Robert Sheckley

"Like the man who set fire to his friend’s overcoat upon hearing the command, “Light up a Chesterfield.”"

"People who live in glass psyches shouldn’t cast words."

"Blount’s face registered psychopathic amazement, idiot incredulity, moronic disbelief."

"Not even the thought of death can upset the man who is going into space for the first time. The journey into the unknown transcends the framework of anxiety, at least for a while."

"But the description is not the described, as Amirra Tauba remarked as he chewed up the map of the galaxy!"

"Words, in the final analysis, are just about as futile as actions, and much less fun."

"It wouldn’t be so bad. There was, after all, a certain joy in hard, dedicated work, a sort of pleasure in denying oneself pleasures, and a sour happiness to be found in steadiness, circumspection, dependability… To hell with that!"

"He said, “Don’t you think that pleas based on upon the assumption of one’s own objectivity are somewhat disingenuous, to say the least?” The crowd nodded. The tall man said easily, “Granted that all personal judgments are inherently biased. Still, judgment is the only instrument of discrimination at our disposal, and it is our work as living, developing creatures to make discriminations, from which value-judgments inevitably flow. This must be done despite the subjectivity paradox implied in making an ‘objective’ statement. That is why I say unequivocably that you were in the wrong, and no amount of reference to the observer observed dichotomy is going to change that.”"

""We have sympathized with the misplaced obsessive emotionality you have thrown into your delusional activities.” “What do you mean, ‘delusional’? I know what I’m doing!” The priest shook his head gently. “Whatever you think is wrong. I suppose you feel that you live your own life and strive to achieve your goals?” “Well, of course!” “But that is not the case at all. Actually, you have no independent life of your own. You do not live, you are lived! You are a completely automatic mechanism with a built-in I-reflex. Your life has no meaning, since you are not even a person. You are nothing more than a short-lived, inconsistent, and accidental collection of tendencies. Your only possible relevance is as the unwitting vehicle for the purpose of bringing forth the Avatar.”"

"“Could he be an imposter?” the venerable priest mused. “No, I suppose not. So he must be from some other universe. That’s the usual explanation for the inexplicable.”"

"After many centuries we have rediscovered nature’s way of keeping populations in hand. Nature does it the old-fashioned way, by killing people."

"Nobody says any longer, “When will the killing stop?” Now we know that the killing will stop only when life itself stops."

"“This is a shopping mall,” the Professor said. “At one time it was the central artifact of American life. It was to the Americans what the atrium was to the Romans or the plaza to the Spaniards, the great place of assemblage where one comes and ritually buys food and tries to arrange romantic assignations with attractive members of the preferred sex, whichever that might be.”"

"The new city of Esmeralda was not the usual steel-and-glass rabbit warren that the modern world had developed in its long struggle to free itself from any hint of good taste."

"Sarah Daubray was opposed to the entire Huntsworld philosophy. She had said on several occasion that only they poor should kill each other, since the wealthy were too valuable to sacrifice. Louvaine, however, was a liberal; he believed anyone had the right to kill anyone else, rich or poor."

"“I’ve never been able to understand that custom.” “Not all customs have to have a reason.”"

"“Michelangelo,” Teresa said, “you shouldn’t blaspheme.” “Who’s blaspheming? I’m praying.”"

"“I’m proposing to pay you five thousand dollars to do something you’ll find quite enjoyable.” “Make it ten,” Foote said, “and I’ll enjoy it even more.”"

"It was the sort of atmosphere of good humor which so often accompanies a total absence of good taste."

"It was an eccentric sort of event, even for Esmeralda, and needed a special kind of person to volunteer to do it. Luckily, the human race has never thought up anything so ludicrous, dangerous, and frivolous that it won’t attract many willing volunteers."

"Outside the curtained windows, Paris stewed in its miasma of self-congratulation and diesel fumes."

"The trip to South Lake took another three hours. Blackwell stared out the window the whole time looking at nothing, which is to say, New Jersey."

"He was the sort of man the essence of whose presence is absence."

"Population growth and the multifarious forms of pollution: the human animal was overgrazing his range. The human animal had destroyed everything in sight, killed off the other big animals, used up millions of years of deposits of fresh water, oil, coal, and minerals. Fragile ecosystems had been pushed to the limit, some of them beyond recovery. The death of the earth was undramatic, but it was happening, and fast. And the governments continued to squabble and defend their various economic, religious, and social doctrines. The wealth of nations large and small was bled into the continuing efforts to increase the size, ingenuity, and ferocity of the armed forces. The humans were killer ants, devoting all their time to breeding more powerful mandibles. Something had to be done immediately to preserve and maintain the great interlocking global system of ecosystems that sustained all life upon the earth. Only by managing the entire earth as a single unit could the basis of life continue on beyond the next century or two. But twentieth-century civilization was locked into its self-destructive groove. Nothing could be officially done until the various threats became much more threatening. But by the time that stage had been reached, it would probably be too late to do anything."

"It might have meant something, or it might not have. That was the thing about uncertainty, you were never sure."

"There was a moist, fertile, decaying sort of odor in the air. Florida was the sort of place that always seemed to be threatening to slip out of time and go back to the Paleozoic where it belonged. The light was a tawny gold filtered through a fragmented wall of green."

"I beg of you to take this warning seriously, even though these people may be crazies. Since the invention of gunpowder, crazies have been bad news."

"Dickerson watched the telephone like a man looking at a sleeping cobra. It could spring into virulent life at any moment, bite him with its hollow fangs, flood his system with the intellectual equivalent of poison, force him to leave the tried-and-true path of safe routine and jump into the dangerous and unpredictable unknown."

"Then the red telephone rang. Dickerson’s heart gave a tremendous lurch. He closed his eyes, composing himself by reciting the mantra Dr. Mensch had given him: “Om mane padme hum, I smell the blood of an Englishmun.”"

"We of the Hunt are part of the solution. We offer voluntary murder as a substitute for war. You know that mankind will never be satisfied unless it is killing something. People can’t even properly enjoy a landscape unless there’s something moving across it that can be shot at."

"“My dear Dahl, the first, the primary, task is to bring the earth back into ecological balance. That’s your task, you and the Bahamas Corporation. Ours is to give people something exciting to do other than war while that is going on. Without us and our Hunt, you and your high-minded scientists will just be another group of dreamers living in an imaginary kingdom of sweet reason while the madness of real politics rages all around you. Be practical, Dahl, let’s do something together.” “There is something in what you say,” Dahl admitted. “I’ve been aware for some time of the shortcomings inherent in the sane, dispassionate thinking that we scientists advocate. People don’t pay any attention. Unless there’s an emergency like Love Canal or Chernobyl, the idea of maintaining and upgrading the earth and its ecosystems is not exactly box-office.”"