Poul Anderson quotes - page 2

Winter lay among the Outer Hebrides. Day was a sullen glimmer between two darknesses, often smothered in snow. When it did not fling itself upon the rocks and burst in freezing spume, the North Atlantic rolled in heavy and gnawing. There was no real horizon; leaden waves met leaden sky and misty leaden light hid the seam. (Poul Anderson)
Heim ignored the mob scene on the 3V, rested his eyes on the cold serenity of the Milky Way and thought that this, at least, would endure. View quote
Poul Anderson
The end of the world-was the sky going to open up, would the angels pour down the vials of wrath on a shaking land, and would God appear to judge the sons of men? He listened for the noise of great galloping hoofs, but there was only the wind in the trees. That was the worst of it. The sky didn't care. The Earth went on turning through an endlessness of dark and silence, and what happened in the thin scum seething over its crust didn't matter. View quote
Poul Anderson
A little careful pushing, and they'll bury the hatchet all right-in each other. View quote
Poul Anderson
Mortal combat corrupts, and war corrupts absolutely. View quote
Poul Anderson
Your son was in your own tradition.” "Better, I hope,” said the old man. "There would be little sense to existence, did boys have no chance to be more than their fathers. View quote
Poul Anderson
If anything does change man,” he said, "it's science and technology. Just think about the fact-while it lasts-that parents need not take for granted some of their babies will die. You get a completely different concept of what a child is. View quote
Poul Anderson
On our Earth, we've perforce learned all the knavery there is to know. View quote
Poul Anderson
Hurry and hurry, autumn leaves hurrying on the rainy wind, snow hurrying out of the sky, life hurrying to death, gods hurrying to oblivion. View quote
Poul Anderson
Men, whose span is cruelly short, rush nonetheless to death in their youth as to a maiden's arms. View quote
Poul Anderson
As related, the bank was one of those eastern ones, with Roman pillars and cathedral dimness and, I suspect, a piece of Plymouth Rock in a reliquary. (Poul Anderson)
Life isn't a fairy tale; the knight who kills the dragon doesn't necessarily get the princess. So what? Who'd want to live in a cosmos less rich and various than the real one? View quote
Poul Anderson
You should pay no heed to what some yokel priest has prated of. What does he know? View quote
Poul Anderson
I walk beyond town, many of these nights, to stand under the high autumnal stars, look upward and wonder. View quote
Poul Anderson
Another irritating thing about Naqsans was their habit of solemnly repeating the obvious. In that respect they were almost as bad as humans. View quote
Poul Anderson
For himself, he had never thought it would be this bad. He had stopped remembering her, except maybe ten times a day, but now she came to him and the forgetting would have to be done all over again. View quote
Poul Anderson
I'm still spry, but I feel the teeth gnawing, and believe me, my friends, it was better to be young. View quote
Poul Anderson
Man does not live by bread alone, nor guns, paperwork, theses, naked practicalities. View quote
Poul Anderson
Missile: A self-contained device which delivers high explosives from the air, condemned because of its effects upon women, children, the aged, the sick, and other non-combatants, unless these happen to have resided in Saigon, Da Nang, Hué, etc. Cf. bombing. View quote
Poul Anderson
Know that against time the gods themselves are powerless. View quote
Poul Anderson
They were not plagued that night, which Hugi said was without doubt because something worse was being prepared. Holger was inclined to share the dwarf's pessimism. (Poul Anderson)
Li-Tsung of Krasna would have told him to live at all costs, sacrifice all the others, to save himself for his planet and the Fellowship. But there were limits. You didn't have to accept Dave's Calvinism-though its unmerciful God seemed very near this dead star-to swallow the truth that some things were more important than survival. Than even the survival of a cause. Maybe I'm trying to find out what those things are, he thought confusedly. View quote
Poul Anderson
It was lonely, not even knowing yourself. View quote
Poul Anderson
Did ignorance save his freedom, or merely his illusion of freedom? View quote
Poul Anderson
What's to explain? I've scant use for those types whose chief interest is their grubby little personal neuroses. Not in a universe as rich as this. View quote
Poul Anderson