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The Stars My Destination QUOTES

The Stars My Destination QUOTES

41 " Millions for nonsense but not one cent for entropy. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

42 " She walks. She talks. She adapts. She has been conditioned to respond to the highest bidder. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

43 " A Snow Joint. Might have known he'd be running a dive for hop-heads too.'
This joint catered to Disease Collectors, the most hopeless of neurotic-addicts. They lay in their hospital beds, suffering mildly from illegally induced para-measles, para-flu, para-malaria; devotedly attended by nurses in starched white uniforms, and avidly enjoying their illegal illness and the attention it brought. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

44 " It was an age of freaks, monsters, and grotesques. All the world was misshapen in marvelous and malevolent ways. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

45 " Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

46 " A man is a member of society first, and an individual second. You must go along with society, whether it chooses destruction or not. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

47 " The man who upsets the morphology of society is a cancer. The man who gives his own decisions priority over society is a criminal. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

48 " Cellar Christians!” Foyle exclaimed. He and Robin peered through the window. Thirty worshippers of assorted faiths were celebrating the New Year with a combined and highly illegal service. The twenty-fifth century had not yet abolished God, but it had abolished organized religion. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

49 " Are you that dreadful man with the circus, Fourmyle?” “Sure you are. Smile.” “I am, madam. You may touch me.” “Why, you actually seem proud. Are you proud of your bad taste?” “The problem today is to have any taste at all.” “The problem today is to have any taste at all. I think I’m lucky.” “Lucky but dreadfully indecent.” “Indecent but not dull.” “And dreadful but delightful. Why aren’t you cavorting now?” “I’m ‘under the influence,’ Madam.” “Oh dear. Are you drunk? I’m Lady Shrapnel. When will you be sober again?” “I’m under your influence, Lady Shrapnel.” “You wicked young man. Charles! Charles, come here and save Fourmyle. I’m ruining him. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

50 " It isn't necessary to have something to believe in. It's only necessary to believe that somewhere there's something worthy of belief. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

51 " Any man was capable of jaunting provided he developed two faculties, visualization and concentration. He had to visualize, completely and precisely, the spot to which he desired to teleport himself; and he had to concentrate the latent energy of his mind into a single thrust to get him there. Above all, he had to have faith. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

52 " There was the taste of a strand of cool pearls in his mouth "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

53 " So, in five seconds, he was born, he lived and he died. After thirty years of existence and six months of torture, Gully Foyle, the stereotype Common Man was no more. The key turned in the lock of his soul and the door was opened. What emerged expunged the Common Man for ever. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

54 " The jaunting age had crystallized the hoboes, tramps and vagabonds of the world into a new class. It followed the night from east to west, always in darkness, always in search of loot, the leavings of disaster, carrion. If earthquake shattered a warehouse, they were jacking it the following night. If fire opened a house or explosion split the defenses of a shop, they jaunted in and scavenged. They called themselves Jack-Jaunters. They were jackals. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

55 " Don't you ever run away?'
'Never. Escape is for cripples. Neurotics. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

56 " The ancient Sklotsky sect of White Russia, believing that sex was the root of all evil, practiced an atrocious self-castration to extirpate the root. The modern Sklotskys, believing that sensation was the root of all evil, practiced an even more barbaric custom. Having entered the Sklotsky Colony and paid a fortune for the privilege, the initiates submitted joyously to an operation that severed the sensory nervous system, and lived out their days without sight, sound, speech, smell, taste or touch. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

57 " How is it brought to critical mass. Presteign? How is the energy released?'
'As the original energy was generated, in the beginning of time,' Presteign droned. 'Through Will and Idea. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

58 " Every child in the world imagines that its phantasy world is unique to itself. Psychiatry knows that the joys and terrors of private phantasies are a common heritage shared by all mankind. Fears, guilts, terrors, and shames could be interchanged, from one man to the next, and none would notice the difference. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

59 " The Spanish Stairs were destroyed in the fission wars of the late twentieth century. They were rebuilt and destroyed again in the war of the World Restoration in the twenty-first century. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination

60 " Don't you realize that you can't trust people? They don't know enough for their own good.'
'Then let them learn or die. We're all in this together. Let's live together or die together. "

― Alfred Bester , The Stars My Destination