David Brin Quotes

The variety of inventive ideas—and ideologies—that people can come up with never ceases to amaze me, especially when they’re stoked by the ultimate drug, self-righteousness.

A living planet is a much more complex metaphor for deity than just a bigger father with a bigger fist.

Some molecules were stable. . . . These became letters in a new alphabet.
They, too, reacted to form still larger clusters, a few of which survived and accrued. . . . the first genetic words.

What kind of man takes a live bomb across the seas in order to blow up other people? People who have mothers and lovers and children, just like him?
Probably either a professional or a patriot, Alex thought. Or, worse, both.

All sooners know life is something you just borrow for a while. Each person must choose how to spend it.

You think I'm kidding? the pilot asked.
No, we think you're crazy.

...where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge.

Men can be brilliant and strong, they whispered to one another. But men can be mad, as well. And the mad ones can ruin the world.
Women, you must judge them . . .
Never again can things be allowed to reach this pass, they said to one another as they thought of the sacrifice the Scouts had made.
Never again can we let the age-old fight go on between good and bad men alone.
Women, you must share responsibility . . . and bring your own talents into the
struggle . . .
And always remember, the moral concluded: Even the best men — the heroes — will sometimes neglect to do their jobs.
Women, you must remind them, from time to time . .

I hate the whole übermensch, superman temptation that pervades science fiction. I believe no protagonist should be so competent, so awe-inspiring, that a committee of 20 really hard-working, intelligent people couldn't do the same thing.

d’un homme qui a perdu tout ce qu’il aimait et qui, depuis, n’est plus tout à fait de ce monde.

Nation states are archaic leftovers from when each man feared the tribe over the hill, an attitude we can’t afford anymore.

Russian President and “ex” KGB agent Vladimir Putin calls the fall of the USSR “history’s greatest tragedy,” and he pours special blame-hatred for that calamity at George Soros.

There isn’t one America anymore. If there ever had been.

How might our world be different, if our literature, to say nothing of our politics, behaved more like a rational, intrepid adult than a hand-wringing adolescent?

The same was true of the most popular girls. They had no empathy, no compassion for more normal kids.