Poul Anderson Quotes
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Silence fell. The clock on my mantel ticked aloud and the wind outside flowed past like a river.
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Life isn’t a fairy tale; the knight who kills the dragon doesn’t necessarily get the princess. So what? Who’d want to live in a cosmos less rich and various than the real one?
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We're mortal - which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful - but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?
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Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.
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He was no respecter of windy theories about inborn racial traits, but there was something to be said for traditions so ancient as to be unconscious and ineradicable.
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'But your sign says you can conjure up ever-filled purses,' Holger began.'Advertising,' Martinus admitted. 'Corroborative detail intended to lend artistic verisimilitude.'
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In Harvest of Stars, there is this notion, not original with me of course, that it will become possible to download at least the basic aspects of a human personality into a machine program.
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One man, one vote: A legal doctrine requiring that, from time to time, old gerrymanders be replaced with new ones. The object of this is the achievement of genuine democracy.
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'You are much too kind,' said Holger, overwhelmed.'Nay.' Alfric waved his hand. 'You mortals know not how tedious undying life can become, and how gladly a challenge such as this is greeted. ’Tis I should thank you.'
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'I think you look on death as your friend,' she murmured. 'That is a strange friend for a young man to have.''The only faithful friend in this world,' he said. 'Death is always sure to be at your side.'
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The last thing any sane person wants is a jihad.
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’Tis colder outside than a well-born maiden’s heart.
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'I've heard assorted rhapsodies about humankind going to the stars, of course. Who hasn't? Each of them founders on the practical problems.' 'The fish that first ventured ashore had considerable practical problems.'
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There really wasn’t much in a man’s life that mattered. But those few things mattered terribly.
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Be calm. A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.
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Then they died.And other men came after them. Wars flamed up and burned out; the howling peoples dwelt in smashed cities and kindled their fires with books.
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So much American science fiction is parochial - not as true now as it was years ago, but the assumption is one culture in the future, more or less like ours, and with the same ideals, the same notions of how to do things, just bigger and flashier technology. Well, you know darn well it doesn't work that way...
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She rarely saw priest-and knowing her heart sinned, was glad of that. Dreary was a church after the woodlands and hills and sounding sea. She still loved God-and was not the earth His work, and a church only man’s?-but she could not bring herself to call on Him very often.
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I say that a God who would come between two who have been to each other what we have been, is not one I would heed.
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'We need a reserve of life, every kind of life,' he explained. 'Today for the spirit-a glimpse of space and green. Tomorrow for survival, flat-out survival.'
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We must understand that what Pascal said is true of every human being in the whole of space-time, ourselves included-'The last act is tragic, however pleasant all the comedy of the other acts. A little earth on our heads, and all is done with forever.'-understand it in our bones, so that we can live with it calmly if not serenely.
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Did ignorance save his freedom, or merely his illusion of freedom?
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Inland, all except criminals lived in a tightly pulled net of regulations, duties, social standing, tax collection, expectations of how to act and speak and think-'sort of like late twentieth-century USA' Everard grumbled to himself.
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As evil waxes, the very men who stand for good will in their fear use ever worse means o’ fighting, and thereby give evil a free beachhead.