Larry Niven: Use

Larry Niven is American writer. Explore interesting quotes on use.
Larry Niven: 276   quotes 3   likes

“17) No technique works if it isn't used.”

Larry Niven

Niven's Laws

“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.”

Larry Niven

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.

“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!”

Larry Niven

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

““It’s a nitwit idea.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you’ve got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.””

Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye

Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 18 “The Stone Beehive” (p. 157)

Books , Idea

“Jesus Pietro wasn't used to dealing with ghosts.
It would require brand new techniques.
Grimly he set out to evolve them.”

Larry Niven

Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 8 : Polly's Eyes

“Drugs: “There’s no way to keep them from getting in. Anyone who wants drugs can get them. We make arrests where we can, and so what? Me, I’m betting on Darwin.”
“How do you mean?”
“The next generation won’t use drugs because they’ll be descended from people who had better sense.””

Larry Niven book Flash Crowd

Flash Crowd, section 9, in Three Trips in Time and Space (1973), edited by Robert Silverberg, p. 77

People , Way , Sense

“Peace isn’t a stable condition, not for us. Maybe not for anything that lives.”

Larry Niven

The Warriors (p. 151)
Short fiction, Tales of Known Space (1975)

Peace

“It takes a lot of people to hold civilization together; some of us are only here to ask the right questions.”

Larry Niven book N-Space

Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind (p. 32)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

Question , People

“Nuclear is the safest power source we’ve got—with two exceptions, neither of which is being built. If some folk are terrified of unseen death by radiation, then let ’em deal with their own neuroses, instead of forcing us to stop building the atomic plants.”

Larry Niven book N-Space

Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind (pp. 31-32)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

Death