Larry Niven Quotes
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6) It is easier to destroy than create. Bin Laden tore down the World Trade Center? Let's see him build one. If human beings didn't have a strong preference for creation, nothing would get built, ever.
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'It’s a nitwit idea.''Yes, sir.''Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you’ve got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.'
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Jesus Pietro was worried. The Sons of Earth, if they got this far, would go straight to the vivarium to free their compatriots. But if Matthew Keller was his own agent... If the ghost of Alpha Plateau was not a rebel, but a thing with its own unpredictable purpose... Jesus Pietro worried.
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Anyone who says human nature can’t be changed is out of his head. To make it stick, he’s got to define human nature-and he can’t.
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A ramrobot had been the first to see Mount Lookitthat. Ramrobots had been first visitors to all the settled worlds. The interstellar ramscoop robots, with an unrestricted fuel supply culled from interstellar hydrogen, could travel between stars at speeds approaching that of light.
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The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program.
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A machine has no mind to read; you never know when it’s going to betray you-
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Peace isn’t a stable condition, not for us. Maybe not for anything that lives.
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Think of it as evolution in action.
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Fear is the brother of hate.
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2) Never fire a laser at a mirror.
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'You look like a girl with a secret,' Matt said. 'I think it must be the smile.' She moved closer to him, which was very close, and lowered her voice. 'Can you keep a secret?' Matt smiled with one side of his mouth to show that he knew what was coming. She said it anyway. 'So can I.'
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We learn only to ask more questions.
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Treat your life like something to be sculpted.
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17) No technique works if it isn't used.
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We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes.
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6) Everybody talks first draft.
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'Perhaps I was expecting too much.''Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.'
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One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better.
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It does not destroy matter, which is reassuring. Rewriting one law of physics is worse than trying to eat one peanut.
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'Do you play games of chance?''Emphatically yes. The process of living is a game of chance. To avoid chance is insanity.'
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Species evolve to meet the environment. An intelligent species changes the environment to suit itself. As soon as a species becomes intelligent, it should stop evolving.
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The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.
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1a) Never throw shit at an armed man. 1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.