Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Larry Niven
216 quotes
“That's the thing about people who think they hate computers … What they really hate are lousy programmers.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Oath of Fealty (1982) (co-written with Jerry Pournelle)
“Think of it as evolution in action.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Oath of Fealty (1982) (co-written with Jerry Pournelle)
“God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Describing the sound inside a spacecraft propelled by nuclear explosions, in Footfall (1986)
“Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Ringworld Throne (1996)
“Everything starts as somebody's daydream.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Reader's Digest Quotable Quotes : Wit and Wisdom for All Occasions from America's Most Popular Magazine (1997) by Reader's Digest Association, p. 27
“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!”
Larry Niven (born 1938) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Arthur C. Clarke in "Meeting of the Minds : Buzz Aldrin Visits Arthur C. Clarke" by Andrew Chaikin (27 February 2001)
“The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Scatterbrain (2003), p. 26
“Part of being a coward is wanting security.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you know what it’s like to be suddenly poor and not know how to live poor?”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no turning away from knowledge.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you believe in hunches?” “No.” “Neither do I. Except just this once.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The moral of this story is, anything you don’t understand is dangerous until you do understand it.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Does it help you to know that you’ve ruined my day?” “It does, yes.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I didn’t want to find her. Not now. Our bargain had been clear, and also inevitable; and there are advantages to sleeping alone. I’ll think of them in a moment.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just take my word for it, will you? Assume I’m a genius.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Was he deadpan because he didn’t care anymore? How much boredom can you meet in three hundred years?”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any time seems long when you need to make a decision but can’t.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the horse ran on, daring Svetz with its eyes. How to describe such motion? Svetz had never seen ballet. He knew how machinery moved, and this wasn’t it. All he could think of was a man and a woman making love. Slippery-smooth rhythmic motion, absolute single-minded purpose, motion for the pleasure of motion. It was terrible in its beauty, the flight of the horse.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s always another problem behind the one you just solved. Does that mean that you should stop solving problems?”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For each human being there is an optimum ratio between change and stasis. Too little change, he grows bored. Too little stability, he panics and loses his ability to adapt.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Drugs: “There’s no way to keep them from getting in. Anyone who wants drugs can get them. We make arrests where we can, and so what? Me, I’m betting on Darwin.” “How do you mean?” “The next generation won’t use drugs because they’ll be descended from people who had better sense.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Talking to the Council would be like shouting obscenities at a forest fire.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you like strange places and faraway people—or vice versa?” “Both.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trouble with sharing too many beds was that one’s chance of running into a really bad situation was improved almost to certainty.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Presently she gave her considered opinion. “Idiots.” “No. They’re just like all of us: They want something for nothing.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had to grin. Morris was shocked and horrified. I’d shown him a brand new sin.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A species that can’t develop spaceflight is no better than animals.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you trade among the stars, there is no repeat business.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stupidity is always a capital crime.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The morning was blacker than the inside of a smoker’s lungs.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was this about him: he knew who I was, but he hadn’t remembered my name. Ron Cole had better things to think about than what name belonged with whom. A name was only a tag and a conversational gambit.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I asked him, “Do you know the difference between nude and naked?” He shook his head. “Nude is artistic. Naked is defenseless.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anyone who says human nature can’t be changed is out of his head. To make it stick, he’s got to define human nature—and he can’t.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Peace isn’t a stable condition, not for us. Maybe not for anything that lives.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That’s impossible. Isn’t it? Carlos?” Carlos’ mouth twisted. “Not if it’s being done.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a universe the size of ours almost anything that can happen, will.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you play games of chance?” “Emphatically yes. The process of living is a game of chance. To avoid chance is insanity.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gambling was safer than war. More fun, too. Best of all, it gave him better odds.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’d thought my way into this mess. I should be able to think my way out, shouldn’t I?”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A sufficiently intelligent being will look about her, solve all questions, then cease activity.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ten thousand years wasn't enough...no lifetime was enough, unless you lived it in such a way as to make it enough.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time is a one-way street with no parking spaces. You just have to keep going.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Writing is, therefore, both a form of compulsive behavior and, I frequently tell people, a self-induced form of mental illness. Those few writers who don’t start off by being a little nuts soon get that way as a direct result of their vocation.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I knew it long ago: I’m a compulsive teacher, but I can’t teach. The godawful state of today’s education system isn’t what’s stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications. I cannot “suffer fools gladly.” The smartest of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can’t handle being interrupted. Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And nobody interrupts a printed page.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nuclear is the safest power source we’ve got—with two exceptions, neither of which is being built. If some folk are terrified of unseen death by radiation, then let ’em deal with their own neuroses, instead of forcing us to stop building the atomic plants.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It takes a lot of people to hold civilization together; some of us are only here to ask the right questions.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In fantasy, more than in other forms of literature, the obligation is to teach something universally true about the human condition.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Casual murder, casual suicide, casual crime. Why not? If alternate universes are a reality, then cause and effect are an illusion. The law of averages is a fraud. You can do anything, and one of you will, or did.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But there’s an old legend,” I said. “Once every hundred years the Los Angeles smog rolls away for a single night, leaving the air as clear as interstellar space. That way the gods can see if Los Angeles is still there. If it is, they roll the smog back so they won’t have to look at it.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source