Works
Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
Spider Robinson
Variable Star
Spider RobinsonFamous Spider Robinson Quotes
“Librarians are the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don't ever piss one off.”
Variant: ... one of the secret masters of
the world: a librarian. They
control information. Don't ever p**s one off.
Source: The Callahan Touch
Spider Robinson Quotes about thinking
God Is An Iron (1977)
https://www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/spiderrobinson3.html
Interviews
God Is An Iron (1977)
Context: "It took a couple of hundred million years to develop a thinking ape and you want a smart one in a lousy few hundred thousand? That lemming drive you're talking about is there — but there's another kind of drive, another kind of force that's working against it. Or else there wouldn't still be any people and there wouldn't be the words to have this conversation and—" She paused, looked down at herself. "And I wouldn't be here to say them."
God Is An Iron (1977)
Spider Robinson Quotes about joy
Source: Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977) "Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy"
The Callahan Chronicals <!-- [Sic] -->(1996) [originally published as Callahan and Company (1988)] "Backword", p. xii
Context: In a culture where pessimism has metastasized like slow carcinoma, that crazy Irishman was backward enough to try to raise hopes, like hothouse flowers. In an era during which even judicious use of alcohol has been increasingly bad-rapped, the man who came to be known as The Mick of Time was backward enough to think that the world can look just that essential tad better when seen through a flask, brightly. (As long as you let someone else drive you home afterward.) Above all, he — and his goofball customers — believed that shared pain is lessened, and shared Joy increased.
Now he is gone. Gone back whence he came, and we are all the poorer for it. But I refuse to say that we will not see his like again. Or his love again.
God Is An Iron (1977)
Context: Call it… joy. The thing like pleasure that you feel when you've done a good thing or passed up a real tempting chance to do a bad thing. Or when the unfolding of the universe just seems especially apt. It's nowhere near as flashy and intense as pleasure can be. Believe me! But it's got something going for it. Something that can make you do without pleasure, or even accept a lot of pain, to get it.
“Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy.”
"Callahan's Law", as expressed in The Callahan Chronicals (1996) [originally published as Callahan and Company (1988)], Part IV : Earth … and Beyond, "Post Toast", p. 388. On the back cover of Callahan's Legacy (1996) this is modified into "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased (and bad puns are appreciated).
Spider Robinson Quotes
God Is An Iron (1977)
Context: I was putting together a picture of a life that would have depressed anyone with the sensitivity of a rhino. Back when I had first seen her, when her features were alive, she had looked sensitive. Or had that been a trick of the juice?
The Callahan Chronicals <!-- [Sic] -->(1996) [originally published as Callahan and Company (1988)] "Backword", p. xii
Context: In a culture where pessimism has metastasized like slow carcinoma, that crazy Irishman was backward enough to try to raise hopes, like hothouse flowers. In an era during which even judicious use of alcohol has been increasingly bad-rapped, the man who came to be known as The Mick of Time was backward enough to think that the world can look just that essential tad better when seen through a flask, brightly. (As long as you let someone else drive you home afterward.) Above all, he — and his goofball customers — believed that shared pain is lessened, and shared Joy increased.
Now he is gone. Gone back whence he came, and we are all the poorer for it. But I refuse to say that we will not see his like again. Or his love again.
“As Bob Dylan forgot to say, "To live outside the law, you must be lucky."”
Callahan's Key (2000)
“But I refuse to say that we will not see his like again. Or his love again.”
The Callahan Chronicals <!-- [Sic] -->(1996) [originally published as Callahan and Company (1988)] "Backword", p. xii
Context: In a culture where pessimism has metastasized like slow carcinoma, that crazy Irishman was backward enough to try to raise hopes, like hothouse flowers. In an era during which even judicious use of alcohol has been increasingly bad-rapped, the man who came to be known as The Mick of Time was backward enough to think that the world can look just that essential tad better when seen through a flask, brightly. (As long as you let someone else drive you home afterward.) Above all, he — and his goofball customers — believed that shared pain is lessened, and shared Joy increased.
Now he is gone. Gone back whence he came, and we are all the poorer for it. But I refuse to say that we will not see his like again. Or his love again.
God Is An Iron (1977)
Context: Man has historically devoted much more subtle and ingenious thought to inflicting cruelty than to giving others pleasure — which, given his gregarious nature, would seem a much more survival-oriented behavior. Poll any hundred people at random and you'll find at least twenty or thirty who know all there is to know about psychological torture and psychic castration — and maybe two who know how to give a terrific back-rub.
God Is An Iron (1977)
Context: "God is an iron," I said. "Did you know that?"
I turned to look at her and she was staring. She laughed experimentally, stopped when I failed to join in. "And I'm a pair of pants with a hole scorched through the ass?"
"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron. Or else He's the dumbest designer that ever lived."
Lady Slings the Booze (1992)
God Is An Iron (1977)
“Nikky has more fiber than I do, I guess: he doesn't let a little thing like death slow him down.”
Comment on Nikola Tesla (as a character in the novel)
The Callahan Touch (1993), Callahan's Key (2000)
https://www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/spiderrobinson4.html
Interviews
“I smelled her before I saw her. Even so, the first sight was shocking.”
First lines
God Is An Iron (1977)
“God is an iron… and that's a hot one.”
Author's Postscript to the story. This story is also the second chapter of his novel Mindkiller (1982) and appears as the title story in the collection God Is An Iron and Other Stories ISBN 0-7862-4162-4 · Cover art for Book http://www.spiderrobinson.com/images/GodIron.jpg
God Is An Iron (1977)
Toast in The Callahan Chronicals (1996) [originally published as Callahan and Company (1988)], Part IV : Earth … and Beyond, "Post Toast", p. 392
“A man should live forever, or die trying.”
Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977) "A voice is heard in Ramah"
Off the Wall at Callahan's (2004)
Variant: A person should live forever, or die trying.
