Quotes from book
The Ophiuchi Hotline

The Ophiuchi Hotline
John Varley

The Ophiuchi Hotline is a 1977 science fiction novel by American writer John Varley. It was nominated to the Locus awards Part of his Eight Worlds series, the novel opens in the year 2618.

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“You've got to watch yourself when you get as old as I am. You have to try new things, sometimes for no better reason than that they’re new. Otherwise you rust.”

John Varley book The Ophiuchi Hotline

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 18 (p. 170)

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“It was not pleasant to admit what one is willing to do to go on living.”

John Varley book The Ophiuchi Hotline

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 14 (p. 141)

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“I found that it is much more pleasurable to read adventures than to live them.”

John Varley book The Ophiuchi Hotline

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 23 (p. 210)

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“She was a reader; there were many citizens who were not. The prevailing social explanation for illiteracy was that there were people who were temperamentally unsuited for reading—and indeed there were few callings in a computerized, video-saturated world that required literacy. Lilo accepted that, but had always had a feeling that most people never learned to read because they simply were not smart enough.”

John Varley book The Ophiuchi Hotline

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 5 (p. 49)

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“We’ve become a race of engineers. What we never seem to understand is that after it’s time to railroad, there’s time to build a beautiful railroad. The state of the art has advanced enough; we can afford to pay a small penalty in efficiency.”

John Varley book The Ophiuchi Hotline

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 17 (p. 167)

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“This was a killer. Quite possibly a soldier, though Lilo was not expert in mental diseases.”

John Varley book The Ophiuchi Hotline

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 2 (p. 23)

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“But now she was fifty-seven, and suddenly ancient. Soon she would be dead. Dead. You can’t get any more ancient than that.”

John Varley book The Ophiuchi Hotline

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 1 (p. 4)

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“If only she could convince them, perhaps she could convince herself.”

John Varley book The Ophiuchi Hotline

Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 10 (p. 89)

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