Ed > Ed's Quotes

“Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that.”
― Garrison Keillor, Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon

“Yes, Boss?'
Dorcas, the last twenty or thirty years I've been a worthless, no-good parasite.'
She yawned again. 'Everybody knows that.'
Nevermind the flattery. There comes a time in every man's life when he has to stop being sensible--a time to stand up and be counted--strike a blow for liberty--smite the wicked.'
Ummm...'
So quit yawning, the time has come.'
She glanced down. 'Maybe I had better get dressed.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories.”
― Garrison Keillor, Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon

“My old man says when it's time to be counted, the important thing is to be man enough to stand up.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Between Planets

“I learned everything I know about plot from Dame Agatha (Christie).”
― Connie Willis, The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories

“There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted - but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Between Planets

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

“Once a Buddha, always a Buddha, Sam. Dust off some of your old parables. You have about fifteen minutes.'
Sam held out his hand. "Give me some tobacco and a paper.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“The columns of mounted men moved forward, passed out through the gates of the Palace of Karma, turned off the roadway and headed up the slope that lay to the southeast of the city of Mahartha, comrades blazing like the dawn at their back.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“The day of battle dawned pink as the fresh-bitten thigh of a maiden.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“I'm Valerie Rye,' she said, savoring the words. 'It's all right for you to talk to me.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories

“For an instant she hesitated. Baldanders said, 'You may trust him. The doctor has his own way of looking at the world, but he lies less than people believe.”
― Gene Wolfe, Shadow & Claw

“JFK's great virtue, and the essential difference between him and George W. Bush, was that he had an instinctive appreciation for the chaotic forces of history.”
― Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

“Bottom half of the seventh, Brock's boy had made it through another inning unscratched, one! two! three! Twenty-one down and just six outs to go! and Henry's heart was racing, he was sweating with relief and tension all at once, unable to sit, unable to think, in there, with them! Oh yes, boys, it was on! ”
― Robert Coover, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

“Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth breather there is.”
― Garrison Keillor, Dusty And Lefty: The Lives of the Cowboys

“The first thing I can remember clearly is writing the way into the secret room.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Voices

“There are two possible responses to a world suddenly gripped by terror and contention. There is the Moseley way: get mad and get even. But as the course of King Philip's War proved, unbridled arrogance and fear only feed the flames of violence. Then there is the (Benjamin) Church way. Instead of killing him, try to bring him around to your way of thinking. First and foremost, treat him like a human being. For Church, success in war was about coercion rather than slaughter, and in this he anticipated the welcoming, transformative beast that eventually became, once the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were in place, the United States.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick

“To permit irresponsible authority is to sell disaster.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

“That's why we love disaster, Harry sees it, puts us back in touch with guilt and sends us crawling back to God”
― John Updike, Rabbit Is Rich

“How can you respect the world when you see it's being run by a bunch of kids turned old?”
― John Updike, Rabbit Is Rich

“You do things and do things and nobody really has a clue.”
― John Updike, Rabbit, Run

“The shells had landed on the cobblestone road.

"Sonsofbitches," Wiseman muttered.

We looked up and grinned at each other.

"Here they come again!"

Sitting in an inch of water. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, held my breath, and clutched my elbows with my arms around my knees.

Three more shells came in, low and angry, and burst in the orchard.

"They're walking 'em towards us," I whispered.

I felt as if a giant with exploding iron fingers were looking for me, tearing up the ground as he came. I wanted to strike at him, to kill him, to stop him before he ripped into me, but I could do nothing. Sit and take it, sit and take it. The giant raked the orchard and tore up the roads and stumbled toward us in a terrible blind wrath as we sat in our hole with our heads between our legs and curses on our lips.”
― David Kenyon Webster, Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich

“Money problems can always be solved by a man not frightened by them. ”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel

“The people will take a certain amount of reform, then they want a rest. But the reforms stay.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star

“One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“A motion to adjourn is always in order.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Cicero smiled at us. 'The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than destory one's spirit by worrying about them too far in advance. Especially tonight.”
― Robert Harris, Imperium

“You can always spot a fool, for he is a man who will tell you he knows who is going to win an election.”
― Robert Harris, Imperium

“The first years of my life are of no imprtance. At the age of nine, I was packed off to a preparatory school in the South of England, and for the next four years led the usual life of a preparatory-school boy. I indulged in midnight feasts and was periodically beaten.”
― Ludovic Kennedy