George Alec Effinger Quotes

Was that what he wanted, what the grand scheme of Utopia 3 was designed for? It was a lot like death, only more tedious.

Turmoil and revolution in their best guises serve to tear down ancient and meaningless customs, in favor of practical social reform.

Let me make it clear: You don’t want his disapproval. He never forgets these things. If he needs to, he hires other people to carry his grudges for him.

I shook my head ruefully. Police departments all over the world were identical in two respects: they all have a fondness for breaking your head open for little or no provocation, and they can’t see the simple truth if it’s lying in front of them naked with its legs spread. The police don’t enforce laws; they don’t even get busy until after the laws are broken. They solve crimes at a pitifully low rate of success. What the police are, to be honest, is a kind of secretarial pool that records the names of the victims and the statements of the witnesses. After enough time passes, they can safely shove this information to the back of the filing system to make room for more.

“She cost you more.”
“I know,” said the trick. “How much?”
“You tell me,” she said, thinking he might be a cop setting her up. That kind of thing still happened whenever the religious authorities ran out of infidels to persecute.

That was the evil of Dr. Bertram Waters: the perpetuation of hopeless dreams, compounded by the betrayal of those dreams to make his own a reality.

It didn’t feel, at that moment, like I was getting into something over my head. It never does, before you take the leap.

The information I got from one person often contradicted the version I heard from another, so I’d long ago gotten into the habit of trying to hear as many different stories as I could and averaging them all out. The truth was in there somewhere, I knew it; the problem was coaxing it into the open.

“I have been waiting for a sign. I knew that if I waited here long enough my bird, that tarishawk that rests here each day, I knew that he would come. Our Mother said that if he flew from the right, then I would have good fortune. If he came from the left, my journey would be disastrous for me, and it would bear no positive fruits for you.”
“And the hawk? Which way did it come? Did it come from the left?”
Dore smiled once more; his smile was always the most cheerless aspect of him. “The hawk has not come at all,” he said.

Any thought which is printed, either here or in the paper, without subsequent attack is generally believed to be true. This is not so much a logical condition as it is a fault of human nature. A longstanding or constant idea is often equated with a true one.

Brant felt a spasm of pain. “Uh,” she said. She closed her eyes tight until the pain went away.
“Can I do anything?” said Staefler.
“Yes,” she said. “Have my baby for me.”

Are you happy, Norman?" asked Brant.
Well, sure, I guess.
That's what I thought," she said bitterly. "Neither am I.

I see unhealthy signs of a new regime of religiosity and conservatism.

With a stiff forefinger I silenced the koto music. Peace flooded in; the world thanked me.

The butler recognized me, even favoring me with a minute change in his expression. Evidently I had become a celebrity. Politicians and sex stars may cuddle up to you and it doesn’t prove a thing, but when the butlers of the world notice you, you realize that some of what you believe about yourself is true.