People From Ontario

"I'm not looking back, but I want to look around me now. -- Time Stand Still (1987)"

"Features distorted in the flickering light Faces are twisted and grotesque Silent and stern in the sweltering night The mob moves like demons possessed Quiet in conscience, calm in their right Confident their ways are best -- Witch Hunt (Part III of 'Fear') (1981)"

"A scorching blast of golden fire as it slowly leaves the ground Tears away with a mighty force The air is shattered by the awesome sound -- Countdown (1982)"

"All the same we take our chances, Laughed at by time, tricked by circumstances, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, The more that things change, the more they stay the same. -- Circumstances (1978)"

"There's no bread, let 'em eat cake There's no end to what they'll take Flaunt the fruits of noble birth Wash the salt into the earth -- Bastille Day (1975)"

"You don't get something for nothing You can't have freedom for free. You won't get wise With the sleep still in your eyes No matter what your dream might be. -- Something for Nothing (1976)"

"Wave after wave Will flow with the tide And bury the world as it does Tide after tide Will flow and recede Leaving life to go on As it was... -- Natural Science (1980)"

"Sometimes I freeze...until the light comes Sometimes I fly...into the night Sometimes I fight...against the darkness Sometimes I'm wrong...sometimes I'm right -- Freeze (Part IV of 'Fear') (2002)"

"Like a steely blade in a silken sheath We don't see what they're made of They shout about love, but when push comes to shove They live for the things they're afraid of And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them... - The Weapon (Part II of 'Fear') (1982)"

"...if the music stops and there's only the sound of the rain All the hope and glory -- All the sacrifice in vain (And) If love remains, though everything is lost We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost -- Bravado (1991)"

"How I prayed just to get away To carry me anywhere Sometimes the angels punish us By answering our prayers -- Carnies (2012)"

"When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness."

"Now it is time to encourage the BIS and other regulatory bodies to support studies on stress-test and concentration methodologies. Planning for crises is more important than VAR analysis."

"A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state."

"There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than is required to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure."

"But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism."

"The philanthropist, the politician, and the pimp are inevitably found in alliance because they have the same motives, they seek the same ends, to exist for, through, and by others."

"The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action."

"But in reason if one man has no right to command all other men--the expedient of despotism--neither has he any right to command even one other man; nor yet have ten men, or a million, the right to command even one other man, for ten times nothing is nothing, and a million times nothing is nothing."

"The only way to prevent prostitution altogether would be to imprison one half of the human race."

"Whether it does any good or not, a law enforced must hurt someone."

"When the word leader, or leadership, returns to current use, it connotes a relapse into barbarism. For a civilized people, it is the most ominous word in any language."

"Men are born free, that since they begin with no government, they must therefore institute government by voluntary agreement, and thus government must be their agent, not their superior. Since volition is a function of the individual, the individual has the precedent right. Then even if it was presumed that government did equate roughly with the moral shorcomings of humanity, it should still be limited and subsidiary. If everyone were invariably honest, able, wise, and kind, there should be no occasion for government. Everyone would readily understand what is desirable and what is possible in given circumstances, all would concur upon the best means toward their purpose and for equitable participation in the ensuing benefits, and would act without compulsion or default. The maximum production was certainly obtained from such voluntary action arising from personal initiative. But since human beings will sometimes lie, shirk, break promises, fail to improve their faculties, act imprudently, seize by violence the goods of others, and even kill one another in anger or greed, the government might be defined as the police organization. In that case, it must be described as a necessary evil. It would have no existence as a separate entity, and no intrinsic authority; it could not be justly empowered to act excepting as individuals infringed one another's rights, when it should enforce prescribed penalties. Generally, it would stand in the relation of a witness to contract, holding a forfeit for the parties. As such, the least practicable measure of government must be the best. Anything beyond the minimum must be oppression."

"These are not sentimental considerations; they constitute the mechanism of production and therefore of power. Personal liberty is the pre-condition of the release of energy. Private property is the inductor which initiates the flow. Real money is the transmission line; and the payment of debts comprises half the circuit. An empire is merely a long circuit energy-system. The possibility of a short circuit, ensuing leakage and breakdown or explosion, occurs in the hook-up of political organization to the productive processes. This is not a figure of speech or analogy, but a specific physical description of what happens."

