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Treat your life like something to be sculpted.
Larry Niven -
The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program.
Larry Niven
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6) Everybody talks first draft.
Larry Niven -
'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.'
Larry Niven -
She waited for him to explain a universe in which there was so much injustice.
Larry Niven -
'Perhaps I was expecting too much.''Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.'
Larry Niven -
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.
Larry Niven -
Putting a monkey wrench in machinery is often the only way to force somebody to repair, replace, or redesign the machinery. Especially legal or social machinery.
Larry Niven
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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.'
Larry Niven -
A machine has no mind to read; you never know when it’s going to betray you-
Larry Niven -
Think of it as evolution in action.
Larry Niven -
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.
Larry Niven -
We learn only to ask more questions.
Larry Niven -
A thrint was master over every intelligent beast. This was the Powergiver’s primal decree, made before he made the stars. So said all of the twelve thrintun religions, though they fought insanely over other matters.
Larry Niven
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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.
Larry Niven -
5) Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.
Larry Niven -
1a) Never throw shit at an armed man. 1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.
Larry Niven -
It does not destroy matter, which is reassuring. Rewriting one law of physics is worse than trying to eat one peanut.
Larry Niven -
The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.
Larry Niven -
Matthew Leiah Keller sat beneath a watershed tree and brooded. Other children played all around him, but they ignored Matt. So did two teachers on monitor duty. People usually ignored Matt when he wanted to be alone. Uncle Matt was gone. Gone to a fate so horrible that the adults wouldn't even talk about it.
Larry Niven
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The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. The universe is hostile.
Larry Niven -
Peace isn’t a stable condition, not for us. Maybe not for anything that lives.
Larry Niven -
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.
Larry Niven -
Drugs: 'There’s no way to keep them from getting in. Anyone who wants drugs can get them. We make arrests where we can, and so what? Me, I’m betting on Darwin.''How do you mean?''The next generation won’t use drugs because they’ll be descended from people who had better sense.'
Larry Niven