Quotes from Harry Harrison

Most comic scriptwriters are very bad. The artists are good, but the writers are so bad.

Skop screamed when they all looked at him, shouted it was all a trick, and had to be clubbed unconscious when he attacked the bowmen. Understanding had come to Pyrrus.

DIS ... DIS ... DIS ... it was a word it was a planet and the word thundered like a drum a drum the sound of its thunder surrounded and was a wasteland a planet of death a planet where living was dying and dying was very better than living DIS

They are living symbols of the state of decay of our culture, just as this wasteland is a vastly more important symbol, that is why I am here.

I went to sleep with the tape player whispering softly in my ears such ego-building epigrams as, 'You are better than everyone else and you know it, and people who don't know it had better watch out,' and 'They are all fools and if you were in charge things would be different, and why aren't you in charge, it's easy enough.

Minder of my body you may be. But minder of my soul you are not. What do you say I call the shots and you go along to shoot the monsters? O.K.?

If you want the little luxuries of life you have to be prepared to pay for them.

That was foolish of me, she said coldly while she reloaded the gun. I don't need a gun. If I had to kill him, I could do it with my bare hands. I love you, too, Jason smiled at her.

Snorting with disgust, Meta stamped out.

I could say. "Well I damn well knew what

A pushed-back cap had the crossed slide-rule symbol of ship's computer man.

Men should be spoiled, it makes them easier to live with.

In 1950 the United States—with just 9.5 per cent of the world's population—was consuming 50 per cent of the world's raw materials.

Women! They insist on mixing everything up together. Perhaps they operate better that way, but it is very hard on those of us who find that keeping emotion and logic separate produces sounder thinking.

Ever see a plant with teeth—that bite? I don't think you want to. You'd have to be on Pyrrus and that means you would be dead within seconds of leaving the ship.

Captain Chung Pei-fu of the Koumintang Army. A career soldier who had dedicated his life to war and who had never fought a battle.

Like all of the other sciences, we have found out that the more we know, the more there is to know.

We no longer attempt to guide cultures towards what we consider a beneficial goal. There are too many goals, and from our limited vantage point it is hard to tell the good ones from the bad ones. All we do now is try to protect the growing cultures, give a little jolt to the stagnating ones—and bury the dead ones.

It is amazing the things people will believe if you catch them early enough.

Morning sickness and bank robbery doesn't mix well.

The first and most obvious difference would be the absence of Iceland, for these volcanic islands mark the place where the meteor struck and penetrated to the mantle below.

All laws and ideas are historical and relative, not absolute. They are relevant to their particular time and place

Mankind invents cultures—and cultures invent myths to justify and explain their existence. Prominent among these are the myths and ceremonies of the rites of passage for boys. The passage from boyhood to manhood. This is the time when the boy is separated from his mother and the other women. In some primitive cultures the boys go and live with the men—and never see their mothers again.

Once a plan is made it must always be followed to the letter. It should only be changed if outside circumstances change. Man is a rationalizing animal and needs training in order to become a rational one.