Home > Author > Alfred Bester
21 " Eight, sir; seven, sir;Six, sir; five, sir;Four, sir; Three, sir;Two, sir; one!Tenser, said the Tensor.Tenser, said the Tensor.Tension, apprehension,And dissension have begun. "
― Alfred Bester , The Demolished Man
22 " There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot."Then find it yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts. "
― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination
23 " If a man's got talent and guts to buck society, he's obviously above average. You want to hold on to him. You straighten him out and turn him into a plus value. Why throw him away? Do that enough and all you've got left are the sheep. "
24 " Why is life? Don't ask about it. Live it. "
25 " This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it. "
26 " You pigs, you. You rut like pigs, is all. You got the most in you, and you use the least. You hear me, you? Got a million in you and spend pennies. Got a genius in you and think crazies. Got a heart in you and feel empties. All a you. Every you... "
27 " Vorga, I kill you filthy. "
28 " The damnable frustration of revenge. Revenge is for dreams...never for reality. "
29 " We always do what’s natural, only sometimes we shouldn’t do it. "
30 " You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory. "
31 " In the endless universe there has been nothing new, nothing different. What has appeared exceptional to the minute mind of man has been inevitable to the infinite Eye of God. This strange second in a life, that unusual event, those remarkable coincidences of environment, opportunity, and encounter … all of them have been reproduced over and over on the planet of a sun whose galaxy revolves once in two hundred million years and has revolved nine times already. There has been joy. There will be joy again. "
32 " You can tell when a Hollywood historical film was made by looking at the eye makeup of the leading ladies, and you can tell the date of an old science fiction novel by every word on the page. Nothing dates harder and faster and more strangely than the future. "
33 " Millions for nonsense, but not one cent for entropy. "
34 " We don’t punish criminals in our enlightened age, we cure ‘em; and the cure is worse than punishment. "
35 " Listen,” he cried in exaltation. “Listen, normals! You must learn what it is. You must learn how it is. You must tear the barriers down. You must tear the veils away. We see the truth you cannot see … That there is nothing in man but love and faith, courage and kindness, generosity and sacrifice. All else is only the barrier of your blindness. One day we’ll all be mind to mind and heart to heart … "
36 " One of the things that everybody knows about space travel but never mentions is its aphrodisiac quality. "
― Alfred Bester , Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester
37 " Listen, normals! You must learn what it is. You must learn how it is. You must tear the barriers down. You must tear the veils away. We see the truth you cannot see... That there is nothing in man but love and faith, courage and kindness, generosity and sacrifice. All else is only the barrier of your blindness. One day we'll all be mind to mind and heart to heart... "
38 " They were blind to a cold fact of evolution…that progress stems from the clashing merger of antagonistic extremes, out of the marriage of pinnacle freaks. "
39 " The acid of fury ran through him, eating away the brute patience and sluggishness that had made a cipher of Gully Foyle, precipitating a chain of reactions that would make an infernal machine of Gully Foyle. He was dedicated. "
40 " I'm treating you like a relative. I don't pay enough for the privilege. "