Larry Niven

"He kept the gun in his hand. It felt good. He was sick of having to be afraid. It was a situation to drive a man right out of his skull. If he stopped being afraid, even for an instant, he could be killed! But now, at least for the moment, he could stop listening for footsteps, stop trying to look in all directions at once. A sonic stunner was a surer bet than a hypothetical, undependable psi power. It was real, cold and hard in his hand."

"I have a kind of psychic invisibility. As long as I can stay scared, I can keep people from seeing me. That's what we have to count on."

"“I don’t doubt you’re serious,” he said wonderingly. “What I doubt is your sanity.”"

"Louis knew a few xenophobes, and regarded them as dolts."

"Fear is the brother of hate."

"The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools."

"To witness titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal."

"The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. The universe is hostile."

"One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better."

"Seen through the glow of a building orgasm, a woman seems to blaze with angelic glory."

"The majority is always sane."

"Tell them the universe is too complicated a toy for a sensibly cautious being to play with."

"We learn only to ask more questions."

"Forget the infinities: Concentrate on detail."

"There is never no hope left. Remember."

"Sometimes there’s no point in giving up."

"The stars are far from eternal, but for man they might as well be."

"Brennan was an optimist. He didn’t expect to be caught."

"I’m being chauvinistic, he told himself. I can’t judge an alien’s sanity by Belt standards, can I? His lip curled. Sure I can. That ship is badly designed."

"The Perversity of the Universe Tends Toward a Maximum."

"“For letting us examine their silly records they want to charge us a flat million marks!” “Pay it.” “It’s robbery.” “A Belter says that? Why don’t you have records on Mars?” “We were never interested. What for?” “What about abstract knowledge?” “Another word for useless.” “Then what makes you want useless knowledge enough to pay a million marks for it?” Slowly Nick matched his grin. “It’s still robbery. How in Finagle’s name did Earth know they’d need to know about Mars?” “That’s the secret of abstract knowledge. You get in the habit of finding out everything you can about everything. Most of it gets used sooner or later.”"

"“How did you come to represent the belt?” “Aptitude tests said I had a high IQ and liked ordering people around. From there I worked my way up.” “We go by the vote.” “Popularity contests.” “It works. But it does have drawbacks. What government doesn’t?”"

"What’s the justification for ancestor worship? You know what happens to a man without modern geriatrics: as he ages his brain cells start to die. Yet people tend to respect him, to listen to him."

"And the air was full of the smell of burning bridges."

"Rod privately suspected the Scots studied their speech off duty so they’d be unintelligible to the rest of humanity."

"Species evolve to meet the environment. An intelligent species changes the environment to suit itself. As soon as a species becomes intelligent, it should stop evolving."

"“Perhaps I was expecting too much.” “Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.”"

"“It’s a nitwit idea.” “Yes, sir.” “Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you’ve got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.”"

"He liked everything about the university except the students."

"And that’s another reason I don’t want contact between your species and mine. You’re all Crazy Eddies. You think every problem has a solution."

"I sometimes wonder why the aristocracy isn’t extinct, the lot of you seem so stupid sometimes."

"As I said, it was inevitable, and I don’t let laws of nature upset me."

"She waited for him to explain a universe in which there was so much injustice."

"It had been a long dull evening, with only the thought of leaving the party early to look forward to."

"Doctor, you keep asking me to see your point of view, which is based on ethics. You never see mine, which isn’t."

"“Can you take orders?” “I was in the army.” “What does that mean?” “Means yes.”"

"You’re insane. Imagine my amazement."

"He felt good. At worst he had found a brand-new way to die."

"He’s a computer. Perfect memory, rigid logic, no judgment. I forgot. I talked to him like a human being, and now—"

"My self-centeredness is as human as your fanaticism."

"Too much imagination and I’ll scare myself to death. Too little and I’ll get myself killed."

"Suddenly Corbell missed Mirabelle terribly. He mourned her, not because she was dead, but because she was gone."

"War between the sexes had always seemed silly to Corbell. Too much fraternizing with the enemy, ha-ha."

"Civilization must have become awfully stereotyped before its collapse."

"Human beings are fragile, watery things. Death spells are the easiest magic there is."

"Priests learn to be practical, if their gods don’t."

"No, no. Murder and war are not the same. The intent is different, and the intent counts for a good deal."

"Sweet reason and solid judgment and philosophical resignation, these were not common among sorcerers."

"Must have been bad when the gods were alive, though. They might grant your prayer, they might grant your enemy’s, but they’d certainly grant their own. A god’s wishes wouldn’t have anything to do with what human beings wanted."

"Griffin shook his head. How could Millie be so cheerful every morning? He ought to steal a cup of her coffee and send it to R&D to be analyzed…"