anticipated, but I had had the money, I had had the girls, and nobody told me what to do. Is there, really, anything else? Are you sure?"

"Engineers do not particularly like PR men."

"One fine evening I was having a conversation with Algis Budrys about rewriting and why so many writers believed that myth [that rewriting was necessary or essential]. He shrugged and said, "They don't know any better and no one has the courage to tell them." So I asked him if he ever thought rewriting could fix a flawed story. His answer was clear and I remember it word-for-word to this day: "No matter how many times you stir up a steaming pile of crap, it's still just a steaming pile of crap.""

"We are born of Humankind— This our destiny: To bitter dwell in discontent Wherever we may be."

"Are our souls so much perverted? Can we not relent? Or are the stars the madman’s cost For his inborn discontent?"

"Only gods and television audiences see the pattern of human events."

"Charging back and forth isn’t progress. Small but steady forward motion is."

"By the time of his adolescence, he had discovered an absolute lack of involvement with the human race. He studied it, because it was the salient feature of his environment. He did not live with it. It said nothing to him that was of personal value; its motivations, morals, manners and morale did not find responsive reactions in him. And his, of course, made absolutely no impression on it."

"The idea was to hang on to reality. It was the one crutch everybody used."

"I do what seems best—I live, I let live; so far I’ve done well. I don’t see why I should act like a predator, simply because I’m in a predatory society. I’m a human being, I’m myself—if I make my life something vicious, who’ll give me another if, too late, I regret what I’ve done?"

"He wondered, as he often had during his life, at people’s ability to think so intricately and to still be wrong."

"“Can I drive you down to your house?” The man flicked an expressive glance along the car’s length and shook his head. “Thanks. I’ll walk. There’s still a law of averages.” And you can take that phrase and carve it on Humanity’s headstone, Fay thought bitterly, but did not reply."

"Williamson threw his hands carefully up to heaven and snorted again. Apparently, everything Fay said served to confirm some judgment of mankind on his part."

"“You look like any other brainless jackanapes,” he mused, “but apparently there’s some gray matter left in your artfully coiffed skull after all.”"

"There are various uses for time, and I have better ones than this."

"Young man, you’re living proof that our basic policy is right. I wouldn’t trust an ignoramus like you with the information required to cut his throat."

"Amnesia was the price of immortality."

"Wasn’t being a dilettante the result of an inner conviction that you were too good for routine living?"

"There has to be an end somewhere, he thought. Each thing has to end, or there will never be any room for beginnings."

"Sentiment was the easy thing. But logic reminded a man that some people insisted on living their neighbor’s lives, that some people were offensive. There were people with moral codes they clung to and lived by, people who worshiped in what they held to be the only orthodox way, people who clung to some idea—some rock on which their lives rested. Well and good. But if they tried to inflict these reforms on their neighbors, patience could only go so far, and the tolerance of fanaticism lasts just so long."

"“Armies!” he burst out. “The day Freemen organize to invade another area is the day they stop being Freemen. They become soldiers, loyal to the army and their generals. They lose their identification with their homes and families. They become a separate class—an armed, organized class of military specialists no one family can stand against. And on that day, freedom dies for everybody."

"It isn’t given to very many men to have their dreams come true in their lifetimes."

"It hadn’t had to take the form of this terrible bubble. It might as easily have been a sudden sharp burst behind his eyes or a slower, subtler gnawing at his vitals. But he’d known it was coming, as every man knows and tries to forget it is coming."

"Once he’d been in his twenties, looking forward. Now he was a shade past fifty, and what he looked back on was subtly less satisfactory than what he had looked forward to."

"Does it not seem to you, Justice Joyce, that this series of statistics might well occur without the intervention of any Divine Will whatsoever?"

"There’re limits to what civilized people can bring out into the open, no matter how savagely they can speculate."

"That was the way things worked out: you got a certain fair share of good breaks from life, and you had no right to expect things your way every time."

"Of course, you have to remind yourself that you might be seeing things that were never there. You might be maneuvering your memories to bring them into line with what you’d want them to be. You can’t be sure you’re not just daydreaming."

"“There’re all kinds of people in this world. But they break down into two main groups, one big and one smaller. There’s the people who get moved out of the way or into line, and then there’s the people who do the moving. It’s safer and a lot more comfortable to go where you’re pushed. You don’t take any of the responsibility, and if you do what you’re told, every once in a while you get thrown a fish. “Being a mover isn’t safe, because you may be heading for a hole, and it isn’t comfortable because you do a lot of jostling back and forth, and what’s more, it’s up to you to get your own fish. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun.” He looked into Hawks’ eyes. “Isn’t it?”"

"Claire threw her head and laughed. “There are all kinds of men. The only kind that’re worth anyone’s time are the ones I can’t mangle the first time out.”"

"There are the people in this world who act, and the people who scheme. The ones who act get things done, and the ones who scheme try to take credit for it. You must know that as well as I do."

"Look, if I could guarantee what the results were going to be, I wouldn’t need a research program!"

"A man is a phoenix, who must be reborn from his own ashes, for there is no other like him in the universe. If the wind stirs the ashes into a clumsy parody, then the phoenix is dead forever. Nothing we know of can bring you back."

"He saw Hawks, grunted, hefted the bottle and said, “I hate the stuff. It tastes lousy, it makes me gag, it stinks, and it burns my mouth. But they keep putting it in your hands, and they keep saying ‘Drink up!’ to each other, and ‘What’s the matter, Charlie, falling a little behind, there? Freshen up that little drinkee for you?” Until you feel like a queer of some kind, and a bore for the times you say you don’t want another one, positively. And they fill their folklore with it, until you wouldn’t dream you were having a good time unless you’d swilled enough of the stuff to poison yourself all the next day. And they talk gentleman talk about it—ages and flavors and brands and blends, as if it wasn’t all ethanol in one concentration or another. Have you ever heard two Martini drinkers in a bar, Hawks? Have you ever heard two shamans swapping magic?”"

"I know what Claire is. You know I know it. I told you the first minute I met you. But did you ever stop to think it’s all worth it to me? Every time she makes a pass at another man, I know she’s comparing. She’s out on the open market, shopping. And being shopped for. I don’t have any collar around her neck She’s not tame. I’m not a habit to her. I’m not something she’s tied to by any law. And every time she winds up coming back to me, you know what that proves. It proves I’m still the toughest man in the pack. Because she wouldn’t stay if I wasn’t."

"The universe has resources of death which we have barely begun to pick at."