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Larry Niven: 138 quotes3 likes
Famous Larry Niven Quotes
Larry Niven book Flash Crowd
Flash Crowd, section 9, in Three Trips in Time and Space (1973), edited by Robert Silverberg, p. 74
“The stars are far from eternal, but for man they might as well be.”
Larry Niven book Protector
Section 1, Phssthpok, Chapter 1 (p. 7)
Protector (1973)
“Too much imagination and I’ll scare myself to death. Too little and I’ll get myself killed.”
Larry Niven book A World Out of Time
Source: A World Out of Time (1976), Chapter 4 The Norn, Section 1 (p. 95)
Larry Niven book Oath of Fealty
Oath of Fealty (1982) (co-written with Jerry Pournelle)
Larry Niven Quotes about people
Larry Niven book Flash Crowd
Flash Crowd, section 9, in Three Trips in Time and Space (1973), edited by Robert Silverberg, p. 77
“Someone or something was in this room, something or someone with the power to make people forget.”
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 11 : Interview with the Head
Context: Someone or something was in this room, something or someone with the power to make people forget. … He was reaching for the stunner on his desk when something caught his eye. It was the dossier for Matthew Keller, senior. A crude drawing defaced its yellow cover.
Two open arcs, joined, in black ink. Three small closed loops beneath.
The bleeding heart. It certainly hadn't been there before.
Jesus Pietro opened the folder. He could smell his own fear, and feel it, in the cool perspiration that soaked his shirt. As if he'd been afraid for hours.
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 1 : The Ramrobot
Matt to Polly in Ch. 12 : The Slowboat
A Gift From Earth (1968)
Larry Niven book N-Space
Tom Clancy, Introduction: The Maker of Worlds (p. 1)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)
Larry Niven Quotes about space
“The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. The universe is hostile.”
Source: Ringworld (1970), p. 142
“He liked everything about the university except the students.”
Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye
Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 19 “Channel Two’s Popularity” (p. 162)
“Tell them the universe is too complicated a toy for a sensibly cautious being to play with.”
Source: Ringworld (1970), p. 314
“She waited for him to explain a universe in which there was so much injustice.”
Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye
Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 51 “After the Ball Is Over” (p. 486)
“In a universe the size of ours almost anything that can happen, will.”
There Is a Tide (p. 201)
Short fiction, Tales of Known Space (1975)
Larry Niven: Trending quotes
“He was sick of having to be afraid.”
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 12 : The Slowboat
Context: He was sick of having to be afraid. It was a situation to drive a man right out of his skull. If he stopped being afraid, even for an instant, he could be killed! But now, at least for the moment, he could stop listening for footsteps, stop trying to look in all directions at once. A sonic stunner was a surer bet than a hypothetical, undependable psi power. It was real, cold and hard in his hand.
“Giving up freedom for security has begun to look naive.”
Earlier version: 4) F x S = k. The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. To gain more freedom of thought and/or action, you must give up some security, and vice versa.
Niven's Laws
Context: 4) Giving up freedom for security has begun to look naive.
Even to me. Many of you were ahead of me on this — Three out of four hijacked airplanes destroyed the World Trade Center and a piece of the Pentagon in 2001. How is it possible that those planes were taken using only five perps armed with knives? It was possible because all those hundreds of passengers had been carefully stripped of every possible weapon. We may want to reconsider this approach. It doesn't work in high schools either.
Larry Niven Quotes
“The organ banks would be supplied for years.”
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 3 : The Car
Context: The organ banks would be supplied for years. Not only would the crew have a full supply, which they always did anyway, but there would be spare parts for exceptional servants of the regime; i. e., for civil servants such as Jesus Pietro and his men. Even the colonists would benefit. It was not at all unusual for the Hospital to treat a sick but deserving colonist if the medical supplies were sufficient. The Hospital treated everyone they could. It reminded the colonists that the crew ruled in their name and had their interests at heart. And the Sons of Earth was dead. All but one man, and from his picture he wasn't old enough to be dangerous. Nonetheless Jesus Pietro had his picture tacked to the Hospital bulletin boards and sent a copy to the newscast station with the warning that he was wanted for questioning. It was not until dawn, when he was settling down to sleep, that he remembered who belonged to that face. Matthew Keller's nephew...
