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James Blish’s A Case of Conscience. Not many years later, I read Michael Bishop’s story “Death and Designation among the Asadi.”
“The Nordic language recognizes four orders of foreignness. The first is the otherlander, or utlänning, the stranger that we recognize as being a human of our world, but of another city
or country. The second is the framling—Demosthenes merely drops the accent from the Nordic främling. This is the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another world. The third is the raman, the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another species. The fourth is the true alien, the varelse, which includes all the animals, for with them no conversation is possible. They live, but we cannot guess what purposes or causes make them act. They might be intelligent, they might be self-aware, but we cannot know it.”
It may not be comprehensible, but it worked.
“No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one’s life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins.”
No one on Lusitania, not even Bosquinha herself, had ever had authority to do that. Whatever this speaker was, Navio concluded, he’s a bigger fish than even Bishop Peregrino can hope to fry.
“Don’t apologize for him,” said Jane. “I don’t expect wetware to work as logically as software. But you can’t ask me not to be amused.”
“Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind,”
I would say, if I were less discreet, that you were a fool to interfere with this speaker when you knew the law was on his side and when he had done nothing to harm us. Now he is provoked, and is far more dangerous than he would ever have been if you had simply ignored his coming.
The pride of universal guilt. It’s a form of vanity and egomania. She holds herself responsible for things that could not possibly be her fault. As if she controlled everything, as if other people’s suffering came about as punishment for her sins.”
What few people understand is the fragility of our power. It does not come from great armies or irresistible armadas. It comes from our control of the network of ansibles that carry information instantly from world to world.
No world dares offend us, because they would be cut off from all advances in science, technology, art, literature, learning, and entertainment except what their own world might produce.
As Shakespeare said, ‘I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.’”
Ignorance and deception can’t save anybody. Knowing saves them.”
“This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe, and those we never think to question.
“There’s so much that we don’t understand. And so much that you don’t understand. We should tell each other more.”
“Sickness and healing are in every heart. Death and deliverance are in every hand.”
If your sins are not your own to choose, then how can you repent?
“Will he always come between us?” “Yes,” said Ela. “Like a bridge he’ll come between us, not a wall.”
“I think we’ve taken a step toward something truly magnificent. But humankind almost never forgives true greatness.”
“I want to understand everything,” said Miro. “I want to know everything and put it all together to see what it means.” “Excellent project,” she said. “It will look very good on your résumé.”
When you really know somebody, you can’t hate them.” “Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.” “Is that a circular paradox? Dom Cristão says that most truth can only be expressed in circular paradoxes.”
Once you understand what people really want, you can’t hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can’t hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.”
“As long as you keep getting born, it’s all right to die sometimes.”
