Robert A. Heinlein · 276 pages
Rating: (22.9K votes)
“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.”
“Some people insist that 'mediocre' is better than 'best.' They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none.”
“Money problems can always be solved by a man not frightened by them. ”
“We’re simply trying to survive—and the first principle of survival is not to worry about the impossible and concentrate on what’s possible.”
“Many problems can be solved by a man not frightened by them.”
“But when I see a black widow, I step on it; I don’t plead with it to be a good little spider and please stop poisoning people.”
“The best things in history are accomplished by people who get tired of being shoved around.”
“good luck’ follows careful preparation; ‘bad luck’ comes from sloppiness.”
“Getting a problem analyzed is two-thirds of solving it.”
“contrary to some opinions, it is better to be a dead hero than a live louse. Dying is messy and inconvenient but even a louse dies someday no matter what he will do to stay alive and he is forever having to explain his choice.”
“To die trying is the proudest humans thing.”
“I wonder how harmless such people are? To what extent civilization is retarded by the laughing jackasses, the empty-minded belittlers?”
“There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.”
“Daddy says that, in a dilemma, it is helpful to change any variable, then reexamine the problem.”
“I needed a space suit the way a pig needs a pipe organ.”
“I had never been much interested in Pluto, too many facts and too much isolation.”
“Some people insist that ‘mediocre’ is better than ‘best.’ They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can’t fly. They despise brains because they have none. Pfah!”
“When you read about chemistry and physics, you want to do them too.”
“Mother had the social restraint of an ambassador.”
“More depended on the student than on the school.”
“Everybody else specializes. Daddy knows everything, and he puts the pieces together.”
“The Mother Thing makes our world.”
“You can't believe what a lovely planet we have until you see her from outside.”
“Library science was the foundation of all sciences.”
“Dress yourself in heavy fishing waders, put on an overcoat and boxing gloves and a bucket over your head, then have somebody strap two sacks of cement across your shoulders and you will know what a space suit feels like under one gravity.”
“Find out what you want to do, then do it. Never talk yourself into doing something you don’t want. Think”
“In second grade we were taught simple math, but not the way it is taught in other countries. In North Korea, even arithmetic is a propaganda tool. A typical problem would go like this: “If you kill one American bastard and your comrade kills two, how many dead American bastards do you have?”
“Her name...was Mrs. marina Orlova, and she had grown up in Siberia. Later, she would tell him that she loathed the American custom of constantly smiling: "They are like chimpanzees," she said, in her bitter exclamatory voice. She grimaced, baring her teeth grotesquely. "Eee!" she said. "I smile at you! Eee! It is repulsive.”
“Cybil pushed to her feet. "If he hurts her, I'll twist off his dick and feed it to his dog." With that, she stormed out of the room.
"She's a little scary," Fox decided.
"She's not the only one. I'm the one who'll be roasting his balls for dessert." Layla headed out behind Cybil. "I have to find something to make for dinner."
"Oddly, I don't have much of an appetite right now." Fox glanced at Gage. "How about you?”
“Did he mean me or Jenny Mullendore was a slut?" Joanne wondered. "Because honestly, I don't see how she has the time for slut activities with those two preschoolers of hers. Me, I've got lots of time.”
“Curl moaned. Mattie rocked. Propelled by the sound, Mattie rocked her out of that bed, out of that room, into a blue vastness just underneath the sun and above time. She rocked her over Aegean seas so clean they shine like crystal, so clear the fresh blood of sacrificed babies torn from their mothers arms and given to Neptune could be seen like pink froth on the water. She rocked her on and on, past Dachau, where soul-gutted Jewish mothers swept their children's entrails off laboratory floors. They flew past the spilled brains of Senegalese infants whose mothers had dashed them on the wooden sides of slave ships. And she rocked on.
She rocked her into her childhood and let her see murdered dreams. And she rocked her back, back into the womb, to the nadir of her hurt, and they found it-a slight silver splinter, embedded just below the surface of her skin. And Mattie rocked and pulled-and the splinter gave way, but its roots were deep, gigantic, ragged, and they tore up flesh with bits of fat and muscle tissue clinging to them. They left a huge hole, which was already starting to pus over, but Mattie was satisfied. It would heal.”
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