Larry Niven Quotes - Page 2

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• Once every hundred years, the Los Angeles smog rolls away for a single night, leaving the air as clean 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

  Travel, Home, Night

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• SF isn't a genre; SF is the matrix in which genres are embedded, and because the SF field is never going in any one direction at any one time, there is hardly a way to cut it off.

  Larry Niven

  Cutting, One Direction, Way

  Concat interview, www.concatenation.org. 1988.

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• The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum.

  Larry Niven

  Maximum, Perversity, Universe

  "Ringworld". Book by Larry Niven (p. 142), 1970.

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• The best advice I was ever given was on my twenty-first birthday when my father said, Son, here's a million dollars. Don't lose it.

  Larry Niven

  Father, Son, Advice

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• A civilization has the ethics it can afford

  Larry Niven

  Civilization, Ethics

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• Never be embarrassed or ashamed by anything you choose to write.

  Larry Niven

  Writing, Ashamed, Embarrassed

  Larry Niven (1984). “Niven's Laws”, Owlswick Press

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• 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. One who marries six times in ten years won't change jobs. One who moves often to serve his company will maintain a stable marriage. A woman chained to one home and family may redecorate frantically or take a lover or go to many costume parties.

  Larry Niven

  Jobs, Party, Moving

  Larry Niven, John Brunner, Jack Vance (1973). “Three trips in time and space: original novellas of science fiction”

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• Boredom is my worst enemy. It's killed a lot of my friends, but it won't get me. When I get bored, I go risk my life somewhere.

  Larry Niven

  Blessing, Worst Enemy, Boredom

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• The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it.

  Larry Niven

  War, Years, Cold

  Larry Niven (2010). “Stars and Gods”, p.363, Macmillan

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• We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes.

  Larry Niven

  Mistake, Alaska

  Space.com interview with S. James Blackman, February 10, 2000.

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• There had been a popular joke on Freedom, started by a man named Calder. Looking down from space, he had said, the dominant life forms on Earth were obviously the cereals and other grasses. They occupied all the most desirable and fertile land; and they had tamed insects and animals to care for them. In particular, they had domesticated the bipeds to nurture and cultivate them and to save and plant their seed. Now, watching the farmers, Alex could easily imagine that they were worshiping and genuflecting before their masters.

  Larry Niven

  Men, Animal, Space

  Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, Michael Flynn (2002). “Fallen Angels”, p.232, Baen Publishing Enterprises

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• The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim

  Larry Niven

  Maxims, Values

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• Treat your life like something to be sculpted.

  Larry Niven

  Treats, Like Something

  Larry Niven (2010). “Stars and Gods”, p.363, Macmillan

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• The brightest minds in our field have been trying to find a definition of science fiction for these past seventy years. The short answer is, science fiction stories are given as possible, not necessarily here and now, but somewhere, sometime.

  Larry Niven

  Past, Years, Fiction Stories

  Larry Niven (2003). “Scatterbrain”, p.311, Macmillan

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• Species evolve to meet the environment. An intelligent species changes the environment to suit itself. As soon as a species becomes intelligent, it should stop evolving.

  Larry Niven

  Intelligent, Suits, Environment

  Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle (1991). “The Mote in God's Eye”, p.31, Simon and Schuster

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• Love was a delicious blend of warm and cold. There was comfort in making love. It solved no problems: but one could run away from problems.

  Larry Niven

  Love, Running, Comfort

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• In challenging a kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap.

  Larry Niven

  Simple, Challenges, Scream

  Larry Niven (2014). “Ringworld: The Graphic Novel, Part One”, p.29, Macmillan

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• Hopeless causes are the only ones worth fighting for. The fight for the taxpayer is the most hopeless of them all.

  Larry Niven

  Fighting, Causes, Hopeless

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• I never got good at predicting what millions of people will suddenly decide is rational.

  Larry Niven

  People, Rational, Predicting

  Larry Niven (2010). “Stars and Gods”, p.361, Macmillan

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• Anything that can go wrong, will

  Larry Niven

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• I do not believe they've run out of surprises.

  Larry Niven

  Running, Believe, Surprise

  Larry Niven (2010). “Stars and Gods”, p.360, Macmillan

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• The witnessing of titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal.

  Larry Niven

  Events, Painful, Dangerous

  "Ringworld". Book by Larry Niven, October 1970.

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• As for AIDS, it's a plague. We are human, we get plagues. They come along every so often, kill off two thirds of the population; in the next generation it's a quarter; after that it's a childhood disease.

  Larry Niven

  Two, Childhood, Disease

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• I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world.

  Larry Niven

  War, People, Trying

  "A Gift from Earth". Book by Larry Niven, 1968.

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• Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.

  Larry Niven

  Real, Useless, Ifs

  "How the Universe works (Niven's Laws)". Analog Magazine, November 2002.

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