The Uplift War

Quotes

1. It was silly to suppose that trials only hardened men, automatically making them wise. He knew many who were stupid, arrogant, and mean, in spite of having suffered.

   p. 66

2. 

   “After all,” he muttered, “what can they do to shake the confidence of a fellow who’s got delusions of adequacy?”

   p. 537

3. 

   There were times when Robert actually envied his ancestors, who had lived in dark ignorance, before the twenty-first century, and seemed to have spent most of their time making up weird, ornate explanations of the world to fill the yawning gap of their ignorance. Back then, one could believe in anything at all.

   Simple, deliciously elegant explanations of human behavior—it apparently never mattered whether they were true or not, as long as they were incanted right. "Party lines" and wonderful conspiracy theories abounded. You could even believe in your own sainthood if you wanted. Nobody was there to show you, with clear experimental proof, that there was no easy answer, no magic bullet, no philosopher's stone. Only simple, boring sanity.

   How narrow the Golden Age looked in retrospect.

   p. 324

4. 

   A neurosis defends itself by coming up with rationalizations to explain away bizarre behavior.

   p. 221

5. 

   She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world. One should never make an offer without knowing full well what will happen if it is accepted.

   p. 480

6. 

   A sane being wished for peace and serenity, not to be the mortar in which the ingredients of destiny are finely ground.

   p. 474

7. 

   He was, after all, a diplomat, and understood that the best and firmest deals are based on open self-interest.

   p. 525

8. 

   The same was true of the most popular girls. They had no empathy, no compassion for more normal kids.

   p. 66

9. 

   Had I been wrong, this would still have been the honorable thing to do.

   I am very glad, however, to find out that I was right.

   p. 626

10. 

    “This is a lovely world,” he sighed. “And yet it has suffered horror. Sometimes, so-called civilization seems bent on destroying those very things which it is sworn to protect.”

    p. 590

11. 

    Life is not fair...Anyone who says it is, or even that it ought to be, is a fool or worse.

    p. 634

That’s all the quotes.

11 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more