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Algis Budrys

72 quotes

“It’s good for us; hot breath on your heels is what keeps you on your toes.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The way the world worked, once the word was out, the effect would take on exhaustibility. There was always not merely the event itself, but opinion of the event, and rebuttal of the opinion, and the ready charge of self-interest, and the countercharge. There was the analysis of the event, and the excavation of the root causes of the event, and the placement of the event in the correct historical context. Everyone would want to kick the can, and it would clatter over the cobblestones interminably, far from the toes of those who’d first impelled it.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even so, we’re the only animal whose signals can’t be trusted by its own kind.” He smiled. “Except for thee and me, of course.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t know...but then, if God had intended Man to think, He would have given him brains, I suppose.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The horse is a stubborn, dirty, stupid animal that reminds me of a sheep. Its only use is to embody the wings a man feels within him, and to do this it lathers and sweats, defecates and steps in badger holes.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bribes,” Michaelmas said. “They always go to bribes when they’re not sure they’re on top, and coercion when they are. That’s all they know. They really don’t believe anyone would help them just on their own merits.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hate acting on probability.” “You go to your church and I’ll go to mine.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I—ah—have some idea.” “You argue?” “I propose.” “Marriage?” “No. Another form of dialectical antagonism.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any intelligent race you can hope to someday relate to is going to have to come up essentially the same developmental roads and deal with the physical laws of the Universe in about the same way.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s amazing how self-perpetuating ignorance is.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, you know, you do that kind of thing when you’re young. Then you get older. I think maybe most of the elders know all about that. They see but they don’t say, because they know everybody gets older.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cars seemed to me to speak more clearly of Earth than any single thing else.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I understood, even then, that without question the best way to understand these people was to understand their infatuation with cars.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nobody liked him. Nobody loved him—and this bothered him. But everyone kowtowed to him, and that, it seems, was what he held most precious.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had had a good life. A somewhat shorter one than I had anticipated, but I had had the money, I had had the girls, and nobody told me what to do. Is there, really, anything else? Are you sure?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Engineers do not particularly like PR men.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One fine evening I was having a conversation with Algis Budrys about rewriting and why so many writers believed that myth [that rewriting was necessary or essential]. He shrugged and said, "They don't know any better and no one has the courage to tell them." So I asked him if he ever thought rewriting could fix a flawed story. His answer was clear and I remember it word-for-word to this day: "No matter how many times you stir up a steaming pile of crap, it's still just a steaming pile of crap.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dean Wesley Smith, Killing the Top 10 Sacred Cows of Publishing, WMG Publishing (2014); italics in original
“There’re all kinds of people in this world. But they break down into two main groups, one big and one smaller. There’s the people who get moved out of the way or into line, and then there’s the people who do the moving. It’s safer and a lot more comfortable to go where you’re pushed. You don’t take any of the responsibility, and if you do what you’re told, every once in a while you get thrown a fish. “Being a mover isn’t safe, because you may be heading for a hole, and it isn’t comfortable because you do a lot of jostling back and forth, and what’s more, it’s up to you to get your own fish. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun.” He looked into Hawks’ eyes. “Isn’t it?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He saw Hawks, grunted, hefted the bottle and said, “I hate the stuff. It tastes lousy, it makes me gag, it stinks, and it burns my mouth. But they keep putting it in your hands, and they keep saying ‘Drink up!’ to each other, and ‘What’s the matter, Charlie, falling a little behind, there? Freshen up that little drinkee for you?” Until you feel like a queer of some kind, and a bore for the times you say you don’t want another one, positively. And they fill their folklore with it, until you wouldn’t dream you were having a good time unless you’d swilled enough of the stuff to poison yourself all the next day. And they talk gentleman talk about it—ages and flavors and brands and blends, as if it wasn’t all ethanol in one concentration or another. Have you ever heard two Martini drinkers in a bar, Hawks? Have you ever heard two shamans swapping magic?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Death is in the nature of the universe, Barker. Death is only the operation of a mechanism. All the universe has been running down from the moment of its creation. Did you expect a machine to care what it acted upon? Death is like sunlight or a falling star; they don’t care where they fall. Death cannot see the pennants on a lance, or the wreath of glory in a dying man’s hand. Flags and flowers are the inventions of life. When a man dies, he falls into enemy hands—an ignorant enemy, who doesn’t merely spit on banners but who doesn’t even know what banners are. No ordinary man could stand to find that out. You found it out today. You sat in the laboratory and were speechless at the injustice of it. You’d never thought that justice was only another human invention.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now you think about this, too: you’re not charming, dashing, or debonair. You’re funny looking, as a matter of fact. You’re too busy to spare much time for me, and even if you did take me out night-clubbing somewhere, you’d be so out of place that I couldn’t enjoy it. But you do one thing: you let me feel that my rules are as worthwhile to me as yours are to you. When you ask me to do something, I know you won’t be hurt if I refuse. And if I do it, you don’t feel that you’ve scored a point in some kind of complex game. You don’t try to use me, cozen me, or change me. I take up as much room in the world, the way you see it, as you do. Do you have any idea of how rare a thing that is?”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time was when men of Horse Watson’s profession typically never slept sober, and died with their livers eroded. It must have been fun to watch the literate swashbucklers make fools of themselves in the frontier saloons, indulging in horsewhippings and shoot-outs with rival journalists and their partisans. But who stopped to think what it was to have the power of words and publication, to discover that an entire town and territory would judge, condemn, act, reprieve and glorify because of something you had slugged together the night before? Because of something you had handset into type, smudging your fingertips with metal poisons that inexorably began their journey through your bloodstream? For the sake of the power, you turned your liver and kidneys into spongy, irascible masses; you tainted the tissue of your brain with heavy metal ions until it became a house haunted by stumbling visions. Alcohol would temporarily overcome the effect. So you became an alcoholic, and purchased sanity one day at a time, and made a spectacle of yourself. It was neither funny nor tragic in the end—it was simply a fact of life that operated more slowly on the mediocre, because the mediocre could turn themselves off and go to sleep whether they had done the night’s job to their own satisfaction or not.”
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source