Larry Niven Quotes
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6) Everybody talks first draft.
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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.
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The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. The universe is hostile.
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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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10) Anarchy is the least stable of social structures.
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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.
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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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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.'
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The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.
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Rod privately suspected the Scots studied their speech off duty so they’d be unintelligible to the rest of humanity.
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The morning was blacker than the inside of a smoker’s lungs.
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11) There is a time and place for tact. And there are times when tact is entirely misplaced.
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I sometimes wonder why the aristocracy isn’t extinct, the lot of you seem so stupid sometimes.
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1) Writers who write for other writers should write letters.
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Seen through the glow of a building orgasm, a woman seems to blaze with angelic glory.
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The bleeding-heart symbol does not represent any known revolutionary organization. … Yes, the bleeding heart was something else again. A gruesome symbol on a vivarium floor. Fingers that broke without their owner noticing. An ink drawing appearing from nowhere on a dossier cover, like a signature. A signature.
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He liked everything about the university except the students.
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7) Any damn fool can predict the past.
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Gambling was safer than war. More fun, too. Best of all, it gave him better odds.
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2) Never be embarrased or ashamed about anything you choose to write. (Think of this before you send it to a market)
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Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it.
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In a universe the size of ours almost anything that can happen, will.
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Here is where the predictions failed: We didn't take Cargo Cult mentality into account: 'if somebody has something I don't, he must have stolen it.' We didn't understand how good we could get at communication - when you have something that someone else doesn't, the whole damn planet knows it.