George Alec Effinger Quotes

“What do you know about the activities of the brain and the nervous system?”
I laughed. “About as much as any hustler from the Budayeen who can barely read and write his name. I know that the brain is in the head, I’ve heard that it’s a bad idea to let some thug spill it on the sidewalk. Beyond that, I don’t know much.” I did, truthfully, know some more, but I always hold something in reserve. It’s a good policy to be a little quicker, a little stronger, and a little smarter than everybody thinks you are.

They wait in clutching haste for fate to fill the inside straight of their happiness.

Now we have the prospect of a religious war on our hands, with the attendant proliferation of “heresies” and two separate but equal inquisitions.

We have now successfully enlisted the aid of many groups of theoretically anti-communist people, all supporting those very causes which lead directly to victory for the Party. These students will be of great value in creating political upheaval here in the next few years. Though they may not vote themselves, they will do a great part of the work for the candidates we shall endorse.
I think it was the vague promise of sexual freedom that did it," said Weintraub wryly. "That seems to work on everybody. Even the clergy.

I believe that it is possible to overlegislate ourselves into a highly restrictive form of government.

The night is this city’s single resource. Well, that and disease.

The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them.

I looked good, faster than light with a little money in my pocket. You know what I mean. I was the same as always: the clothes looked first-rate. That was fine, because most people only look at the clothes, anyway.

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.

I liked being the screwer rather than the screwee.

I was no more eccentric than your average raving loon.

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

There are more strains of courage than merely facing a sword.

“You shouldn’t be so critical,” said Mike the bartender. “Some people like this kind of thing, you know.”
“The kind of person who gets excited over that, I don’t care about,” said Ernest.

The universe doesn't have secrets," I said cynically, "only lies and swindles.