Robert A. Heinlein · 276 pages
Rating: (16.9K votes)
“When it don’t rain, the roof don’t leak; when it rains, I can’t fix it nohow.”
“was no such thing as a “dangerous weapon,” there were only dangerous men.”
“That’s what I was trying to find out when we were rushed off on this damned safari. They have unusual intestinal flora and it may have something to do with that. But I think it has to do with the fact that they never stop growing.”
“It’s not that easy. You can make omelet from eggs, but not eggs from omelet.”
“Correct or not, he felt himself to be a useless pensioner, an impotent object of charity.”
“Life is short, but the years are long.”
“light-months—and it was now possible to infer by parainterferometric methods that the star (ZD9817, or simply “our” star) had planets of some sort.”
“A committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain.”
“Any custom is man-made and is therefore a finite attempt to describe an infinity of relationships. It follows as the night from day that any custom necessarily has its exceptions.”
“It is contrary to our customs to permit scientific knowledge to be held as a monopoly for the few. When concealing such knowledge strikes at life itself, the action becomes treason to the race.”
“Citizens are urged to tolerate cheerfully any minor inconvenience this may cause them; your right of privacy will be respected in every way possible; your right of free movement may be interrupted temporarily, but full economic restitution will be made.”
“Whenever the citizens fix their attention on one issue to the exclusion of others, the situation is ripe for scalawags, demagogues, ambitious men on horseback.”
“These dear souls came not to Sabbath school because it was popular to do so, nor did I teach them because it was reputable to be thus engaged. Every moment they spent in that school, they were liable to be taken up, and given thirty-nine lashes. They came because they wished to learn. Their minds had been starved by their cruel masters. They had been shut up in mental darkness. I taught them, because it was the delight of my soul to be doing something that looked like the bettering the condition of my race”
“We can take it slow,” he said. “You can learn to be with me. Find out what I’m all about. You never know, you might like what you find.”
“They say silence is golden. Maybe it is, although I’m not sure it's worth that much. It has its price certainly; you have to pay for it.”
“Do you always get so hungry when you make love?”
“When you love somebody.”
“I had my arms around his waist, smiling as I looked up at him. Being with Alex made me so completely happy, in an easy, uncomplicated way that I hadn't felt since I was a small child. "I love you," I said. In the five days we'd been there, it was the first time I'd said the words to him in English; they just slipped out.
Alex's expression went very still as he looked down at me, his dark hair stirred by the slight breeze. I picked up a sudden wave of his emotions, and they almost brought tears to my eyes. Gently, he took my face in his hands and kissed me.
"I love you, too," he said against my lips.”
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