Quotes from Robert A. Heinlein

But when I see a black widow, I step on it; I don't plead with it to be a good little spider and please stop poisoning people.

Nothing gives life more zest that running for your life.

good luck' follows careful preparation; 'bad luck' comes from sloppiness.

A little more money won't do you any good - because daughters can use up ten percent more than a man can make in any normal occupation, regardless of the amount.

Some logics get nervous breakdowns. Overloaded phone system behaves like frightened child. Mike did not have upsets, acquired sense of humor instead. Low one. If he were a man, you wouldn't dare stoop over. His idea of thigh-slapper would be to dump you out of bed — or put itch powder in pressure suit.

Cats, like butterflies, need no excuse.

Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.

I was just pulling your leg and it came off in my hand.

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

Harshaw had the arrogant humility of the man who has learned so much that he is aware of his own ignorance and he saw no point in 'measurements' when he did not know what he was measuring.

Because the world has gone nutty and art always paints the spirit of its times

You were probably educated in the conventional economic theories of your period which were magnificent and most ingenious, but--if you will pardon my saying so--all wrong.

There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.

Democracy is a poor system; the only thing that can be said for it is that it's eight times as good as any other method.

How is a sincere criminal, trying hard, going to get ahead in his profession if his victim fails to cooperate?

Yes, sir, there are things to see and do on the French Riviera without spending money.

God made alcohol and he made feet - and he made 'em so you could put 'em together and be happy!

An honest politician is one that stays bought.

Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe - and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land! Why don't you go whole hog? Get him a brief case and make him carry it wherever he goes - make him feel shame if he doesn't have it.

I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing.

My only regret involved the sad knowledge that I could not handle the amount of alcohol I would have enjoyed. "Easy is the descent into Hell.

Mike did not seem to grasp the idea of Creation itself. Well, Jubal wasn't sure that he did, either--he had long ago made a pact with himself to postulate a Created Universe on even-numbered days, a tail-swallowing eternal-and-uncreated Universe on odd-numbered days--since each hypothesis, while equally paradoxical, neatly avoided the paradoxes of the other--with, of course, a day off each year for sheer solipsist debauchery.

Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated out of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing—with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second and third place.

If the universe has any purpose more important than topping a woman you love and making a baby with her hearty help, I've never heard of it.