Charles Sheffield Quotes

British mathematician, physicist and writer (1935–2002)

Charles Sheffield (25 June 1935 – 2 November 2002) was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction writer who served as a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society.

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Alternative Names: Charles A. Sheffield • James Kirkwood

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Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.

Don’t get caught again. Never, never, never. That was the Golden Rule, the only important rule.

That's a whole lot of ifs you got there."
"True. But which would you prefer, Louis Nenda?" Atvar H'sial rose from her crouched position. "A substantial set of contingent possibilities, or a single unpleasant certainty?

You crazy? You’ve got me confused with a guy who cares about other people.

Arabella Lund had been full of “rules,” and one of her most basic was this: Anything in the universe can happen once, or at least it can seem to happen. If you want to obtain information, make it happen again.

When you had little or no information, it was unreasonable to have any expectations. But somehow you did, even if they were often wrong.

Idle wishing for circumstances different from what you had was a waste of time.

I do not like to concatenate implausibilities.

As you will one day discover, a leader is not a leader because of the way that he or she behaves. He is a leader only because of the way that he is treated by others.

If you wanted to get yourself killed, there was no better way than to think you knew all the tricks. It took experience to make you realize that the universe could always pull another one out of the bag and throw it at you.

When you have something to do, do it. When you have nothing to do, sleep.

Somehow he felt more resigned than surprised. Things had been going far too well for far too long. Just when you thought you had the universe by the tail, it turned round and bit you on the ass.

Happy endings were for children’s stories and fool. You live in misery, and then you die. Life, by definition, was not designed to end happily.
Louis continued aft. No happy ending, then. That was a fact, certain as death itself. He was living at the moment in a dream, an imagined world where everything went right.
But—dreams are real while they last. Could you say more of life?
A dream sequence was no more than a happy interlude, but maybe a happy interlude could last for an awful long time.

His mind was as furiously active as his hormones.

Improbable as it seems, I think she admires you more than me.