# Quote — Robert Silverberg, The Man In The Maze

> “I’m asking you to do an unpleasant thing for a decent motive. You don’t want to do it, and I understand how you feel, but I’m trying to get you to see that your personal moral code isn’t always the highest factor. In wartime, a soldier shoots to kill because the universe imposes that situation on him. It may be an unjust war, and that might be his brother in the ship he’s aiming at, but the war is real and he has his role.”
>
> “Where’s the room for free will in this mechanical universe of yours, Charles?”
>
> “There isn’t any. That’s why I say the universe stinks.”
>
> “We have no freedom at all?”
>
> “The freedom to wriggle a little on the hook.”
>
> “Have you felt this way all your life?”
>
> “Most of it,” Boardman said.
>
> “When you were my age?”
>
> “Even earlier.”

- Author: [Robert Silverberg](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg.md)
- Book: [The Man In The Maze](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/the-man-in-the-maze.md)
- Page: 73
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Silverberg#The_Man_in_the_Maze_(1969)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/the-man-in-the-maze/im-asking-you

## More from this book

> “The cages are ready in case any of the enemies are captured.”
>
> “You mean us?”
>
> “Yes. Enemies.” Muller’s eyes glittered with sudden paranoid fury; it was alarming how easily he slipped from rational discourse to that cold blaze. “Homo sapiens. The most dangerous, the most ruthless, the most despicable beast in the universe!”
>
> “You say it as if you believe it.”
>
> “I do.”

p. 118 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/the-man-in-the-maze/the-cages-are.md)

> I have lost my sense of a universe. They say this is the richest era of human existence; but I think a man can be richer in knowing every atom of a single golden island in a blue sea than by spending his days striding among all the worlds.

p. 13 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/the-man-in-the-maze/i-have-lost.md)

> You can make no meaningful evaluations of the universe without the confidence that you are seeing it clearly.

p. 89 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/the-man-in-the-maze/you-can-make.md)