Quotes from Ben Bova

When I started understanding how science works, it occurred to me that there just is no evidence that there is a God.

Feeding the starving poor only increases their number.

The problem is that Americans would like to be independent of the rest of the world ... Except the world ain't that way. Trying to be independent of the rest of the world is to commit suicide.

Red tape has killed more people than bullets...

A fanatic who is willing to die for his cause thinks nothing of killing you for his cause.

The Old Ones knew that life is not rare, but precious; not fragile, but vulnerable. Life is as deep as the seas in which it was born, as strong as the mountains that give it shelter, as universal as the stars themselves.

In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.

As long as we're tied to Middle Eastern oil we're tied to Middle Eastern politics. We're hostages to the terrorists and nutcases who want to wipe out Israel and the United States because we support Israel.

We try to teach our students how to think... how to use their brains and imagination. Individual subjects can always be learned by a man who knows how to learn. We teach them to think, and the other subjects arise by themselves...

And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand.

Lolling around libraries paging through books that haven't been checked out since 1975 is one of my principal joys as a writer.

The first thing he thinks of is weaponry, killing his fellow humans. The second thing is power.

The only thing he thinks of is himself, Stoner pointed out. In his deepest heart he does not regard anyone else as truly human; no one except himself. He is the center of his world. Everything and everyone else revolves around him.

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Palmer was talking with only the surface of his mind, his cheek muscles bobbing as if he were chewing his thoughts and finding them tough.

You can't hate a man you understand.

Whenever a religious movement has gained the reins of governmental power, individual liberties are strangled.

The most arduous part of learning is preparing the mind to accept new knowledge.

Words are important he realized, especially in a nation ruled by its media.

So I started to wonder if I actually could reenter the unicorn's world…at which point Sooz came into my head and the story just happened. It flowed. It was the exact opposite of my experience writing The Last Unicorn. I locked onto her voice, the voice of this nine-and-a-half-year-old girl who was telling the story from the first sentence, and I just followed her. It was one of the very rare occasions where I felt from beginning to end that I knew what I was doing.

The conservatives running the government have always been against the exploration of Mars. What we've found goes against their religious beliefs.

They may not know it," DiNardo said, his smile becoming genuine, "but even the most stubborn atheist among them is working to uncover God's ways.

Do you really think that you're some sort of superior creature? Do you think that your ability to make money, to steal and lie and murder, places you above normal men?

How many fools have looked forward to the adventure that killed them.