Home > Work > Stranger in a Strange Land
101 " God made alcohol and he made feet - and he made 'em so you could put 'em together and be happy! "
― Robert A. Heinlein , Stranger in a Strange Land
102 " Mike did not seem to grasp the idea of Creation itself. Well, Jubal wasn't sure that he did, either--he had long ago made a pact with himself to postulate a Created Universe on even-numbered days, a tail-swallowing eternal-and-uncreated Universe on odd-numbered days--since each hypothesis, while equally paradoxical, neatly avoided the paradoxes of the other--with, of course, a day off each year for sheer solipsist debauchery. "
103 " The capacity of a human mind to believe devoutly in what seems to me to be the highly improbable - from table tapping to the superiority of their own children - has never been plumbed. Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it --- especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible. "
104 " Jill... had explained homosexuality, after Mike had read about it and failed to grok--and had given him rules for avoiding passes; she knew that Mike, pretty as he was, would attract such. He had followed her advice and had made his face more masculine, instead of the androgynous beauty he had had. But Jill was not sure that Mike would refuse a pass, say, from Duke--fortunately Mike's male water brothers were decidedly masculine, just as his others were very female women. Jill suspected that Mike would grok a 'wrongness' in the poor in-betweeners anyhow--they would never be offered water. "
105 " Now let me get something straight: you are not in my debt. You can't be. Impossible - because I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it. So please don't invent a debt that does not exist, or before you know it you will be trying to feel gratitude - and that is the treacherous first step downward to complete moral degradation. "
106 " 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. "
107 " To support his austerely upholstered nest and its rabble staff he put forth minimum effort for maximum return simply because it was easier to be rich than to be poor - Harshaw merely wished to live exactly as he liked, doing whatever he thought was best for him. "
108 " I am all that I grok. "
109 " The capacity of humans to believe in what seems to me highly improbable- from table tapping to the superiority of their children- has never been plumbed. "
110 " Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith. "
111 " Customs, morals—is there a difference? Woman, do you realize what you are doing? Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe—and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land! Why don’t you go whole hog? Get him a brief case and make him carry it wherever he goes—make him feel shame if he doesn’t have it. "
112 " That God is in truth the sort of bloodthirsty paranoid Who would rend to bits forty-two children for the crime of sassing one of his priests. Don't ask me about the Front Office's policies; I just work here. "
113 " I want to spit back at a camel and ask him what he's so sour about. Maybe camels are the real 'Old Ones' on this planet ... and that what is wrong with the place. "
114 " Foster had in common with every great religious leader of that planet two traits: he had an extremely magnetic personality, and sexually he did not fall near the human norm. On Earth great religious leaders were always either celibate or the antithesis. Foster was not celibate. (p.289) "
115 " His claim to Mars is lawyers' hogwash; as a lawyer myself I need not respect it. "
116 " in a matter of some generations all the stupid ones will die out and those with your discipline will inherit the Earth "
117 " There was one field in which man was unsurpassed; he showed unlimited ingenuity in devising bigger and more efficient ways to kill off, enslave, harass, and in all ways make an unbearable nuisance of himself to himself. Man was his own grimmest joke on himself. The very bedrock of humor was— “Man is the animal who laughs, "
118 " The verdict to be passed on the third planet around Sol was never in doubt. "
119 " …certain feet were made for stepping on ,in order to improve the breed, promote the general welfare and minimize the ancient insolence of office.. "
120 " My dear, religion is a null area in the law. A church can do anything any organization can do—and has no restrictions. It pays no taxes, need not publish records, is effectively immune to search, inspection, or control—and a church is anything that calls itself a church. Attempts have been made to distinguish between ‘real’ religions entitled to immunities, and ‘cults.’ It can’t be done, short of establishing a state religion . . . a cure worse than the disease. "