"More and more of the flow was diverted from production into the political mechanism. Whatever elements in motion compose a stream of energy, enough must go through to complete the circuit and renew production. Water running in an aqueduct to turn a millwheel is a stream of energy; or electricity going through insulated wires; or goods in process from raw materials to finished product and conveyed by a system of transport. If the water channel is pierced with many small openings en route; or electricity taken off by more and more outlets; or the goods expropiated piecemeal at each stage of the process, finally not enough will go through for maintenance of the system. In the energy system comprised in an exchange of goods, the producers and processors have to get back enough to enable them to keep on producing and working up the raw materials and to provide transport..."

"Money is indispensable to a long-circuit heavy load energy system. It must be used when a sufficient surplus is being produced to allow a margin for exchange, and cost of transport, over a considerable distance. Money represents a storage battery when idle, and a generalized mode of the conversion of energy when it is in motion, with a function of equating time and space."

"An army is a diversion of energy from the productive life of a nation."

"What the past shows, by overwhelming evidence, is that the imponderables outweigh every material article in the scales of human endeavor."

"In human affairs, all that endures is what men think."

"Whoever is fortunate enough to be an American citizen came into the greatest inheritance man has ever enjoyed. He has had the benefit of every heroic and intellectual effort men have made for many thousands of years, realized at last. If Americans should now turn back, submit again to slavery, it would be a betrayal so base the human race might better perish."

"There are no diplomatic efforts that cannot be successfully undermined by a few bigots in the field."

"The point is that there isn't a canonical James Nicoll tale. The point is that whenever a discussion turns to some manner in which a human being can be menaced, injured, or potentially killed, it will turn out that James has already had it happen to him. No matter how funny, unlikely, wierd (sic)), or pedestrian. He hasn't said he has a scar on his arm from being attacked by aliens with laser swords, but I would be only mildly surprised if he did. And I'd believe him."

"Nah, that's just the morphic field of the local environment compensating for a Nicoll Event. Do you recall having a mishap just before any of these sightings?"

"The [item] that was stolen [in the 1975 novel The Whenabouts of Burr] was the physical artifact the American Constitution, which has tremendous historical and symbolic significance, and not the legal and political framework also known as the American Constitution, which is a quaint relic of no relevance to the modern world."

"I like to think the old traditions live on, along with almost all of the children."

""Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isn't the epitaph I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located"."

"I believe that I have now experienced the lifetime maximum exposure to bottom spanking in fantasy novels."

"Deadly nightshade is the only plant I have ever been able to get to grow for me."

"It's bad to wake up and see a large cat in mid-leap from the rough vicinity of the ceiling."

"[The cat] and I have an agreement: I leave her alone and don't make sudden moves when I wake up to find her perched on my chest, staring with an unblinking hostile gaze at my face and in return she rarely mutilates me."

"Let's step back and think about the likely outcome of a scenario that involves the words "James Nicoll", "a box of sharp needles" and "possibly without ever having achieved full consciousness" for a moment, shall we?"

"Goodkind is noted for subtle allegories the same way Mt Kilimanjaro is known for floating weightlessly."

"Call me an extremist but killing a few hundred million people seems like the sort of method that might have unintended consequences."

"It would let me protect the Earth from asteroids. In fact, for a small fee I would protect the Earth on a monthly basis, locating rocks that could be steered into the Earth and then not doing it if the cheque didn't bounce."

"[H]umans hate to admit error even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a cigarette in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the remains of a sign that once read 'DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES'"

"If there's a stack [of novels to review], the unpromising stuff goes at the top and the promising stuff goes at the bottom. That way, I am eager to finish Overwrought Romantic Mary Sue Fantasy because I know that will let me read Niche Product That Only the Author, James and Some Guy at JPL Likes."

"Most of my scars are not fire-related and I no longer say "I know what I am doing" at critical moments."

"Until recently baby production was largely dependent on slave labour; as soon as women are allowed to answer the question "Would you like to squeeze as many objects the size of a watermelon out of your body as it takes to kill you?" they generally answer "No, thank you." This leads to falling birthrates everywhere women are not kept enslaved and ignorant of the alternatives."

"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."

"Ben Bova seems to work very hard at working in new discoveries into his Glum Future but alas, his future is glum and not that well written."