Home > Work > Ringworld (Ringworld, #1)
21 " The air smelled of ozone and puppeteers. "
― Larry Niven , Ringworld (Ringworld, #1)
22 " Then you can go home to the puppeteer worlds and tell them that mucking with human breeding habits is a chancy business. Tell them that enough Teela Browns could make a hash of all the laws of probability. Even basic physics is nothing more than probability at the atomic level. Tell them the universe is too complicated a toy for a sensibly cautious being to play with. "
23 " Louis Wu hardly noticed this triumph of practicality over honor, intelligence over xenophobia. "
24 " Because she was designed human, before Nessus made her something else. Tanj him! Do you see what he did? He created god in his own image, his own idealized image, and he got Teela Brown. "She's just what any puppeteer would give his soul to be. She can't be injured. She can't even be uncomfortable, unless it's for her own benefit. "
25 " Skill. She must know more anatomy than most professors. A doctorate in Prostitution? There was more to the oldest profession than met the eye. Louis Wu could recognize expertise in any field. This woman had it. "
26 " She risks her own life, Louis thought, then blames me for not getting angry. An attention-getting device? How long has she been doing it? Anyone else would die young, with a habit like that! "
27 " It does not disturb me to play a god," he said. "It disturbs me to play a god badly. "
28 " Heat is produced as a waste product of civilization." "I "
29 " I can help your world, Louis. Your people know little about sex." Which statement Louis prudently let slide. "
30 " Remember the Finagle Laws. The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. The universe is hostile. "
31 " 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. "
32 " He was sure now. Teela Brown had never been hurt; had never learned caution; did not understand fear. Her first pain would come as a horrifying surprise. It might destroy her entirely. The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools. She'd be hurt over Louis Wu's dead body. "
33 " If you can heat some bourbon, I can drink it," said the kzin. "If you cannot heat it, I can still drink it." "Nessus? "
34 " Love was a delicious blend of warm and cold. There was comfort in making love. It solved no problems: but one could run away from problems. "
35 " All were looking for enclaves of civilization. None had thought to build his own. "
36 " Skyscrapers," said Speaker. "With so much room on the Ringworld, why build so tall?" "To prove they can do it. No, that's asinine," said Louis. "There'd be no point, if they could build something like the Ringworld itself." "Perhaps the tall buildings came later, during the decline of civilization. "
37 " Strange. I would have thought that humor was an aspect of intelligence." "No. Humor is associated with an interrupted defense mechanism." "All the same—" "Speaker, no sapient being ever interrupts a defense mechanism. "