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Avram Davidson

46 quotes

“A conscientious and diligent scientist—” “—must remain a continual student,” a deep voice finished the quotation.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the records of our civilization are balanced, then—but perhaps not before—the real importance of dental science will be appreciated. Now it is merely valued at the moment of toothache.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, rather an ague than a pox. A pox is something one wishes on editors…strange breed, editors. The females all have names like Lulu Ammabelle Smith or Minnie Lundquist Bloom, and the males have little horns growing out of their brows.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In general I find little girls enchanting. What a shame they grow up to be big girls and make our lives as miserable as we allow them, and oft-times more.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bloodgood Bixbee knew nothing about art, but he knew what he didn’t like.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Things were seldom what they seemed. People feared to tempt powers spiritual or temporal or illegal by displays of well being, and the brick screens in from of (or behind, depending on whether one were going in or going out) the doors blocked both the gaze of the curious and the path of demons. Demons can travel only in straight lines; it is the sons of men whose ways are devious.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Things oughtn’t to be the way they are, altogether. But letting a madman burn down the barn is no way to improve them.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell him you’ll pay any fine within reason. That dragon-cod can’t even read his own name unless it’s written in gold ink.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was an inn...which kept no register of...a number of seamstresses and tailors who lacked time and place and perhaps inclination to weave the cloths they cut and sewed, depending instead on the activities of those who preferred not to vex the original owners with the tiresome bookkeeping inseparable from purchase.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The beast is always doomed. It’s better to face the fact honestly and not pretty it up with a lot of lies about blowing off steam and reducing tensions and getting rid of this and that, acting out anxieties, moment of truth. Piddle. There’s an ancient word, I don’t know what language it is. Bazazz. All those arguments are a lot of bazazz. Unless you’re wiping out vermin or hunting for meat to eat, the man who kills animals does so because he likes to kill. And people who like to watch do so because they like to see things being killed.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How is your new woman? Your new-est one, I sh’d say.” Jack shrugged. “Good enough. They all got the same thing.” “Yeh-es,” Jeff nodded, judiciously. “But some of ’m’s got more of it than others.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Experience may be a bitter teacher, but She is a good one.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The instructor-Na has observed in the Na 14 tendencies toward an archaic and dangerous quality to which the ancients gave the name personal ambition.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life continued, the wheel turned, the earth moved, and even death—that delightful biological necessity—was an aspect of life.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who has slain one, will he abstain from slaying many?”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The short man was all of a piece, but there was nothing reassuring in this; it was a piece of the same material that too many high school principals, boys’ camp directors, and military and naval officers are made of: a texture or quality often dignified by the description, “ability to command”—the desire to bully, override, bear down—the capacity to do so by virtue of office—the habit of having done so for a long time and the confidence of continuing to do so for a long time.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fact that you know the questions,” he said, a mite grudgingly, “tends to make me think you might really know the answers.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Follow me, men! I’m right behind you!”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can tell you that only a fool destroys useful things merely because he doesn’t like them.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No greed was comparable to the appeal of self-sacrifice.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don’t you see?” They did not see. This is the way things were done. Things were done this way. Things weren’t done another way. You did things the way you did things. You didn’t do things the way you didn’t do things.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Recall the instructor at the Academy: “What is Man, young aspirants? Man is an animal that trades…”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A querulous whine that was almost a question was succeeded by a deep gobble that was almost an answer.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Drew a knife on us,” one muttered, with the sullen rage of the bully who feels wronged when resisted.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hmm...hmm. A stag hunt. To what elaborate lengths the equestrian classes go in order to draw out the simple business of butchering venison.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where there is no bread, there is no philosophy.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There may be someone here who knows less about all this than I do,” Clemens said, “but I can’t imagine who.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Surely you’ll at least see the Temple? Respect all religions, is my motto, believe in none. Sensible principle. Still, you know, must say, after all, two thousand beautiful priestesses! All ready, willing, able—and I must say—dextrous!— to do their best to inspire male worshippers with love for their goddess, hah-hah!”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rumor, I fear, is scarcely as accurate as he is rapid.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the Red Man denied that time, though it must always be paid for, could always be paid for in money.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ceremony was long and intricate, probably none of them could have explained why half of it was done, and the explanations for the other half would probably have been thoroughly incorrect.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not in the nature of any people that it should willingly endure being ruled by another people, whether it is ruled ill or ruled well.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sorcery works against Nature, magic works with it.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These precautions, perhaps because they had been taken, proved unnecessary.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And then in that, admittedly magnificent, abrupt moment you saw what I concede without argument was the face of rather an attractive wench, and—Zeus! you weren’t thinking, man—you were simply reacting. It wasn’t your heart, it was your codpiece that the impulse came from!”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though you expel Nature with a pitchfork, she will always return.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything meant something, still, some meanings were revealed sooner than others. And that some were seemingly never revealed in no way disproved the fact.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not a very interesting night market, anyway. No wonderful things are sold there, though often one wonders, next day, how one could have bought them...”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Clearly this was no time to ask if they should first define their terms. Nor, for that matter, had Socrates had to define the bowl of hemlock.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It had not been precisely a fruitful meeting, but it had been a long one.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She spun, as a matter of form and status alone, her woollen yarn and her oft-breaking thread. What else did she spin? he wondered. And the answer, not spoken aloud, was, a web. And one that now seemed sure to hold him fast. To hold him fast indeed.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s not a matter of who runs first or who runs last. It’s merely a matter of who gets caught.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was but that, seeing him and so imagining that something about him was otherwise, automatically they feared him.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Seven cities claimed blind Homer, dead, Through which blind Homer, living, begged his bread.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a distinction without a difference.”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suppose Sisyphus to have been acquitted his need of forever toiling up his hill in Hell, would he have made the last journey in joy? Or would mere fatigue have extinguished all other emotion, as a torch extinguished in a sconce?”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source