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141 " 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. "
― Robert A. Heinlein , Stranger in a Strange Land
142 " I’m a professional bad example. You can learn a lot by watching me. Or listening to me. Either one. "
143 " There is no safety this side of the grave. "
144 " Well, I’ll stick to the Old Testament, picking it to pieces usually doesn’t upset people quite so much. "
145 " I don’t pay attention to politics.” “You should. It’s barely less important than your own heart beat.” “I don’t pay attention to that, either. "
146 " Dr. Jubal Harshaw, professional clown, amateur subversive, and parasite by choice, had long attempted to eliminate “hurry” and all related emotions from his pattern. Being aware that he had but a short time left to live and having neither Martian nor Kansan faith in his own immortality, it was his purpose to live each golden moment as if it were eternity—without fear, without hope, but with sybaritic gusto. "
147 " They want to use him, make him geek. "
148 " Dorcas, you already reek like a Marseilles cat house; don't wheedle Mike for more stinkum. "
149 " All right, all right, have it your own way! I can’t prove I’m right—so I must be wrong. Men! "
150 " Harshaw was working as hard as he ever worked. Most of his mind was occupied with watching pretty girls do pretty things with sun and water; "
151 " Remind me,” Jubal said to her, “to write a popular article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers. The title is ‘Gossip Unlimited’—no, make that ‘Gossip Gone Wild. "
152 " If I choose to dine with publicans and sinners, that is my business. But I do not choose to break bread with Pharisees. "
153 " It is not nonsense and nobody asked you; you aren’t competent to have an opinion about it. "
154 " He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word—such as “grok” which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife. "
155 " Nope. Gadflies such as yourself are utterly necessary. Nor am I opposed to ‘turning the rascals out’—it’s usually the soundest rule of politics. But it’s well to take a look at what new rascals you are going to get before you jump at any chance to turn your present rascals out. "
156 " Even Lot might have been mistaken. But that’s what he promised ‘em – his virgin daughters, young and tender and scared – urged this street gang to rape them as much as they wished in any way that they liked...if only they would leave him in peace!” Jubal snorted in disgust. “And the Bible cites this sort of scum as being a righteous man. "
157 " 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. "
158 " Big money isn’t hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of single-minded devotion to acquiring it and making it grow into more money, to the utter exclusion of all other interests. "
159 " Jill, of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of ‘altruism’ is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. "
160 " I hope he’s just a scoundrel . . . because a saint can stir up ten times as much mischief as a scoundrel. "