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 12 : The Slowboat
Context: He was sick of having to be afraid. It was a situation to drive a man right out of his skull. If he stopped being afraid, even for an instant, he could be killed! But now, at least for the moment, he could stop listening for footsteps, stop trying to look in all directions at once. A sonic stunner was a surer bet than a hypothetical, undependable psi power. It was real, cold and hard in his hand.
Niven's Laws, Niven's Laws For Writers
Context: 5) If you've nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn't get it then, let it not be your fault.
First lines, Ch. 1 : The Ramrobot
A Gift From Earth (1968)
Context: A ramrobot had been the first to see Mount Lookitthat. Ramrobots had been first visitors to all the settled worlds. The interstellar ramscoop robots, with an unrestricted fuel supply culled from interstellar hydrogen, could travel between stars at speeds approaching that of light.
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 1 : The Ramrobot
Context: The medical revolution that began with the beginning of the twentieth century had warped all human society for five hundred years. America had adjusted to Eli Whitney's cotton gin in less than half that time. As with the gin, the effects would never quite die out. But already society was swinging back to what had once been normal. Slowly; but there was motion. In Brazil a small but growing, alliance agitated for the removal of the death penalty for habitual traffic offenders. They would be opposed, but they would win.
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 2 : The Sons Of Earth
Context: From the beginning there had been a revolutionary group. Its name had changed several times, and Matt had no idea what it was now. He had never known a revolutionary. He had no particular desire to be one. They accomplished nothing, except to fill the Hospital's organ banks. How could they, when the crew controlled every weapon and every watt of power on Mount Lookitthat? If this was a nest of rebels, then they had worked out a good cover. Many of the merrymakers had no hearing aids, and these seemed to be the ones who didn't know anyone here. Like Matt himself. In the midst of a reasonably genuine open-house brawl, certain people listened to voices only they could hear.
“3) Stories to end all stories on a given topic, don't.”
Niven's Laws, Niven's Laws For Writers
“The idea had spread like wildfire …. like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it.”
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 7 : The Bleeding Heart
Context: There were organ banks all over the world, inadequately supplied by people kind enough to will their bodies to medical science.
How useful is the body of a man who dies of old age? How fast can you reach a car accident? And in 2043, Arkansas, which had never rescinded the death penalty, made the organ banks the official state method of execution.
The idea had spread like wildfire.... like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it.
“Ad hominem argument saves time, but it's still a fallacy.”
Also in Fallen Angels (Baen Books, 1992) as: "Niven's Law: No cause is so noble that it won't attract fuggheads."
Niven's Laws
Context: 16) There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.
To prove a point, one may seek out a foolish Socialist, thirteenth century Liberal, Scientologist, High Frontier advocate, Mensa member, science fiction fan, Jim Bakker acolyte, Christian, witch, or fanatical devotee of Special Interest Lib. It doesn't really reflect on the cause itself. Ad hominem argument saves time, but it's still a fallacy.
Millard Parlette's notes, in Ch. 7 : The Bleeding Heart
A Gift From Earth (1968)
Context: Any citizen, with the help of the organ banks, can live as long as it takes his central nervous system to wear out. This can be a very long time if his circulatory system is kept functioning. … But the citizen, cannot take more out of the organ banks than goes into them. He must do his utmost to see that they are supplied. … The only feasible method of supplying the organ banks is through execution of criminals. … A criminal's pirated body can save a dozen lives. There is now no valid argument against capital punishment for any given crime; for all such argument seeks to prove that killing a man does society no good.
Hence the citizen, who wants to live as long and as healthily as possible, will vote any crime into a capital crime if the organ banks are short of material. … Cite Earth's capital punishment for false advertising, income tax evasion, air pollution, having children without a license.
The wonder was that it had taken so long to pass these laws.
“If human beings didn't have a strong preference for creation, nothing would get built, ever.”
