Worlds Quotes

“Anyone who sees clearly sees chaos everywhere. Art is a way of temporarily setting order to confusion. Temporary and incomplete; that’s why we never run out of new art. Anyone who comes to the tools of art without that sense of confusion is an invader.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“This world was no place for anyone with access to another.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“Well, there’s always Nevada,” Benny said. “You can buy anything from a hand laser to an atom bomb there.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“Have you had your first baby yet? I might have one myself, once they find a way for the man to carry it around the first nine months.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“A square meter of earth, Dostoevski said; if all you had was a square meter of earth to stand on, and nothing around you but impenetrable fog, living would be preferable to dying.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“Marianne, how’s your statistics?” “Math is my worst subject.” “But you can program?” “Of course. I’m not illiterate.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“I’ve always thought the pre-Revolutionary system was more elegant, but it did concentrate too much power in the hands of one person. Keyes says that at least you knew who the man was then. The person who represents a Lobby in Congress is never the one who makes the real decisions; the real leaders are rarely identifiable and are never held responsible for their actions. If a puppet gets in trouble they sacrifice him and haul out another. I don’t doubt that that’s true, at least some of the time, but it’s certainly not the whole story. If a Lobby consistently acts against the public interest, its voting power dwindles away. Keyes says that’s a cynical illusion: all the polls reflect is how much money a Lobby has put into advertising.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“It’s not as if I will be the first leader who ever turned her back on the truth because her people needed the comfort of fantasy. If everyone shared my sense of loss we would be paralyzed, doomed. I have to put it behind myself literally. Live only with the present and the future. We have no real past. We live in a hollow rock surrounded by nothing. Outside of this bubble of life, night that goes on forever. But this is true: it’s only in the night that you can see the stars.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“oriental marionette imitating an occidental gesture.”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds

“Christ and Buddha,”
― Joe Haldeman, Worlds