Joe Haldeman

"Most aliens in science fiction aren’t truly alien, and that’s not because science fiction writers lack imagination, but because the purpose of an alien in a story is usually to provide a meaningful distortion of human nature."

"“That’s an improvement?” “Who can say? But that’s revolution: throw the old set of bastards out and install your own set. At least it’ll be different.”"

"Any time somebody starts out a sentence with your name, Leonard thought, they’re trying to sell you something."

"“I’ll be frank with you.” Leonard reflected that that was one of the least trust-inspiring phrases in the language."

"It was full of jargon, charts and the kind of vague mathematics that social scientists admire."

"One class of crackpots felt that Harrison had betrayed humanity, giving conquering hordes of aliens a road map back to Earth. The details of what they would do to us, and why, provided an interesting refraction of the individual crackpot’s problems."

"“The problem with most people,” Samuel cut in, “isn’t that they don’t know a lot of things. Just that most of what they know is wrong.”"

"YOU ARE VERY SUPERSTITIOUS. I HAVE FOUND THIS TO BE NOT UNCOMMON AMONG MATHEMATICIANS."

"A person who thinks he learns science from science fiction is like one who thinks he learns history from historical novels, and he deserves what he gets."

"Key West is lousy with writers, mostly poor writers, in one sense of that word or the other."

"A good writer remembered everything and then forgot it when he sat down to write, and reinvented it so the writing would be more real than the memory. Experience was important, but imagination was more important."

"“You do this by yourself? You’re God?” “There’s not just one of me. In fact, it would be meaningless to assign a number to us, but I guess you could say that all together, we are God…and the Devil, and the Cosmic Puppet master, and the Grand Unification Theory, the Great Pumpkin and everything else. When we consider ourselves as a group, let me see, I guess a human translation of our name would be the Spacio-Temporal Adjustment Board.”"

"Nothing is simple. The only thing that’s simple is that nothing is simple."

"“I’m a sort of literature specialist. American literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Usually. Most of my timespace is taken up with guys like Hemingway, Teddy Roosevelt, Heinlein, Bierce. Crane, Spillane, Twain. “William Dean Howells?” “Not him or James or Carver or Coover or Cheever or any of those guys. If everybody gave me as little trouble as William Dean Howells I could spend most of my timespace on a planet where the fishing was good.” “Masculine writers?” John said. “But not all hairy-chested macho types.” “I’ll give you an A- on that one. They’re writers who have an accumulating effect on the masculine side of the American national character. There’s no one word for it, though it is a specific thing: individualistic, competence-worshiping, short-term optimism and long-term existentialism. ‘There may be nothing after I die but I sure as hell will do the job right while I’m here, even though I’m surrounded by idiots.’ Do you see the pattern?”"

"Big money seeks out the company of its own, for purposes of reproduction."

"I have always valued quiet, and the eternity of it that I face is no more dreadful than the eternity of quiet that preceded my birth."

"She hadn’t been such a bad girl before the power went to her head."

"Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there...the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted."

"I had to stifle an impulse to laugh. Surely “cowardice“ had nothing to do with his decision. Surely he had nothing so primitive and unmilitary as a will to live."

"It was making me a little queasy. Doctors don’t seem to realize that most of us are perfectly content not having to visualize ourselves as animated bags of skin filled with obscene glop."

"I never found anyone else and I don’t want anyone else. I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty. If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse."

"Men started to geoform the earth in the middle of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, a lot of the early work was done by people who failed to see the earth as a closed set of mutually interrelated systems."

"CAROL: You don’t care for the music? JACQUE: Music! It’s just a gimmick to sell lutes and flutes."

"“We’re inferring from an absence of data,” Jacque said. “That’s lousy science.”"

"In a physical way we’re closer than any civilian pair could be, since in full combat jack we are this one creature with twenty arms and legs, with ten brains, with five vaginas and five penises. Some people call the feeling godlike, and I think there have been gods who were constructed along similar lines. The one I grew up with was an old white-bearded Caucasian gent without even one vagina."

"Maybe after the war we’ll be civilized again. That’s the way it has always happened in the past."

"One thing most of us agree on is that the universe exists (people who deny that usually follow some trade other than science), so if some theoretical particle interaction would lead ultimately to the nonexistence of the universe, then you can save a lot of electricity by not trying to demonstrate it."

"We did it with their government’s foreknowledge and permission, of course—and there were no civilian casualties, equally of course. Once they’re dead they’re rebels."

"It was an ideological war for some—the defenders of democracy versus the rebel strong-arm charismatic leaders. Or the capitalist land-grabbers versus the protectors of the people, take your pick."

"Like a lot of things that everybody knows, it wasn’t true."

"She smiled. “I wouldn’t mind. Is that a difference between men and women or between you and me?” “I think it’s a difference between you and merely sane people.”"

"Nobody else in that platoon can tell a Hamiltonian from a hamburger."

"“You were a Jesuit?” “Franciscan. We run a close second in being pains in the ass.”"

"Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human."

"Human nature does change, and the fact that we’ve developed tools to direct that change is quintessentially human. And it must be a nearly universal concomitant to technological growth everywhere in the universe; otherwise there would be no universe. Unless we’re the only technological intelligence in the universe, Julian pointed out; so far there’s no evidence to the contrary. Maybe our own existence is evidence that we’re the first creatures to evolve far enough to hit the reset button. Somebody does have to be first. But maybe the first is always the last."

"“You’re actually a soldier,” he said to me, “and you go along with this foolishness?” “I didn’t ask to be a soldier. And I can’t imagine a peace as foolish as this war we’re in.”"

"“Some are born crazy,” Amelia said. “Some achieve craziness. We had craziness thrust upon us.”"

"The generator was worth its weight in bureaucrats."

"“We’re in jail, Charlie.” I made a gesture that didn’t knock anything over. “We can’t see the bars because they’re over the horizon.”"

"The more leaves, the more Tree."

"Fathers and daughters don’t communicate that well even when alien languages and secret conspiracies aren’t involved."

"Fish and chickens were the only animals we’d had aboard in zerogee. Fish can’t tell the difference and chickens are too dumb to care."

"I could have argued with his logic, but over the years have learned to find more pleasant ways to waste my time."

"Most of human history had been industry versus nature, with industry winning."

"“But all I have is hearsay, passed on by others of my kind.” “Including this ‘nameless’ stuff,” I said. “That’s true. And at various times in my life, I’ve wondered whether it might not be a delusion—some sort of fiction that we share. Like a religion: there’s no way you or I could prove that the nameless don’t exist.”"

"My own religion, if you can call it that, had changed in its fundamental premise, but not its basic assertion: I’d always told religious friends that there may or may not be a God, but if there is one, I wouldn’t want to have him over for dinner. I’ll stand by that last part."

"It was so much more complicated than it had to be, but the changeling had noted that this was true of every human biological function that wasn’t involuntary."

"Rationalism doesn’t require “belief,” only observation. The real, measurable world doesn’t care what you believe."

"If you asked him, he would say the only connection between free will and religion in his life was the fact that he hadn’t set foot in a synagogue since he turned eighteen."

"“Everybody rich and happy.” She smiled. “Also complacent and rather stupid, you may have noticed.”"