Niven's Laws
Context: 6) It is easier to destroy than create.
Bin Laden tore down the World Trade Center? Let's see him build one. If human beings didn't have a strong preference for creation, nothing would get built, ever.
“7) Any damn fool can predict the past.”
Unsourced variant: Any damned fool can predict the past. And most do.
Niven's Laws
“The bleeding-heart symbol does not represent any known revolutionary organization.”
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 12 : The Slowboat
Context: The bleeding-heart symbol does not represent any known revolutionary organization. … Yes, the bleeding heart was something else again. A gruesome symbol on a vivarium floor. Fingers that broke without their owner noticing. An ink drawing appearing from nowhere on a dossier cover, like a signature. A signature.
“There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.”
Also in Fallen Angels (Baen Books, 1992) as: "Niven's Law: No cause is so noble that it won't attract fuggheads."
Niven's Laws
Context: 16) There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.
To prove a point, one may seek out a foolish Socialist, thirteenth century Liberal, Scientologist, High Frontier advocate, Mensa member, science fiction fan, Jim Bakker acolyte, Christian, witch, or fanatical devotee of Special Interest Lib. It doesn't really reflect on the cause itself. Ad hominem argument saves time, but it's still a fallacy.
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 10 : Parlette's Hand
“As if he'd been afraid for hours.”
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 11 : Interview with the Head
Context: Someone or something was in this room, something or someone with the power to make people forget. … He was reaching for the stunner on his desk when something caught his eye. It was the dossier for Matthew Keller, senior. A crude drawing defaced its yellow cover.
Two open arcs, joined, in black ink. Three small closed loops beneath.
The bleeding heart. It certainly hadn't been there before.
Jesus Pietro opened the folder. He could smell his own fear, and feel it, in the cool perspiration that soaked his shirt. As if he'd been afraid for hours.
“The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”
Source: Ringworld (1970), p. 96
As quoted by Arthur C. Clarke in "Meeting of the Minds : Buzz Aldrin Visits Arthur C. Clarke" by Andrew Chaikin (27 February 2001) http://web.archive.org/web/20010302082528/http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/aldrin_clarke_010227.html
“A machine has no mind to read; you never know when it’s going to betray you”
Larry Niven book World of Ptavvs
Source: World of Ptavvs (1966), p. 6
“As I said, it was inevitable, and I don’t let laws of nature upset me.”
Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye
Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 47 “Homeward Bound” (p. 445)
“We learn only to ask more questions.”
Larry Niven book The Ringworld Engineers
Source: The Ringworld Engineers (1980), p. 59
Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye
Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 18 “The Stone Beehive” (p. 157)
Niven's Laws, Niven's Laws For Writers
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 8 : Polly's Eyes
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 10 : Parlette's Hand
“Stupidity is always a capital crime.”
The Fourth Profession (p. 183)
Short fiction, A Hole in Space (1974)
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 14 : Balance Of Power
Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye
Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 3 “Dinner Party” (p. 31)
Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye
Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 2 “The Passengers” (p. 15)
Cloak of Anarchy (p. 115)
Short fiction, Tales of Known Space (1975)
“Gambling was safer than war. More fun, too. Best of all, it gave him better odds.”
Source: Short fiction, Tales of Known Space (1975), There Is a Tide (p. 208)
On the relationship between science and science-fiction.
Space.com interview (2000)
Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 10 : Parlette's Hand
Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye
Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 37 “History Lesson” (p. 370; spoken by an alien to an earthman)
“Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it.”
Larry Niven book Flatlander
"Flatlander" (1967), first published in If (March 1967)
Space.com interview (2000)
“There is never no hope left. Remember.”
Larry Niven book The Ringworld Engineers
Source: The Ringworld Engineers (1980), p. 280
“Everything starts as somebody's daydream.”
As quoted in Reader's Digest Quotable Quotes : Wit and Wisdom for All Occasions from America's Most Popular Magazine (1997) by Reader's Digest Association, p. 27
“Think of it as evolution in action.”
Larry Niven book Oath of Fealty
Oath of Fealty (1982) (co-written with Jerry Pournelle)
