All Quotes

"Some day the load we're carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us. We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. That's where we'll win out in the long run. And some day we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them." (163-164)"

"To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silent and a time to speak. Yes, all that. But what else? What else? Something, something . . . And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."

"(Why couldn't you write after 9/11?) AH: I was so depressed and hopeless about the state of the world. When I re-read Fahrenheit 451, a book about how important books are, I was reminded of the reason to write."

"Fahrenheit 451 is an American classic and a work of genius..."

"You have put your finger on the dilemma of all government — and the reason I am an anarchist. The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits; it contains until it destroys. I was not joking when I told them to dig into their own pouches. It may not be possible to do away with government — sometimes I think that government is an inescapable disease of human beings. But it may be possible to keep it small and starved and inoffensive — and can you think of a better way than by requiring the governors themselves to pay the costs of their antisocial hobby?"

"When Mike was installed in Luna, he was pure thinkum, a flexible logic — "High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Mod. L" — a HOLMES FOUR. He computed ballistics for pilotless freighters and controlled their catapult. This kept him busy less than one percent of time and Luna Authority never believed in idle hands. They kept hooking hardware into him — decision-action boxes to let him boss other computers, bank on bank of additional memories, more banks of associational neural nets, another tubful of twelve-digit random numbers, a greatly augmented temporary memory. Human brain has around ten-to-the-tenth neurons. By third year Mike had better than one and a half times that number of neuristors. And woke up."

""Soul?" Does a dog have a soul? How about cockroach?"

"I spent time then soothing Mike down trying to make him happy, having figured out what troubled him — thing that makes puppies cry and causes people to suicide: loneliness. I don't know how a long a year is to a machine that thinks a million times faster than I do. But must be too long."

"That we were slaves I had known all my life — and nothing could be done about it. True, we weren't bought and sold — but as long as Authority held monopoly over what we had to have and what we could sell to buy it, we were slaves."

"As it says in Bible, God fights on side of heaviest artillery."

"(Correction — are no homely women. Some more beautiful than others.)"

"Genius is where you find it."

"I'm a Fifth Internationalist, most of the Organization is. Oh, we don't rule out anyone going our way; it's a united front. We have Communists and Fourths and Ruddyites and Societians and Single-Taxers and you name it. But I'm no Marxist; we Fifths have a practical program. Private where private belongs, public where it's needed, and an admission that circumstances alter cases. Nothing doctrinaire."

"A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame. . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world. . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."

"Do this. Don't do that. Stay back in line. Where's tax receipt? Fill out form. Let's see license. Submit six copies. Exit only. No left turn. No right turn. Queue up and pay fine. Take back and get stamped. Drop dead — but first get permit."

"Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory."

"I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."

"Sovereign," like "love," means anything you want it to mean; it's a word in dictionary between "sober" and "sozzled."

"One way or other, what you get, you pay for."

"Life is filled with tragedy; if you let it overwhelm you, you cannot enjoy life’s innocent pleasures."

"A friend who offers help without asking for explanations is a treasure beyond price."

"Be a pessimist and you will hardly ever be wrong."

"This is why criminologists place more faith in circumstantial evidence than they do in the testimony of eyewitnesses. You are the ideal eyewitness, intelligent, sincere, cooperative, and honest. You have reported a mixture of what you did see, what you thought you saw, what you failed to notice although it was in front of you, and what your logical mind fills in as necessities linking what you saw and what you thought you saw. This mixture is now all solidly in your mind as a true memory, a firsthand, eyewitness memory. But it didn’t happen."

"Every closet has a skeleton. This is a natural law."

"I scrolled on down to the obituaries. I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day."

"There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured."

"But I did not explain to you the other insidious aspect of writing. There is no way to stop. Writers go on writing long after it becomes financially unnecessary...because it hurts less to write than it does not to write."

"I didn’t want him dead. Unless you are on a battlefield or in a hospital, a corpse is an embarrassment, hard to explain. The management was bound to be stuffy about it."

"Almost all crime depends on the acquiescence of the victim. If the victim refuses his assigned role, the criminal is placed at a disadvantage, one so severe that it usually takes an understanding and compassionate judge to set things right. I had broken the rules; I had fought back."

"“My uncle used to say, ‘Never pick up a stray kitten…unless you’ve already made up your mind to be owned by it.’”"

"Beloved, you startled me with the notion that bad manners could be judged a hanging offense. My only concern is for evil, rather than for bad manners. I think evil deeds should never go unpunished. God’s arrangements for punishing evil are too slow to suit me; I want it done now."

"For dying is not to be feared—it is the final comfort. As we all learn, eventually."

"A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it—it keeps him upright."

"They were both of the extremely opposite sex and just being around them was fun."

"You’re not stupid, Richard, just spiritual."

"Shrinks are the blind leading the blind; even the best of them are dealing from a short deck. Anyone who consults a shrink should have his head examined."

"“Buster always was the pragmatist. His solution to almost any problem was to cut somebody’s throat.” “Well, it’s a convincing argument,” I admitted."

"“I’m a hard case. I don’t believe in table-tapping, astrology, virgin birth—” “Virgin birth isn’t difficult.” “I mean, in the theological sense; I’m not talking about genetics laboratories. —virgin birth, numerology, a literal hell, magic, witchcraft, campaign promises. You tell me something that runs contrary to horse sense; I’ll be at least as hard to sell as I was about your ancient years.”"

"“This computer became self-aware and acquired free will.” “Interesting. If true. I don’t have to believe it. I don’t.”"

"This sort of nonsense should be lumped with transubstantiation. If true, it can’t be proved."

"“The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it—once you can honestly say, ‘I don’t know,’ then it becomes possible to get at the truth.”"

"How can you argue with a woman who won’t?"

"It would be silly of me to argue with something I don’t understand."

"There ought to be some rule limiting the number of emotional shocks a person can legally be subjected to in one day."

"“Dr. Harshaw says that ’the word “love” designates a subjective condition in which the welfare and happiness of another person are essential to one’s own happiness.’”"

"A wife’s unique right, fixed by tradition, to manipulate her own husband runs unbroken and invariant at least back to Eve and the Apple. I will not criticize a sacred tradition."

"“Would you find that convincing?” “No.” Justin Foote nodded. “Reasonable. When a rational man hears something asserted that conflicts with all common sense he will not—and should not—believe it without compelling evidence."

"“Uh, I find I’m astonished again. How is this place run? Is it an anarchy?” Hazel shrugged. Justin Foote looked thoughtful. “No, I wouldn’t say so. It is not that well organized.”"

"A beautiful summer day in Iowa leaves no room for worry."

"You can’t do it all the time, but there is no limit to how much you can talk about it."