Quotes from Larry Niven

my fur is matted, my eyes refuse to refocus, my sthondat-begotten room is too small, my microwave heater heats all meat to the same temperature, and it is the wrong temperature, and I cannot get it fixed.

The State has a superfluity of testicles, Peersa said with no particular emphasis.

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

Gradually he was learning the size, the scale of the Ringworld. It was unpleasant, like all learning processes. He

in intelligence work we have to go by capabilities, not by intentions. If a potential enemy can do something to you, you have to prepare for it, without regard to what you think he wants to do.

I need exercise and solitude. This time of confinement has threatened my sanity!

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. -H. Poincare

I see war as that insane enterprise wherein men dig up the riches of the earth and hurl them at one another. —ATTRIBUTED TO JOSEPH DANIEL HARRINGTON

He felt brittle, and ravenous.

You probably used fusion bombs against the Girls.

Once Louis Wu had sworn to live forever.

They do not use lasers, they do not use radio, they do not use hyperwave. What are they using for communication? Telepathy? Written messages? Big mirrors? Parrots, Louis suggested. He got up to join them at the door to the control room. Huge parrots, specially bred for their oversized lungs. They're too big to fly. They just sit on hilltops and scream at each other.

A civilization has the ethics it can afford. We

One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better

Species evolve to meet the environment. An intelligent species changes the environment to suit itself. As soon as a species becomes intelligent, it should stop evolving.

There were the meaningless greetings the humans called formalities: insincere inquiries into the state of health, nebulous benedictions and hopes for past well-being; all compensations for the lack of human Mediators.

The hammer has fallen.

Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked. Cargill

Louis Wu, react. Louis answered. You've started something you can't stop. You've attacked two war fleets, three if you count the Fleet of Worlds. Political structures get old and die, Bram, but information never gets lost anymore. Storage is too good.

Retreat, hell! We're just attacking in the opposite direction! - U.S. Marine Corps commander,  Changjin Reservoir, Korea

That's the only part that bugs me about this. It's so empty out there." "True. On the other hand, if the Sun blows up we'll be in an unrivaled position to say, 'What was that?'" "Oh

God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.

Engineers. You had to love them. (The alternative was strangling them, and he didn't want that catching on.) There

From afar he saw what Speaker was doing, and he called Hold it! That's not necessary. Speaker had drawn the modified digging tool. He said, Does it have to be necessary?