David Brin: Trending quotes

“Petals floating by, Drift through my woman’s hand, As she remembers me.”

Source: Startide Rising (1983), Chapter 49 (p. 261)

“Nation states are archaic leftovers from when each man feared the tribe over the hill, an attitude we can’t afford anymore.”

Source: Startide Rising (1983), Chapter 103 (p. 418)

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

Part X (p. 539)
Earth (1990)

David Brin book The Uplift War

Source: The Uplift War (1987), Chapter 35 (p. 221)

“One of life’s joys was to have friends who gave you reality checks…who would call you on your crap before it rose so high you drowned in it.”

“I hate the whole übermensch, superman temptation that pervades science fiction. I believe no protagonist should be so competent, so awe-inspiring, that a committee of 20 really hard-working, intelligent people couldn't do the same thing.”

Part VI (p. 311)
Earth (1990)

David Brin

Interview http://www.locusmag.com/1997/Issues/03/Brin.html in Locus (March 1997)

“Maia lifted her gaze to watch low clouds briefly occult a brightly speckled, placid sea, its green shoals aflicker with silver schools of fish and the flapping shadows of hovering swoop-birds. The variegated colors were lush, voluptuous. Mixing with scents carried by the moist, heavy wind, they made a stew for the senses, spiced with fecund exudates of life.
The beauty was heavy-handed, adamantly consoling. She got the point—that life goes on.”

“We are programmed to find sex pleasurable for one simple reason—because animals who mate have offspring. Those who do not mate have none. Traits that result in successful reproduction get reinforced and passed on. Evolution is that simple.
It is therefore useless to bemoan as evil the fact that men tend toward aggression. Among our ancestors, aggression often helped males have more offspring than their competitors. “Good” and “evil” had little to do with it.
That is, until we reached consciousness, at which point, good and evil became pertinent indeed! Behaviors which might be excusable in dumb beasts can seem perverted, criminal, when performed by thinking beings. Just because a trait is “natural” does not oblige us to keep it.”

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 4 (p. 80)

“As in elections, the law pretended universal rights, while securing the interests of powerful houses.”

Introduction to Chapter 7 (pp. 105-106)
Glory Season (1993)

“In the end, both extremes had more in common with each other than either did with the middle.”

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 27 (p. 553)

“It could be worse. I can’t think how right now, but I’m sure it could be worse.”

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 24 (p. 470)

“You don’t have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!”

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 4 (p. 74)

“History and geology show what an eyeblink it’s been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.”

Source: Startide Rising (1983), Chapter 46 (p. 238)

“A hallmark of sanity, Alex, is the courage to face even unpleasant points of view.”

Afterword (p. 656)
Earth (1990)

“They accepted warriors…” he emphasized, “…That divinely mad type that’s so valuable when needed, and such a problem when it’s not.”

Part I (p. 40)
Earth (1990)

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 18 (p. 298)

“Apocalypses, apparently, are subject to fashion like everything else. What terrifies one generation can seem obsolete and trivial to the next. Take our modern attitude toward war. Most anthropologists now think this activity was based originally on theft and rape—perhaps rewarding enterprises for some caveman or Viking, but no longer either sexy or profitable in the context of nuclear holocaust! Today, we look back on large-scale warfare as an essentially silly enterprise.”

“We can’t save the world without food. Only people with full stomachs become environmentalists.”

Part I (p. 48)
Earth (1990)

“He wasn’t afraid of dying, only of having not done all he could, and not properly spitting in the eye of death when it came for him. That final gesture was important.”

Part II (p. 72)
Earth (1990)

“Wisdom. No match for the troublemaker Curiosity.”

Source: Startide Rising (1983), Chapter 51 (p. 269)