Jack McDevitt Quotes
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He took particular delight in neutralizing those who desperately needed to be neutralized, those overblown, self-important, arrogant half-wits who were always running about dictating behavior, morals, and theology to everyone else. And he never looked back.
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Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.
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An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line.
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'Most of my business comes from picking up the pieces when people get things wrong.' She grinned. 'I’ll never lack for work.'
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A man without money is a bow without an arrow.
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So long as you believe in some truth you do not believe in yourself. You are a servant. A man of faith.
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Yes, it was not journalism’s finest hour. But, MacAllister often argued, it never had been.
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'It’s all PR,' said Hutchins. 'If we ever produced a person who was unrelentingly honest, everybody would want him dead.'
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But the old man had provided his kids with one priceless gift: He’d encouraged them to read, and he didn’t bother too much about the content, subscribing to the theory that good books ultimately speak for themselves.
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Idiots are not responsible for what they do. The real guilt falls on rational people who sit on their hands while the morons run wild. You can opt out if you want to. Play it safe. But if you do, don’t complain when the roof comes down.
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Defend your opinion only if it can be shown to be true, not because it is your opinion.
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When things go wrong, the standard management strategy is to decide who takes the blame. This should be an underling, as far down the chain as possible, but preferably with some visibility so people know management means business.
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If you want data to survive, carve it in rock.
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Faith has its price. When misfortune strikes the true believer, he assumes he has done something to deserve punishment, but isn’t quite certain what. The realist, recognizing that he lives in a Darwinian universe, is simply grateful to have made it to another sunset.
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The stars are silent.Voyager among dark harbors, I listen, but the midnight wind carries only the sound of trees and water lapping against the gunwale and the solitary cry of the night swallow.There is no dawn. No searing sun rises in east or west. The rocks over Calumal do not silver, and the great round world slides through the void.
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Throughout our long and sorry history it has been men who supposed themselves to be exemplars of integrity who have done all the damage. Every crusade, whether for decent literary standards or to cover women’s bodies or to free the holy land, had been launched, endorsed, and enthusiastically perpetrated by men of character.
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Of course, they (i. e., demons) had always been observed with some regularity, but that could usually be ascribed to an overabundance of piety or wine or imagination. Take your pick.
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The Peacekeepers had a tradition that every problem had a solution. It was a nice slogan. Wasn’t true, but it sounded good.
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'One should always be skeptical. That’s always been our problem. We have too many believers.''Believers in what?''In everything.'
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The kids were both adolescents, at that happy stage where they could simultaneously make him confident about the future while they were sabotaging the present.
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Politicians always seemed to be willing to sacrifice the general welfare to win votes.
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Her experience had taught her that people who insisted on having others recognize their outstanding qualities usually didn’t have any.
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He’d grown a mustache since Randall had last seen him. It was hard to understand why: He looked devious enough without it.
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Freedom and idiots make a volatile mix. And the sad truth is that the idiocy quotient in the general population is alarmingly high.