Quotes from Larry Niven

How do you tell an antagonized kzin from an unantagonized one?

He had learned to embrace insanity. The full measure of his madness was that he had even come to like humans

They got out and ran toward half of a bridge. Below the bridge's twisted end was fire. Fire crawled away from the greater blaze, stopped, convulsed, then fell still. The car burned, casting its bonfire light on the canyon and the stream at its bottom.

Rip. "Velcro.

sepulchers.

Kevin, yours won so many arguments that she was made a teacher

The empire purchased mines (by forced sale?), mined its own ore

A glow of solar corona showed over the edge of the shadow square.

How often had life begun on Earth, and been scalded from its face, and formed again?

But if he's right, then… Harvey glanced at the globe he had brought from his office. He had outlined circles in Magic Marker: the Sea of Japan, the Bay of Bengal, the arc of islands that mark the Indies Sea, a double circle within the Gulf of Mexico. If an asteroid strike had made any one of those, the oceans would have boiled, all life would have been cremated. How often had life begun on Earth, and been scalded from its face, and formed again?

Heat is produced as a waste product of civilization. I

brachiating hominids.

I can help your world, Louis. Your people know little about sex. Which statement Louis prudently let slide.

Remember the Finagle Laws. The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. The universe is hostile.

One minute with him is all I ask; one minute alone with him, while you're runnin' for th' priest an' th' doctor. - Sean O'Casey, The Plow and the Stars

Harry Kane used a word your publisher will cut.

dealt with biology, and Fistarteh-thuktun had studied it before. Hierarchies of plant life to the left, animal life to the right. Tiny, ancient single-nucleated life at the bottom, scaling toward complex warm-blooded air breathers at the top. Simple sketches at every level.

I just wondered if the puppeteers didn't get their name by playing god with the species around them. They've treated humans and kzinti like puppets; there's no denying that.

When every page has been read and the book has been put down, is the story over? Some stories flow onward through the reader's imagination. Some authors leave playgrounds for the reader's mind

Admiral's compliments, and you're to come to his office right away, Midshipman Staley announced.

Then why don't you marry him? Sally laughed. I don't want to jump into anything. 'Marry in haste, repent at leisure.' I can get married any time. Her trained objectivity made her add, Well, any time within the next five years. I'll be something of a spinster if I'm not married by then.

You, the car, you don't belong here.

Hierarchies of plant life to the left, animal life to the right. Tiny, ancient single-nucleated life at the bottom, scaling toward complex warm-blooded air breathers at the top. Simple sketches at every level.

If you can find a way to stabilize this structure, do so. Sure, your people could use the room. If you should stabilize the Ringworld with help from my equipment, I want credit. I may want to ask a reward. Valavirgillin snarled and choked off a reply. Louis said quickly, You'll get the credit you deserve.