Joe Haldeman

“Men started to geoform the earth in the middle of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, a lot of the early work was done by people who failed to see the earth as a closed set of mutually interrelated systems.”

“CAROL: You don’t care for the music?JACQUE: Music! It’s just a gimmick to sell lutes and flutes.”

““We’re inferring from an absence of data,” Jacque said. “That’s lousy science.””

“Big money seeks out the company of its own, for purposes of reproduction.”

“I have always valued quiet, and the eternity of it that I face is no more dreadful than the eternity of quiet that preceded my birth.”

“In a physical way we’re closer than any civilian pair could be, since in full combat jack we are this one creature with twenty arms and legs, with ten brains, with five vaginas and five penises.Some people call the feeling godlike, and I think there have been gods who were constructed along similar lines. The one I grew up with was an old white-bearded Caucasian gent without even one vagina.”

“Maybe after the war we’ll be civilized again. That’s the way it has always happened in the past.”

“One thing most of us agree on is that the universe exists (people who deny that usually follow some trade other than science), so if some theoretical particle interaction would lead ultimately to the nonexistence of the universe, then you can save a lot of electricity by not trying to demonstrate it.”

“We did it with their government’s foreknowledge and permission, of course—and there were no civilian casualties, equally of course. Once they’re dead they’re rebels.”

“It was an ideological war for some—the defenders of democracy versus the rebel strong-arm charismatic leaders. Or the capitalist land-grabbers versus the protectors of the people, take your pick.”

“Like a lot of things that everybody knows, it wasn’t true.”

“She smiled. “I wouldn’t mind. Is that a difference between men and women or between you and me?”“I think it’s a difference between you and merely sane people.””

“Nobody else in that platoon can tell a Hamiltonian from a hamburger.”

““You were a Jesuit?”“Franciscan. We run a close second in being pains in the ass.””

“Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human.”

““You’re actually a soldier,” he said to me, “and you go along with this foolishness?”“I didn’t ask to be a soldier. And I can’t imagine a peace as foolish as this war we’re in.””

““Some are born crazy,” Amelia said. “Some achieve craziness. We had craziness thrust upon us.””

“It was so much more complicated than it had to be, but the changeling had noted that this was true of every human biological function that wasn’t involuntary.”

“Rationalism doesn’t require “belief,” only observation. The real, measurable world doesn’t care what you believe.”

“If you asked him, he would say the only connection between free will and religion in his life was the fact that he hadn’t set foot in a synagogue since he turned eighteen.”

““Everybody rich and happy.” She smiled. “Also complacent and rather stupid, you may have noticed.””

“She hadn’t been such a bad girl before the power went to her head.”

“Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there...the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted.”

“I had to stifle an impulse to laugh. Surely “cowardice“ had nothing to do with his decision. Surely he had nothing so primitive and unmilitary as a will to live.”

“It was making me a little queasy. Doctors don’t seem to realize that most of us are perfectly content not having to visualize ourselves as animated bags of skin filled with obscene glop.”

“I never found anyone else and I don’t want anyone else. I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty. If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse.”