Variable Star: A Novel (Tor Science Fiction)

by Robert A. Heinlein

A womb with a view.

but eventually I decided the hell with it and just embraced the darkness. Darkness was a very good thing to embrace. You could count on it staying what it was.

Apology respectfully returned unopened.”

When there’s nothing else you can do, breathe slower.

he should let sleeping bags lie.

It’s humorless people who frighten me, because I can’t begin to understand them.

mankind is divided into two basic sorts: those who find the unknown future threatening…and those who find it thrilling. He says the rupture between those two sides has been responsible for most of the bloodshed in history. If change threatens you, you become conservative in self-defense. If it thrills you, you become liberal in self-liberation. He says the Threateneds are frequently more successful in the short run, because they always fight dirty. But in the long run, they always lose, because Thrilled people learn and thus accomplish more.

“Don’t kill the goose that laid the deviled egg,”

“You can’t sell a fuckin’ book by looking undercover.”

“Two heads are better than none.”

the universe just hates musicians. Envy, I think.)

the mighty power of ignorance.

It can be frustrating to care about people who hate to be touched, sometimes.

what he did best of all was listen. You make remarkably few enemies that way.

“The only way to deal with anger is to cut it at the root. The root of anger is always fear.

“Both fear and its cover identity, anger, are notorious for producing spectacularly bad decisions.”

“When we become victims, we want to victimize.

Let not this inhuman enemy have taken our humanity from us.”

Can an ego have an orgasm?