Bowl of Heaven Quotes

“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. —MULLA NASRUDIN”
― Gregory Benford, Bowl of Heaven

“On a merry-go-round in the night Coriolis was shaken with fright Despite how he walked ’Twas like he was stalked By some fiend always pushing him right!”
― Gregory Benford, Bowl of Heaven

“In some of the preflight training, to help them deal with the media, he had attended a showing of older ideas about interstellar travel. It was both funny and appalling. One of the earliest, from the Age of Appetite, had featured a dashing starship captain who always went down to planetary surfaces to investigate. Nobody questioned the practice! Of course, they had lots of other wish fulfillment trash ideas—faster-than-light travel (and this was after Einstein!), aliens who spoke English of course, teleportation for quick jaunts wherever they wanted. Nobody explained why that didn’t yield an economy with infinite resources. After all, the transporter could just as easily make extra food or devices or money; anything at all, even people. Yet those Age of Appetite people had the dream, too. They just didn’t think much about how it would take hardship and death in the teeth of the unknown.”
― Gregory Benford, Bowl of Heaven

“Nobody in SunSeeker’s crew was given to big shows of emotion, shouting, brags, insults, tears and drama, big proclamations of love or hate, stomping out of meetings. No bipolars, no geniuses. Rather, they were members of the sober, hardheaded, but soft-spoken race. Educated to a fault, practical as a paper clip. Considered, deliberate, oatmeal steady, skeptical and sharp-eyed when they met new ideas, unflappable, but—and this was what cut down through the applicant list like a hot knife through ripe butter—with an appetite for adventure. An odd assortment of those realists nonetheless willing to dive down the funnel of time and come out centuries later in a strange new place, ready for the dangerous and eager for the grand. This made them short on hugs and compliments, quick with the narrowed eye, short on the soft warm armloads of comfort.”
― Gregory Benford, Bowl of Heaven

“Rip. “Velcro.”
― Larry Niven, Bowl of Heaven

“Cliff shrugged. None of their ideas sounded”
― Larry Niven, Bowl of Heaven

“I intend to live forever. So far, so good. —STEVEN WRIGHT”
― Gregory Benford, Bowl of Heaven