All Quotes By Tag: Science-fiction

“…I don’t believe in Him, and if He does exist, I don’t like Him. His type of gods aren’t gods who echo how mortals behave. They’re gods who are held up as example of perfection to be emulated. They’re not gods of the people. They’re remote and inaccessible, they demand blind, unthinking obedience from their followers. They’re dictators. We Aesir and Vanir, by contrast, are mirrors. Other gods rule. We reflect and magnify. We are you, only more so. We share your flaws and foibles. We are as humanlike as we are divine, and I think we are all the better for that.”

“A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.”

“In the air-ship—–” He broke off, and she fancied that he looked sad. She could not be sure, for the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression. It only gave a general idea of people – an idea that was good enough for all practical purposes, Vashti thought. The imponderable bloom, declared by a discredited philosophy to be the actual essence of intercourse, was rightly ignored by the Machine, just as the imponderable bloom of the grape was ignored by the manufacturers of artificial fruit. Something “good enough” had long since been accepted by our race.”

“The imponderable bloom, declared by a discredited philosophy to be the actual essence of intercourse, was rightly ignored by the Machine”

“Science Fiction: Any scientific acclaim that omits God.”

“Everything about us, everything around us, everything we know and can know of is composed ultimately of patterns of nothing; that’s the bottom line, the final truth. So where we find we have any control over those patterns, why not make the most elegant ones, the most enjoyable and good ones, in our own terms? Yes, we’re hedonists, Mr. Bora Horza Gobuchul. We seek pleasure and have fashioned ourselves so that we can take more of it; admitted. We are what we are. But what about you? What does that make you?”

“Why do humans never do as they’re told? Someone should replace you all with robots. No, on second though, they shouldn’t, bad idea.”

“When the mind is free, magic happens.”

“It’s impossible to walk through solid rock… You have to walk between the molecules that make up the rock.”

“Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.”

“Sometimes I think I must have a Guardian Idiot. A little invisible spirit just behind my shoulder, looking out for me…only he’s an imbecile.”

“I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid I’ll never get a chance to live!”

“My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.”

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”