Larry Niven Quotes

It was a bad omen. Glitches were a lot like cockroaches. If you didn’t catch them in time, they’d scuttle off into someplace dark and warm and begin to breed.

Drugs: “There’s no way to keep them from getting in. Anyone who wants drugs can get them. We make arrests where we can, and so what? Me, I’m betting on Darwin.”
“How do you mean?”
“The next generation won’t use drugs because they’ll be descended from people who had better sense.”

"What have they said to us?"
"I could translate, but it would be meaningless. They have welcomed us in the name of their Emperor, who appears to be an over-Master. The short, round one is Mediator to this Emperor."
"Ah. We have at last found one who can communicate. Speak to her."
"But he has said nothing!"
"Say nothing in return."

Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn.

as old as seas and mountains. . . .

The puppeteer unrolled completely. 'Did I hear you call me cute?

Mankind had come so far in some ways, and in others remained up in the trees, chittering and throwing rocks at each other.
If only the trees weren’t so close together. If only the rocks were smaller.

3) Stories to end all stories on a given topic, don't.

Perhaps the lines of nationalism and factionalism and every other goddamn “ism” in the world had reduced the chances for this weary planet. Or not. Nuclear devices had existed for over a century, and only four of them had ever been used in anger. This could be interpreted as proof of divine intervention, good luck, a sign that the human race was growing up, or ominous portent, depending upon one’s standing in the “half-empty, half-full” school of cocktail-party philosophy.

Must have been bad when the gods were alive, though. They might grant your prayer, they might grant your enemy’s, but they’d certainly grant their own. A god’s wishes wouldn’t have anything to do with what human beings wanted.

I had to grin. Morris was shocked and horrified. I’d shown him a brand new sin.

Whatever benefits voodoo conferred, intellectual agility was not among them.

Why hadn't they built a lot of little Ringworlds instead?

The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools. She'd

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.