Quotes from book
The Puppet Masters

The Puppet Masters
Robert A. Heinlein

The Puppet Masters is a 1951 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, in which American secret agents battle parasitic invaders from outer space. It was originally serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction .

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“Listen, son—most women are damn fools and children. But they’ve got more range than we’ve got. The brave ones are braver, the good ones are better—and the vile ones are viler.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 11 (p. 65)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“In the army it takes an eight-man working party to help a brass hat blow his nose.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 30 (p. 153)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“The matter was still "Top Secret" and the subject of cabinet debates at the time of the Scranton Riot. Don't ask me why it was top secret, or even restricted; our government has gotten the habit of classifying anything as secret which the all-wise statesmen and bureaucrats decide we are not big enough boys and girls to know, a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear policy. I've read that there used to be a time when a taxpayer could demand the facts on anything and get them. I don't know; it sounds Utopian.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 24 (p. 127)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

““What is a ‘hunch’?”
“Eh? It’s a belief that something is so, or isn’t so, without evidence.”
“I’d call a hunch the result of automatic reasoning below the conscious level on data you did not know you possessed.””

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 28 (p. 149)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“I don’t believe in luck, Sam. Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 30 (p. 158)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

““Let me get this,” the Old Man said. “You are promising the human race that, if we will just surrender, you will take care of us and make us happy. Right?”
“Exactly!”
The Old Man studied this while looking past my shoulders. He spat on the floor. “You know,” he said slowly, “me and my kind, we have often been offered that bargain. It never worked out worth a damn.””

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 10 (p. 58)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Mary? After all, what was she? Just another babe. True, I was disgusted with her for letting herself be used as bait. It was all right for her to use her femaleness as an agent; the Section had to have female operatives. There have always been female spies, and the young and pretty ones have always used the same tools.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 10 (p. 61)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Beat the plowshares back into swords; the other was a maiden aunt’s fancy.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 35 (p. 174)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“There was nothing under her clothes but girl and assorted items of lethal hardware.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 4 (p. 28)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“The Old Man’s unique gift was the ability to reason logically with unfamiliar, hard-to-believe facts as easily with the commonplace. Not much, eh? Most minds stall dead when faced with facts which conflict with basic beliefs; “I-just-can’t-believe-it” is all one word to highbrows and dimwits alike.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 3 (p. 20)

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“There is one thing no head of a country can know, and that is: how good is his intelligence system? He finds out only by having it fail him.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 1 (p. 7)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Marriage is not ownership and wives are not property.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 21 (p. 116)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“McIlvaine continued, “Take the amoeba—a more basic, and much more successful life form than than ours. The motivational psychology of the amoeba—”
I switched off my ears; free speech gives a man the right to talk about the “psychology” of an amoeba, but I don’t have to listen.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 19 (p. 104)

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