-
Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there...the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted.
Joe Haldeman -
I think I would have been a writer, anyhow, in the sense of having written a story every now and then, or continued writing poetry. But it was the war experience and the two novels I wrote about Vietnam that really got me started as a professional writer.
Joe Haldeman
-
Political art - not always a contradiction in terms - can destroy institutions, or eat away at them.
Joe Haldeman -
One thing most of us agree on is that the universe exists (people who deny that usually follow some trade other than science), so if some theoretical particle interaction would lead ultimately to the nonexistence of the universe, then you can save a lot of electricity by not trying to demonstrate it.
Joe Haldeman -
Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human.
Joe Haldeman -
Most science fiction is about white men who are 25 to 30, who are very smart, who face a physical problem and solve it.
Joe Haldeman -
I never found anyone else and I don’t want anyone else. I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty. If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse.
Joe Haldeman -
I have always valued quiet, and the eternity of it that I face is no more dreadful than the eternity of quiet that preceded my birth.
Joe Haldeman
-
'You’re actually a soldier,' he said to me, 'and you go along with this foolishness?''I didn’t ask to be a soldier. And I can’t imagine a peace as foolish as this war we’re in.'
Joe Haldeman -
It's fair to say that white America wouldn't have elected an African-American president without the integrating effect of black music - from Louis Armstrong to hip-hop - and black drama and fiction, commercial as much as 'serious.'
Joe Haldeman -
No person can escape Einsteinian relativity, and no soldier or veteran can escape the trauma of war's dislocation.
Joe Haldeman -
I don't think I would have written a combat novel if I had just had peacetime military training. I think, in fact, I probably would have remained a poet and just written a short story every now and then.
Joe Haldeman -
There's something special about writing by hand, writing with a fountain pen, and there's something special about writing into a book, to take a blank book and turn it into an actual book.
Joe Haldeman -
If you asked him, he would say the only connection between free will and religion in his life was the fact that he hadn’t set foot in a synagogue since he turned eighteen.
Joe Haldeman
-
I carry a notebook and write down things to do, and I write out thoughts and stuff like that.
Joe Haldeman -
CAROL: You don’t care for the music?JACQUE: Music! It’s just a gimmick to sell lutes and flutes.
Joe Haldeman -
'Everybody rich and happy.' She smiled. 'Also complacent and rather stupid, you may have noticed.'
Joe Haldeman -
It was an ideological war for some-the defenders of democracy versus the rebel strong-arm charismatic leaders. Or the capitalist land-grabbers versus the protectors of the people, take your pick.
Joe Haldeman -
One hopes that they'll never be able to use mind control weapons, because we're all done for if that happens. I don't want military people, or political people, to have that type of power over those of us who just get by from day to day.
Joe Haldeman -
She smiled. 'I wouldn’t mind. Is that a difference between men and women or between you and me?''I think it’s a difference between you and merely sane people.'
Joe Haldeman
-
When I first started working at MIT, back in the '80s, our writing department had a joint cocktail party with the Harvard writing department. It was kind of oil-and-water.
Joe Haldeman -
Traveling anywhere in the world involves some risk. You could always opt to spend your life cowering under your bed.
Joe Haldeman -
I suspect that war will become obsolete only when something worse supercedes it.
Joe Haldeman -
If I had had a thing like an iPad when I was a kid, then I never would have gotten into the habit of writing things down by hand.
Joe Haldeman