Joe Haldeman Quotes

• Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.

  Joe Haldeman

  Book, Writing, Adultery

  48 Copy quote

• Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human.

  Joe Haldeman

  War, Human Nature, Inevitable

  Joe Haldeman (1998). “Forever Peace”, p.142, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

• Rationalism doesn't require "belief," only observation. The real, measurable world doesn't care what you believe.

  Joe Haldeman

  Real, Believe, World

  Joe Haldeman (2008). “The Accidental Time Machine”, p.82, Penguin

  16 Copy quote

• Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.

  Joe Haldeman

  Men, Eight, Tonight

  Joe Haldeman (2014). “The Forever War”, p.12, Open Road Media

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• The worst advice a young writer can get is "Write what you know." Imagination is more important than experience.

  Joe Haldeman

  Writing, Imagination, Advice

  11 Copy quote

• The 1143-year-long war hand begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate. Once they could talk, the first question was 'Why did you start this thing?' and the answer was 'Me?

  Joe Haldeman

  War, Race, Hands

  12 Copy quote

• All experience is memory, and so everything you write about is from memory-unless you're writing about typing.

  Joe Haldeman

  Memories, Writing, Typing

  11 Copy quote

• Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there…the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted.

  Joe Haldeman

  Buddhism, Reality, Way

  Joe Haldeman (2014). “The Forever War”, p.38, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• A good sign that an army has been around too long is that it starts getting top-heavy with officers.

  Joe Haldeman

  Army, Long, Heavy

  Joe Haldeman (2014). “The Forever War”, p.133, Open Road Media

  10 Copy quote

• Writer's block? Don't worry about it. Either it goes away or you die.

  Joe Haldeman

  Block, Worry, Dies

  5 Copy quote

• One cannot make command decisions simply by assessing the tactical situation and going ahead with whatever course of action will do the most harm to the enemy with a minimum of death and damage to your own men and materiel. Modern warfare has become very complex, especially during the last century. Wars are won not by a simple series of battles won, but by a complex interrelationship among military victory, economic pressures, logistic maneuvering, access to the enemy’s information, political postures—dozens, literally dozens of factors.

  Joe Haldeman

  Military, War, Men

  5 Copy quote

• Doctors don’t seem to realize that most of us are perfectly content not having to visualize ourselves as animated bags of skin filled with obscene glop.

  Joe Haldeman

  Doctors, Skins, Bags

  Joe Haldeman (2014). “The Forever War”, p.78, Open Road Media

  7 Copy quote

• [Spielberg and I] had a disagreement over what God was....He thought God was Stephen Spielberg, but that thought had never occurred to me.

  Joe Haldeman

  Disagreement

  5 Copy quote

• There's no such thing as writing about the future. The future hasn't happened yet.

  Joe Haldeman

  Writing, Happened

  8 Copy quote

• I have always valued quiet, and the eternity of it that I face is no more dreadful than the eternity of quiet that preceded my birth.

  Joe Haldeman

  Faces, Quiet, Birth

  Joe Haldeman (2006). “A Separate War and Other Stories”, p.134, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Don't 'write what you know.' Make up something new!

  Joe Haldeman

  Writing, Something New, Knows

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• Big money seeks out the company of its own, for purposes of reproduction.

  Joe Haldeman

  Purpose, Bigs, Company

  Joe Haldeman (2006). “A Separate War and Other Stories”, p.108, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• One thing most of us agree on is that the universe exists (people who deny that usually follow some trade other than science), so if some theoretical particle interaction would lead ultimately to the nonexistence of the universe, then you can save a lot of electricity by not trying to demonstrate it.

  Joe Haldeman

  People, Trying, Electricity

  Joe Haldeman (1998). “Forever Peace”, p.24, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

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