Quotes from Robert A. Heinlein

He never once repeated himself and he never used either profanity or obscenity. (I learned later that he saved those for very special occasions, which this wasn't.) But he described our shortcomings, physical, mental, moral, and genetic, in great and insulting detail. But somehow I was not insulted; I became greatly interested in studying his command of language. I wished that we had had him on our debate team.

Support for the arts—merde! A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!

If change threatens you, you become conservative in self-defense. If it thrills you, you become liberal in self-liberation. He says the Threateneds are frequently more successful in the short run, because they always fight dirty. But in the long run, they always lose, because Thrilled people learn and thus accomplish more.

What distinguishes Buddhism from any other faith I've studied—from most human beings, really—is that the people who face the wall and the people who face away from it have never fought a war over it. They're never going to agree…but they feel no need to. Buddha himself is supposed to have said, "People with opinions just go around bothering each other.

Do-gooding is like treating hemophilia—the real cure is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death . . . before they breed more hemophiliacs.

All symbols were in Smith's vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard rightly. He knew that he was food, but he did not "feel like" food. Nor had he any warning that he might be selected for such honor

property' is not the natural and obvious concept that most people think it is.

Ownership is a sophisticated abstraction, a mystical relationship.

These pretty pictures and bright medallions were not money; they were symbols for an idea which spread through these people, all through their world. But things were not money, any more than water shared was growing-closer. Money was an idea, as abstract as an Old-One's thoughts--money was a great structured symbol for balancing and healing and growing closer.

The capacity of humans to believe in what seems to me highly improbable

A credit card is a leash around your neck. In the world of credit cards a person has no privacy…

Why it can't be done is not acceptable; I must discover how it can be done.

Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws—always for other fellow.

Angeles was safe from invasion; the invaders wouldn't find a place to park—I

when you hear the bullet before you hear the gun, you are on the wrong end of the firing.

It was widely known though rarely mentioned that an eager young bride could accomplish in seven months or less what takes nine for cow or countess.

Once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system.

All human behavior, all human motivations, all man's hopes and fears, were colored and controlled by mankind's tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction

Don't 'Father' me! I can tell a hawk from a handsaw. Anybody can, Grandmother Hazel commented. The Hawk class is a purely commercial type while the Hanshaw runabout is a sport job. Come to think about it, boys, a Hanshaw might be better than a Douglas.

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. Its worst fault is that its leaders reflect their constituents—a low level, but what can you expect? So

Figures don't lie, but liars figure.

Oh. I told you about that click. Daddy says that, in a dilemma, it is helpful to change any variable, then reexamine the problem. I tried to introduce a change with my bubble gum.

A great artist can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is . . . and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be . . . more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo see that this lovely young girl is still alive, prisoned inside her ruined body.

I don't know. I do know that the slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth—then shut up. It