Quotes from book
The Ophiuchi Hotline

Name: The Ophiuchi Hotline
Author: 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.

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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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