Keith Laumer Quotes

He turned; she stood in the doorway, clad in an invisible negligee.

M-magic? Lafayette stuttered.
"Nonsense. Electronics."

It's an old trick, the security chief said. Reverse cunning, we call it in the security game; indistinguishable from utter stupidity.

“None of that, either,” he commanded. “Keep your mind on the immediate problem—just as soon as you figure out what the immediate problem is,” he added.

Magic, after all? He felt the untrimmed hair at the nape of his neck rising. But then, maybe it was just electronics—magic rationalized.

Him and his pet dragon—
"More folklore, I take it?"
"Well, I never actually seen this dragon."
"Hmmm. Funny how nobody I've met has seen it, but they all believe in it."

Just what is your position here?
"I'm an adviser to his Majesty." Nicodaeus smiled blandly. "He thinks I'm a master of magic, of course, but among these feather-heads a little common sense is sufficient to earn one a reputation as a wise man."

I say, old man, you're developing something of a persecution complex, I'm afraid—
"That's easy, when you're persecuted."

It was easy to see the mechanics of schizophrenia at work here. From wishing, it was an easy jump to believe.

I took all these details in as the mighty carnivore looked me over, yawned, and paced majestically toward me, frowning across at the distant herds like a troubled politician wondering who to pay the bribe to.

I know it’s hard to grasp at first. I seem to recall I was a bit difficult to convince once. We are accustomed to thinking we know everything. There’s a powerful tendency to just disbelieve anything that doesn’t fit the preconception.

Judge a chap on what he does, and not what he is, eh? None of us can help our natural tendencies—and perhaps overcoming one’s instincts is in the end a nobler achievement than not having the impulse in the first place.

Out of the synthesis of opposites, a cancerous growth called Beauty came into being; obscene antisurvival concepts named Loyalty, Courage, Justice were born into the universe.
Wherever the elemental Purities encountered this monstrous hybrid, a battle of extermination was joined. Good could compromise with Evil, but neither could meet with the half-breed, Art.

“Why do you fight this war?”
The alien mind howled out its war slogan—as incomprehensible as an astrologer’s jargon.

Yours is not to reason why, eh? I guess you’re lucky at that. It’s not dying that hurts—it’s living.