Charles Sheffield Quotes

“I wonder why somebody would go to all that trouble to make a complete fool of himself.”
“Come on, Gina, we both know why.”
“Oh, I guess you’re right. Money will always do it.”
Of course.

Hormones are everything, Turpin," she said to the bird on her shoulder. "Brains are nice, and looks are nice, and logic's even nicer; but hormones run the show. For everyone, even for me and you.

A long time ago humans talked of terraforming Mars and Venus, but we never did it. Just too busy blowing ourselves up, I guess, ever to get round to it.

And now I think about it, I never really wanted to live forever. I just want to live well.

One thing you have to teach the young is that it’s wrong to run away from problems.

Human culture is built around four basic elements: sexual relationships, territorial rights, individual intellectual dominance, and desire for group acceptance. The H’Sirin model using just these four traits as independent variables enables accurate prediction of human behavior patterns. On the basis of this, human culture is judged to be of Level Two, with few prospects for advancement to a higher level. —From the Universal Species Catalog (Subclass: Sapients)

The more foolproof you think something is, the worse the failure when it happens.

There was one good argument against cloning, and only one. It increased the total number of people, and to me that number already felt far too large.

We're just too nosy, Commander," he went on. "Most humans have their patience level set a little too low, and their curiosity a bit too high.

Everyone was somebody’s cousin, or uncle, or bedmate, or best college friend. Sometimes he felt that the whole of Washington was glued together into one vast, incestuous, and inefficient snotball.

To a logical entity, such as myself, the behavior of organic intelligences such as yourself, provides many anomalies. For example, the history of humanity, the species concerning which my data banks have most information, is replete with cases where humans, on little or no evidence, have believed in impossibilities. They have accepted the existence of a variety of improbable entities: of gods and demons, of fairies and elves, of 'good luck' charms, of magic potions, of curses and hexes and evil eyes."
"Tally, if you're going to blather about—"
"But at the same time, humans and other organic intelligences often seem unwilling to accept the implications and consequences of their own legitimate scientific theories.

Other people’s jobs always seemed easier than yours until you actually had to do them.

The bad thing about being a world-class worrier was that being right was worse than being wrong.

Is that what it takes to go all the way in politics? Ambition first, everything else back in the pack?
And if it is, would any sane human want to have what it takes?

Richard Nixon was protected from impeachment, so long as Spiro Agnew was Vice President and would assume the presidency in Nixon’s place. Half of Washington knew that Agnew was a crook, and a boneheaded one at that. They had to get rid of Agnew before they could really go after Nixon.