Philip José Farmer

Quotes

1. He seemed to get along with just about everybody. Which, in my book, makes him suspect.

   p. 400

2. 

   Kazz thought that putting a lump on Oskas’ head was very funny. He would have considered it to be even a better joke if the chief had drowned. Yet, among his crewmates, he was as sociable, tender, and compassionate a man as anyone could ask for. He was a primitive, and all primitives, civilized or preliterate, were tribal people. Only the tribe consisted of human beings and were treated as such. All outside the tribe though some might be considered friends, were not quite human. Therefore, they did not have to be treated as if they were completely human.

   p. 130

3. 

   Suddenly, he was weeping. The tears were for the good things that had been or might have been, for the bad things that had been but should not have been.

   p. 431

4. 

   Peter would find out that that was superstition, a reasoning from effect to cause, totally invalid. It was in a class with the belief that if you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while you were sitting in the outhouse, the devil would get you.

   p. 291

5. 

   Now, this is what the visitor said the Ethicals had learned from the Ancients. The Creator, God, the One Spirit, call it what you will, forms all. It is the universe; the universe is it. But its body is formed of two essences. One is matter, the other, for lack of a better word, is nonmatter.

   p. 125

6. 

   “Okay,” she said, “I’ll listen to the wise. Are you wise?”

   “Wise enough,” he said, “and mighty experienced, which is the same thing if you’re not too stupid.”

   p. 290

7. 

   I do believe that man is a rope between animal and superman. But the superman I'm thinking of isn't Nietzsche's. The real superhuman, man or woman, is the person who's rid himself of all prejudices, neuroses, and psychoses, who realizes his full potential as a human being, who acts naturally on the basis of gentleness, compassion, and love, who thinks for himself and refuses to follow the herd. That's the genuine dyed-in-the-wool superman.

   p. 191

8. 

   But he’s sincere. Which doesn’t mean he knows what he’s talking about.

   p. 256

9. 

   “At least, they tried,” Johnston said.

   “So did the eunuch in the sheik’s harem.”

   p. 396

10. 

    “I don’t believe in women’s intuition,” Sam said. “They’re just culturally conditioned to observe different patterns of action and speech, different gestures and inflections from those men observe. They’re more sensitive to certain subtleties because of this conditioning.”

    p. 396

11. 

    By now you must have accepted the fact that your religion, in fact, none of the Earthly religions, truly knew what the afterlife would be. All made guesses, and then established these as articles of faith. Though, in a sense, some were near the mark, if you accept their revelations as symbolic.

    p. 124

12. 

    I concluded that extreme mysticism was closely allied to madness.

    p. 94