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Algis Budrys
72 quotes
“We are born of Humankind— This our destiny: To bitter dwell in discontent Wherever we may be.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Citadel, in Astounding, Feb. 1955, p. 81
“Are our souls so much perverted? Can we not relent? Or are the stars the madman’s cost For his inborn discontent?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Citadel, in Astounding, Feb. 1955, p. 83
“Only gods and television audiences see the pattern of human events.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Clouds of Glory, in Astounding, July 1955, p. 25
“Charging back and forth isn’t progress. Small but steady forward motion is.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Clouds of Glory, in Astounding, July 1955, p. 32
“By the time of his adolescence, he had discovered an absolute lack of involvement with the human race. He studied it, because it was the salient feature of his environment. He did not live with it. It said nothing to him that was of personal value; its motivations, morals, manners and morale did not find responsive reactions in him. And his, of course, made absolutely no impression on it.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nobody Bothers Gus, in Astounding, November 1955, p. 76
“The idea was to hang on to reality. It was the one crutch everybody used.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Silent Brother, in Astounding, February 1956, p. 103
“I do what seems best—I live, I let live; so far I’ve done well. I don’t see why I should act like a predator, simply because I’m in a predatory society. I’m a human being, I’m myself—if I make my life something vicious, who’ll give me another if, too late, I regret what I’ve done?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Eye and the Lightning, in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1958, p. 18
“He wondered, as he often had during his life, at people’s ability to think so intricately and to still be wrong.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Eye and the Lightning, in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1958, p. 24
“Can I drive you down to your house?” The man flicked an expressive glance along the car’s length and shook his head. “Thanks. I’ll walk. There’s still a law of averages.” And you can take that phrase and carve it on Humanity’s headstone, Fay thought bitterly, but did not reply.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The End of Summer, p. 14 (originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, November 1954)
“Williamson threw his hands carefully up to heaven and snorted again. Apparently, everything Fay said served to confirm some judgment of mankind on his part.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You look like any other brainless jackanapes,” he mused, “but apparently there’s some gray matter left in your artfully coiffed skull after all.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are various uses for time, and I have better ones than this.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Young man, you’re living proof that our basic policy is right. I wouldn’t trust an ignoramus like you with the information required to cut his throat.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Amnesia was the price of immortality.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wasn’t being a dilettante the result of an inner conviction that you were too good for routine living?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There has to be an end somewhere, he thought. Each thing has to end, or there will never be any room for beginnings.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sentiment was the easy thing. But logic reminded a man that some people insisted on living their neighbor’s lives, that some people were offensive. There were people with moral codes they clung to and lived by, people who worshiped in what they held to be the only orthodox way, people who clung to some idea—some rock on which their lives rested. Well and good. But if they tried to inflict these reforms on their neighbors, patience could only go so far, and the tolerance of fanaticism lasts just so long.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Burning World, p. 57 (originally published in Infinity Science Fiction, July 1957)
“Armies!” he burst out. “The day Freemen organize to invade another area is the day they stop being Freemen. They become soldiers, loyal to the army and their generals. They lose their identification with their homes and families. They become a separate class—an armed, organized class of military specialists no one family can stand against. And on that day, freedom dies for everybody.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It isn’t given to very many men to have their dreams come true in their lifetimes.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It hadn’t had to take the form of this terrible bubble. It might as easily have been a sudden sharp burst behind his eyes or a slower, subtler gnawing at his vitals. But he’d known it was coming, as every man knows and tries to forget it is coming.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once he’d been in his twenties, looking forward. Now he was a shade past fifty, and what he looked back on was subtly less satisfactory than what he had looked forward to.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Executioner, p. 122 (originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, January 1956)
“Does it not seem to you, Justice Joyce, that this series of statistics might well occur without the intervention of any Divine Will whatsoever?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’re limits to what civilized people can bring out into the open, no matter how savagely they can speculate.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That was the way things worked out: you got a certain fair share of good breaks from life, and you had no right to expect things your way every time.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course, you have to remind yourself that you might be seeing things that were never there. You might be maneuvering your memories to bring them into line with what you’d want them to be. You can’t be sure you’re not just daydreaming.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Claire threw her head and laughed. “There are all kinds of men. The only kind that’re worth anyone’s time are the ones I can’t mangle the first time out.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are the people in this world who act, and the people who scheme. The ones who act get things done, and the ones who scheme try to take credit for it. You must know that as well as I do.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look, if I could guarantee what the results were going to be, I wouldn’t need a research program!”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man is a phoenix, who must be reborn from his own ashes, for there is no other like him in the universe. If the wind stirs the ashes into a clumsy parody, then the phoenix is dead forever. Nothing we know of can bring you back.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know what Claire is. You know I know it. I told you the first minute I met you. But did you ever stop to think it’s all worth it to me? Every time she makes a pass at another man, I know she’s comparing. She’s out on the open market, shopping. And being shopped for. I don’t have any collar around her neck She’s not tame. I’m not a habit to her. I’m not something she’s tied to by any law. And every time she winds up coming back to me, you know what that proves. It proves I’m still the toughest man in the pack. Because she wouldn’t stay if I wasn’t.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The universe has resources of death which we have barely begun to pick at.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow was always better, for someone. The difficult task lay in ensuring that the someone was one of yours.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s a certain step-by-step logic, inherent in human nature and the peculiarities of human psychology, which ensures that Man will always organize into the largest possible group. Civilization is inevitable, if you want a pat phrase.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, I suppose we have to have young intellectuals, if we’re ever to survive to be middle-aged philosophers.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You’re sincere enough.” She laughed shortly. “Heaven protect the human race from the sincere idealist!”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People want to be safe, and comfortable. If safety and comfort is to be found in guns, then they will take up guns—of their own accord, in their own need. And when safety and comfort are found in libraries, then the guns rust.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And, in Cot’s mind as in that of every other human being, what had been a twinging secret shame was disastrous and disgusting as a public horror.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dead must not rise—they undermine everything their dying created.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never try to reason with a man who can see the blade swinging for his head.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Always lobbying for his own emotions, he was the perfect man for a job the administration had tacitly committed to ineptitude.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man, is it wrong to miss being young and sure of yourself?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Smart isn’t ‘Can you do it, is it good to do?’ Smart is ‘Can you make ’em believe what you’re doing is real?’ And real is ‘Can you get financing for it?’”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That was a classic maniacal farrago, and it boils down to his not being able to understand the world. It wasn’t necessary to count the contradictions after the first one.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Loss of dignity is after all one of the basics to a good punchy gag.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wonder if time-traveling cultures are playing with us. I wonder if they process our history for entertainment values.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was understood on occasions of this sort that crew technicians are too busy to stay, since it had long ago been discovered that even one cameraman at a buffet was worth a horde of locusts, and tended to make awkward small talk.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m not frightened. ”“None of us are ever frightened. Now and then, we’d just like more time to plan our responses.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m just an information processor like any other living thing.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, even more than playing chess, I dislike dealing with self-righteous chess players.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world is full of confusing coincidences.” “And a man’s mind insists on making patterns from random data.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source