I left school at 16 but I wish I'd gone to university - I think I would have studied English literature. I had a knack for that. But I don't think you have the kind of wisdom at 16 to make that decision.
All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairi...
Next time we will look at this from a much more basic point of view and one antedating all zoology, which, glimpsed only a little after my twentieth year, made write in those days that what is most valuable in man is his eternal and almost divine dis...
It was dawning on the wizards that they were outside the University, at night and without permission, for the first time in decades. A certain suppressed excitement crackled from man to man. Any watch trained in reading body language would have been ...
One of the schools of Tlön goes so far as to negate time; it reasons that the present is indefinite, that the future has no reality other than as a present hope, that the past has no reality other than as a present memory. Another school declares th...
What was after the universe? Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where it stopped before the nothing place began? It could not be a wall; but there could be a thin thin line there all round everything. It was very big to think ...
I've spent a life-time attacking religious beliefs and have not wavered from a view of the universe that many would regard as bleak. Namely, that it is a meaningless place devoid of deity. However I'm unwilling simply to repeat the old arguments of t...
I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid w...
Here is the essence of mankind's creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatoza attacking an ovum. It might be argued that the Siamese-twin inf...
Dr Ray Stantz: Hey, Dean Yeager! Are you moving us to a better office on campus? Dean Yeager: No, you're being moved off campus. The Board of Regents has decided to terminate your grant. You are to vacate these premises immediately. Dr Ray Stantz: Wh...
Adriana: I can never decide whether Paris is more beautiful by day or by night. Gil: No, you can't, you couldn't pick one. I mean I can give you a checkmate argument for each side. You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a ...
Minutes turn into hours, and lifetimes into moments. Universes are created and destroyed with nary a pop. What was saved, no longer ex- ists. What was lost, no longer matters.
There are two forces in the universe: fear and love. Trust is part of love because it makes you feel safe, and it is only in this state that you are capable of love.
Our souls sparkle brightly with creative energy, our beings are as complex as the universe, and at the same time we help make up a higher body of energy.
I’d likte to welcome you to the land of free, where healthy, wealthy, happy people contribute to the civilization under the protection of the rules of capitalism, laws of science and rights of universal suffrage.
Ultimately humanity is one, and this small planet is our only home. If we're to protect this home of ours, each of us needs to experience a vivid sense of universal altruism and compassion.
It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.
What the fuck is legal in this universe? Stars eat each other, wolves eat the pigs, and Grandma fucks over Little Red Riding Hood.
Risk is the universe's way of pushing us to become more than what we are. Risk is faith at the edge. Risk is the pulsating nature of life.
Because consciousness has no mass and extension, no parts or physical properties, it is Nothing, which on the other hand, can generate the matter and energy of the entire universe.
Of course he was required to wear a seat belt, just as he was required to give directions to a torture camp, because stupidity was the single abiding law of the universe.
