Home > Work > Stranger in a Strange Land
181 " Her calculations were sometimes a little fuzzy, for the same reason that her checkbook sometimes did not balance; Becky Vesey (as she had been known as a child) had never really mastered the multiplication tables and she was inclined to confuse sevens with nines. "
― Robert A. Heinlein , Stranger in a Strange Land
182 " Becky Vesey always gave good advice and she gave it with great conviction because she always believed it. "
183 " They were all three amazingly beautiful; they were also amazingly good secretaries. In Harshaw’s opinion the principle of least action required that utility and beauty be combined. "
184 " If you turn out to be useful as well as ornamental, you can stay forever. "
185 " In the course of nearly a century of gusty living he had been broke many times, had several times been wealthier than he now was; he regarded both conditions as he did shifts in the weather, and never counted his change. "
186 " He did not expect reasonable conduct from human beings; he considered most people fit candidates for protective restraint and wet packs. He simply wished heartily that they would leave him alone!—all but the few he chose for playmates. He was firmly convinced that, left to himself, he would have long since achieved nirvana . . . dived into his own belly button and disappeared from view, like those Hindu jokers. Why couldn’t they leave a man alone? "
187 " 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. "
188 " It doesn’t make sense. Or, rather, it makes just one kind of sense. Hanky-panky. Ben is as used to hanky-panky as a bride is to kisses. He didn’t get to be one of the best winchells in the business through playing his cards face up. "
189 " Anne is so thoroughly indoctrinated that it doesn’t even occur to her to infer that the other side is probably white, too. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t force her to commit herself as to the far side . . . unless she herself went around to the other side and looked—and even then she wouldn’t assume that it stayed whatever color it might be after she left . . . because they might repaint it as soon as she turned her back. "
190 " You’re not privileged to call me ‘Boss’; you’re not tax deductible. "
191 " I wish we had somebody here who never would be missed. Regrettably we are all friends. "
192 " I think you were telling the truth, Jill. But a dream is a true experience of a sort and so is a hypnotic delusion. "
193 " Everything and anything about a culture can be inferred from the shape of its language—and "
194 " Being aware that he had but a short time to live and having neither Martian nor Kansan faith in immortality, he purposed to live each golden moment as eternity—without "
195 " Mahmoud, sir. No, Doctor Mahmoud is not well. A—a slight nervous breakdown, sir.” Van Tromp reflected that being dead drunk was the moral equivalent thereof. "
196 " Good!” the creature echoed. “Doctor Nelson will be along in a minute. Feel like some breakfast?” All four symbols in the query were in Smith’s vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard them rightly. He knew that he was food, but he did not “feel like” food. Nor had he had any warning that he might be selected for such an honor. He had not known that the food supply was such that it was necessary to reduce the corporate group. He was filled with mild regret, since there was still so much to grok of these new events, but no reluctance. "
197 " He knew vaguely that he did not want the nurse to die at that moment, even though it was certainly its right and possibly its obligation to do so. "
198 " Ben Caxton, I will lie right here in the grass and starve before I will get up to push a button that is six inches from your right forefinger. "
199 " Want to back out?” Jill let out a long breath. “No. I’ve always wanted a life of crime. Will you teach me gangster lingo? I want to be a credit to you. "
200 " In the fifteenth century the Pope deeded the entire western hemisphere to Spain and Portugal and nobody paid the slightest attention to the fact that the real estate was already occupied by several million Indians with their own laws, customs, and notions of property rights. His grant deed was pretty effective, too. Take a look at a western hemisphere map sometime and notice where Spanish is spoken and where Portuguese is spoken—and see how much land the Indians have left. "