Kim Stanley Robinson: Quotes about the world

“The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Antarctica

Source: Antarctica

World , Idea , Time

“A sudden gust: How big the world seems in a wind.”

Kim Stanley Robinson book The Years of Rice and Salt

Book 1: "Awake to Emptiness", Ch. 1
The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)

World

“Yes. God makes the world using mathematics, and he has given us minds that can see it. We can discover the laws He used! It is a most beautiful thing to witness and understand! It's prayer. It's more than prayer, it's a sacrament, a kind of communion. An apprehension—an epiphany—it's seeing God, while still in this body and in this world! How blessed we are, to be able to experience God like that! Who would not devote their time to understanding more, to seeing deeper in God's manner of thinking about these things?”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Galileo's Dream

As quoted in John Clute, "Scores" http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100118/clute-c.shtml, in Strange Horizons (18 January 2010)
Galileo's Dream (2009)

God , World , Law , Beauty

“I think the US is in a terrible state of denial … Worse than that, we seem to be caught in a kind of Götterdämmerung response: we'd rather have the world go down in flames than change our lifestyle or admit we're wrong.”

Kim Stanley Robinson

As quoted in "Future tense" in The Guardian (14 September 2005)

World , Thinking , Change

“The world operates by number, by physical laws, expressed mathematically. If you know these, you will have a better grasp of things. And some possible job skills.”

Kim Stanley Robinson book The Years of Rice and Salt

Book 9: "Nsara", § 5
The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)

World , Law , Mathematics

“Only a few people in this world were lucky enough to run into their true partners—it took outrageous luck for it to happen, then the sense to recognize it, and the courage to act. Few could be expected to have all that, and then to have things go well. The rest had to make do.”

Kim Stanley Robinson

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 8, “The Green and the White” (p. 393)

People , World , Courage , Sense

“Anyone can agree that things should be fair, and the world just. The way to get there is always the real problem.”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Green Mars

Source: Green Mars (1993), Chapter 7, “What Is to Be Done?” (p. 391)

Problem , Way , World

“It was a world of acts, and words had no more influence on acts than the sound of a waterfall has on the flow of the stream.”

Kim Stanley Robinson

Source: Red Mars (1992), Chapter 6, “Guns Under the Table” (p. 461)

World

“Beauty was the promise of happiness, not happiness itself; and the anticipated world was often more rich than anything real.”

Kim Stanley Robinson

Source: Red Mars (1992), Chapter 2, “The Voyage Out” (p. 85)

Happiness , Beauty , World