Larry Niven: Trending quotes

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Larry Niven: 276 quotes3 likes

“What’s intelligence for if not for seeking knowledge?”

Larry Niven book Destiny's Road

Source: Destiny's Road (1997), Chapter 30, “Hydraulic * Empire” (p. 299)

“Suddenly Corbell missed Mirabelle terribly. He mourned her, not because she was dead, but because she was gone.”

Larry Niven book A World Out of Time

Source: A World Out of Time (1976), Chapter 5 Stealing Youth, Section 3 (p. 126)

“He felt good. At worst he had found a brand-new way to die.”

Larry Niven book A World Out of Time

Source: A World Out of Time (1976), Chapter 2 Don Juan, Section 4 (p. 54)

“You’re insane. Imagine my amazement.”

Larry Niven book A World Out of Time

Source: A World Out of Time (1976), Chapter 2 Don Juan, Section 3 (p. 52)

“Perhaps I was expecting too much.”

Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye

“Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.”
Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 13 “Look Around You” (p. 107)

“That’s impossible. Isn’t it? Carlos?”

Larry Niven book The Borderland of Sol

Carlos’ mouth twisted. “Not if it’s being done.”
The Borderland of Sol (p. 160)
Short fiction, Tales of Known Space (1975)

“The trouble with sharing too many beds was that one’s chance of running into a really bad situation was improved almost to certainty.”

A Kind of Murder (p. 66)
Short fiction, A Hole in Space (1974)

“Do you like strange places and faraway people—or vice versa?”

“Both.”
Rammer (p. 4)
Short fiction, A Hole in Space (1974)

“Any time seems long when you need to make a decision but can’t.”

Larry Niven book Grendel

Grendel (p. 252)
Short fiction, Neutron Star (1968)

“Was he deadpan because he didn’t care anymore? How much boredom can you meet in three hundred years?”

Larry Niven book Grendel

Grendel (p. 251)
Short fiction, Neutron Star (1968)

“Just take my word for it, will you? Assume I’m a genius.”

Larry Niven book Grendel

Grendel (p. 248)
Short fiction, Neutron Star (1968)

“And the air was full of the smell of burning bridges.”

Larry Niven book Protector

Section 2, Vandervecken (p. 166)
Protector (1973)

“What’s the justification for ancestor worship? You know what happens to a man without modern geriatrics: as he ages his brain cells start to die. Yet people tend to respect him, to listen to him.”

Larry Niven book Protector

Section 1, Chapter 3 (p. 86)
Protector (1973)

“I knew it long ago: I’m a compulsive teacher, but I can’t teach. The godawful state of today’s education system isn’t what’s stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications.
I cannot “suffer fools gladly.””

Larry Niven book N-Space

The smartest of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can’t handle being interrupted.
Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And nobody interrupts a printed page.
Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind (pp. 26-27)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

“Writing is, therefore, both a form of compulsive behavior and, I frequently tell people, a self-induced form of mental illness. Those few writers who don’t start off by being a little nuts soon get that way as a direct result of their vocation.”

Larry Niven book N-Space

Tom Clancy, Introduction: The Maker of Worlds (p. 1)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

“He's a computer. Perfect memory, rigid logic, no judgment. I forgot. I talked to him like a human being, and now—”

Larry Niven book A World Out of Time

Source: A World Out of Time (1976), Chapter 2 Don Juan, Section 4 (p. 59)

“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.”

Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Chapter 12, "The Slowboat" (p. 210)

“Our society depends entirely on its technology. Change the technology, and you change the society. Most especially you change the ethics.”

Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Chapter 10, "Parlette's Hand" (p. 174)

“With all its horrors and all its failures, life was bearable where there were hot showers.”

Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Chapter 3, "The Car" (p. 53)

“A species that can't develop spaceflight is no better than animals.”

Larry Niven book A Hole in Space

Source: Short fiction, A Hole in Space (1974), The Fourth Profession (p. 167)