Quotes from Lucifer's Hammer

Larry Niven ·  629 pages

Rating: (36.1K votes)


“The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer


“Hopeless causes are the only ones worth fighting for. The fight for the taxpayer is the most hopeless of them all.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer


“The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in.   - Robert A. Heinlein”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer


“Spray a book with insect spray, drop it in a bag, add some mothballs and seal it. Put it in another bag and seal it. Another. The packages piled up on the floor, each a book sealed in four plastic envelopes.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer


“To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer



“Dune; Nova; Double Star; The Corridors of Time; Cat's Cradle; Half Past Human; Murder in Retrospect; Gideon's Day; The Red Right Hand; The Trojan Hearse; A Deadly Shade of Gold; Conjure Wife; Rosemary's Baby; Silverlock; King Conan. He'd packed books not to entertain, nor even to illustrate philosophies of life, but to rebuild civilization.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer


“work, whatever it must be, is the service of God and of the community and therefore the expression of man's dignity. - Emil Brunner, Gifford Lectures, 1948”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer


“Johnny, did you ever hear of the Club of Rome?" Johnny had, but the audience would need reminding. "They were the people who did computer simulations to find out how long we could get along on our natural resources. Even with zero population growth—" "They tell us we're finished," Sharps broke in. "And that's stupid. We're only finished because they won't let us really use technology. They say we're running out of metals. There's more metal in one little asteroid than was mined all over the world in the last five years! And there are hundreds of thousands of asteroids. All we have to do is go get 'em." "Can we?" "You bet! Even with the technology we already have, we could do it. Johnny, out there in space it's raining soup, and we don't even know about soup bowls.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer


“A civilization has the ethics it can afford. We”
― Larry Niven, quote from Lucifer's Hammer


About the author

Larry Niven
Born place: in Los Angeles, California, The United States
Born date April 30, 1938
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Popular quotes

“L’essere o il nulla, ecco il problema. Salire, scendere, andare, venire; tanto fa l’uomo che alla fine sparisce. Un tàssi lo reca, un metró lo porta via, la torre non ci bada, e il Pàntheon neppure. Parigi è solo un sogno, Gabriel è solo un’ombra (incantevole), Zazie il sogno d’un’ombra (o di un incubo) e tutta questa storia il sogno di un sogno, l’ombra di un’ombra, poco più di un delirio scritto a macchina da un romanziere idiota (oh! mi scusi). Laggiù, oltre, un po’ oltre, Place de la République, si accatastano tombe dei parigini che furono, che salirono e scesero scale, andarono e vennero per le vie e tanto fecero che alla fine sparirono. Un forcipe li introdusse, un carro funebre li porta via e la torre si arrugginisce e il Pàntheon si screpola più presto di quanto le ossa dei morti fin troppo presenti non si dissolvano nell’humus della città tutto impregnato di affanni. Ma sono vivo, io, e qui s’arresta la mia scienza perché del tassimane sparito nel suo trespolo a tassametro o di mia nipote sospesa a trecento metri nell’atmosfera o della mia sposa, la dolce Marceline, rimasta presso il focolare domestico, in questo preciso momento io non so, e qui non so, se non questo, endecasillabicamente: eccoli quasi morti perché assenti.”
― Raymond Queneau, quote from Zazie in the Metro


“For a moment I felt the terror. The deep primeval terror of something one does not understand, something which is against nature or, at the least, against everything one has ever seen or known before.”
― Philippa Gregory, quote from The Favored Child


“Where’s the training ground?”
He thought he knew my reason for asking. “Oh no you don’t,” he said. “This isn’t Sparta. You heard what Lord Oeneus thinks of women who act like men. You’ll offend him.”
“What offends him is women who do better than men,” I said. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to do sword practice with any of them.” I indicated the still-swaggering hunters. “If one of them beats me, he’ll claim I had twelve arms, six heads, and spat poison. I just want to watch how you’re all preparing for the hunt.”
“Well, well, so you want to watch men exercising?” Castor snickered. “My little sister’s growing up!”
I gave him a hard look. “The boar isn’t the only pig around here.”
That made him laugh outright. “Ah, Helen, I’m only joking.”
― Esther M. Friesner, quote from Nobody's Princess


“The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion.”
― Stephen Greenblatt, quote from The Swerve: How the World Became Modern


“Moving closer to the edge, I peered down. The water was glassy green, extraordinarily clear. I experienced the feeling I sometimes get when I'm on a bridge or a railway platform. Rationally, you know that you've no intention of stepping off the bridge or the platform - or this ice floe - but you're aware that you could, and that the only thing stopping you is your will.”
― Michelle Paver, quote from Dark Matter


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