Short Science Fiction quotes

“Well, I haven’t any money either, have I?” demanded Taylor. “But why worry about it?

You’re fifty, and worry hasn’t got you anything except a bald head. I’m thirty, and I want to keep my beautiful brown hair.

”

“Why not? Change would be good for us.”

“It is only in old age that change is unwelcome,” said the Astronomer, “and races can be old as well as individuals.”

The Industrialist pointed out the window. “You see that road. It was built Beforethewars. I don’t know exactly when. It is as good now as the day it was built. We couldn’t possibly duplicate it now. The race was young when that was built, eh?”

“The race is not going nowhere,” said the Astronomer, earnestly. “It is going toward final destruction. My university has a smaller student body each year. Fewer books are written. Less work is done.

An old man sleeps in the sun and his days are peaceful and unchanging, but each day finds him nearer death all the same.

”

“The atomic bombs,” returned the Astronomer, “need not be the end of civilization. These visitors of mine had their atomic bomb, or whatever their equivalent was on their own worlds, and survived it, because they didn’t give up. Don’t you see?

It wasn’t the bomb that defeated us, but our own shell shock.

This may be the last chance to reverse the process.”

“That is hard to say.

Friendship between alien intelligences is an imponderable.

They are not dangerous, I think. We’ve come across other groups that could not maintain equilibrium after the atomic war stage and you know the results. Introversion. Retreat. Gradual decadence and increasing gentleness.”

“Reason would say so, if what you say is true.

But creatures may be intelligent and not reasonable.

Our forefathers were presumably intelligent, yet they were certainly not reasonable. Was it reasonable to destroy almost all their tremendous civilization in atomic warfare over causes our historians can no longer accurately determine?” The Industrialist brooded over it.

Red became argumentative. “Look, Slim, we can’t start acting suspicious or they’re going to start investigating. Holy Smokes, don’t you ever read any detective stories?

When you’re trying to work a big deal without being caught, it’s practically the main thing to keep on acting just like always.

Then they don’t suspect anything. That’s the first law—”

The Industrialist found it impossible to organize himself to the point of directed thought. He turned to the Astronomer. “And with that weapon in their possession they let themselves be handled and caged? I don’t understand it.”

But the calm thought came, “We would not harm the young of an intelligent species.”

It was twilight. The Industrialist had entirely missed the evening meal and remained unaware of the fact.

Then another blizzard broke and the plane barely made it back to base and it was another two weeks before the weather was bearable again.

And all that time Jimmy was on the roof of the world by himself and I hated myself for a murderer.

The plane went back up two weeks later to see if they could spot his body. I don’t know what good it would have done if they had, but that’s the human race for you. How many dead in the last war?

The plane went back up two weeks later to see if they could spot his body. I don’t know what good it would have done if they had, but that’s the human race for you.

How many dead in the last war? Who can count that high? But money or anything else is no object to the saving of one life, or even the recovering of one body.

They didn’t find his body, but they did find a smoke signal; curling up in the thin air and whipping away in the gusts. They let down a grapple and Jimmy came up, still in his spacesuit, looking like hell, but definitely alive.

A kind of peace had endured for a century and people had forgotten what anything else was like.

They would scarcely have known how to react had they discovered that a kind of war had finally come.

No one said the “East,” or the “Reds” or the “Soviets” or the “Russians” any more. That would have been too confusing, since some of Them weren’t of the East, weren’t Reds, Soviets, and especially not Russians.

It was much simpler to say We and They, and much more precise.

Travelers had frequently reported that They did the same in reverse. Over there, They were “We” (in the appropriate language) and We were “They.”

T.C.! The race for sheer horror in bomb-ery had ended there. T.C.! Total Conversion! The sun was no longer a synonym one could use.

Total conversion made the sun a penny candle.

Ten humanoids, each completely harmless in separation, could, by the simple act of coming together, exceed critical mass and—

Amberley of Science could only say, “

Finding ten men in two hundred and twenty million is an awfully small needle in an awfully large haystack.

”