Robert Sheckley quotes - page 4

Sarah Daubray was opposed to the entire Huntsworld philosophy. She had said on several occasion that only they poor should kill each other, since the wealthy were too valuable to sacrifice. Louvaine, however, was a liberal; he believed anyone had the right to kill anyone else, rich or poor. (Robert Sheckley)
After many centuries we have rediscovered nature's way of keeping populations in hand. Nature does it the old-fashioned way, by killing people. View quote
Robert Sheckley
It takes a particular kind of a man to endure the shattering immensities of space and the paranoid-inducing stresses of threats from the unknown. It takes a man with a large and impervious ego and a consistently high degree of aggressive self-confidence. It takes a kind of a nut. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Love, the secret and unofficial heart of pair-bonding behavior, is a force to be reckoned with but never predicted. Love supersedes all other directives and cancels previous obligations. The shared look of love is love's preview, presenting a foretaste of the joys and sorrows to come, and setting into motion the automatic mating machinery upon which the success and stability of the State depends. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Kettelman bristled. Nothing got him angrier than when people implied he was paranoid. It made him feel persecuted. View quote
Robert Sheckley
From one viewpoint there were (potentially) a multiplicity of Gleisters; but from another viewpoint there was only one, and he was that one. After all, it didn't matter what these other people called themselves or where they came from; he was only the person he was here and now, the person whom he experienced. Reality is positional, ego is relational, and nature doesn't deal in abstractions. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Not only can you not step into the same river twice; it is not even the same you who can't step into the same river twice. Everything modifies everything. There is no niche in the past waiting for him to come back and occupy it. Nature will tolerate a paradox, but she abhors a vacuum. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Linguistic accommodation as well. Are they speaking my language or am I speaking theirs? I can never know: the transaction cannot watch itself being transacted. View quote
Robert Sheckley
It is all so familiar! I suppose that an electron, traveling from one atom to another, also expects to enter a realm of unimaginable novelty. But perhaps the scenery in every part of the universe is roughly similar; since one sees in accordance with who one is rather than with what is there. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Nothing happens for the first time, especially if what you're trying to do is to invent something absolutely novel and unprecedented. Of course, if nothing happens for the first time, that leaves the apparent problem of how anything happens at all. But the difficulty is entirely semantic: in the eternal recurrence of subatomic configurations of which our world is a simulacrum, there is no question of beginnings or endings. There are only middles, continuations, repetitions. Originality is a concept possible only to a limited viewpoint. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Charlie Gleister had invented a time machine, but he hadn't invented it right because it didn't work. (Robert Sheckley)
I found her charming, went home and thought no more about her. Or, I thought I would think no more about her. But in the following days and nights her image remained obsessively before my eyes. My appetite fell off and I began sleeping badly. My computer checked out the relevant data and told me that I might conceivably be having a nervous breakdown; but the strongest inference was that I was in love. View quote
Robert Sheckley
It was one hell of an inspection when you went around finding how many sane men you had left. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Hope could be dangerous, desire could be catastrophic. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Had he been right or was he just another visionary? View quote
Robert Sheckley
You simply can't throw strangers together at random and expect the fiery, quick romance to turn into love. Love has its own rules and enforces them rigidly. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Ifs and buts could erode the soundest of principles. View quote
Robert Sheckley
This planet's secret menace was-freedom! View quote
Robert Sheckley
It might have meant something, or it might not have. That was the thing about uncertainty, you were never sure. View quote
Robert Sheckley
It was the sort of atmosphere of good humor which so often accompanies a total absence of good taste. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Love is always a risk; but hate is a deadly peril. (Robert Sheckley)
What is the purpose of being really intelligent if not to have the substance of what you want without mistaking it for the shadow? View quote
Robert Sheckley
Paradox is the inevitable forerunner of chaos. View quote
Robert Sheckley
Not even the thought of death can upset the man who is going into space for the first time. The journey into the unknown transcends the framework of anxiety, at least for a while. View quote
Robert Sheckley
We denizens of Earth have a common vice: We take what we're offered, whether we need it or not. You can get into a lot of trouble that way. View quote
Robert Sheckley