L. Sprague de Camp Quotes

I find that verse provides one of the cheapest and most harmless of life’s major pleasures.

For aught I know, he may have told that silly tale so oft that he’s come to believe it himself.

A grudge makes a starveling diet.

We rented an apartment in a rambly wooden-frame building, a block from the beach. This was before the waterfront sprouted a host of huge condominiums, like a plague of concrete mushrooms.

Berosos sighed. “Ah me! Once we, too, were a race of warriors and conquerors.”
“Be thankful you are no longer,” said Dikaiarchos. “These kings reap a bit of glory, but what do they accomplish besides burning cities, killing and enslaving multitudes, and destroying the accumulated wealth and wisdom of the ages to aggrandize their own mediocre selves? He who ascertains a new law of nature or invents a new device is greater than all your conquerors, and in the long run has more influence.”

There was no harder-boiled materialist than I; I rejected Marxism as too mystical and not materialistic enough.

Whereas you believe in no gods but Iao, he carries this skepticism to its logical conclusion and believes in no gods at all. The difference seems slight to me.

Then who were the Ancient Ones?"
Halran shrugged. "There are as many interpretations of those myths as there are mythographers.

I’ve been saying a special prayer to Eunmar; did you know I believe in the old gods? If you try hard enough, I’ve found, you can believe anything.

Gontran was a rancorous, vengeful man, who never forgave what he deemed a slight or let bygones be bygones. Hatred and grudges so filled his mind as to render him impervious to reason.

The trouble with Rhodes is, it’s got too many orators and not enough engineers.

But what argument could I offer? It was nothing but an irrational feeling—the kind of “premonition” we get from time to time but remember only on the rare occasions when it is fulfilled by the event. I had no evidence.

Ah! Here we be! 'Human beings most readily love others of their species who, alpha, do services for them; beta, flatter them; gamma, refrain from reproaching them for errors; and delta, cultivate good nature and ease of manner.'

One man’s wickedness becomes all men’s curse.

Cold comfort," said Bloch. "Like most oracular verse, full of vague ominous intimations of nothing in particular.