Mike Resnick Quotes

He opened a desk drawer and withdrew two gaily wrapped packages. Then, standing up, he carried one over to Flint and handed the other to Tojo.
“What’s this all about?” asked Flint.
“I realize that we haven’t celebrated any of your holidays since leaving Earth,” explained the blue man, “but according to my calendar, today is the last Thursday in November.”
“So?”
“Happy Thanksgiving! said Mr. Ahasuerus, contorting his lips to form a smile.
There was a momentary silence.
“I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong,” said Flint. On Thanksgiving we slaughter innocent birds and forget to abuse Indians. Christmas is when we defoliate forests and exchange gifts.”

“You know,” he said unhappily, “I never did like you much. You were always too ambitious, always scheming and plotting.”
“Why should I deny it?” she said calmly. “I’ll only add that it’s people like you who made it easy.”
“What’ll you do when you finally get to the top, and there are no more bodies to climb over?”
“Mostly, I’ll enjoy it,” she replied.

Don't believe everything you hear," said the Mouse.
Ryan laughed again. "If I believed half of what I heard, I'd be dead and buried already.

You measure a man by what he beats, Thaddeus—not by what he avoids.

There are no bad bounty hunters," replied Cain. "Just good ones and dead ones."
"Why did you become a bounty hunter in the first place?" asked Jacinto.
"When I realized that I wasn't going to make the galaxy a better place to live in in one bold stroke, I decided to try doing it one small step at a time."
"Have you ever regretted it?"
"Not really," replied Cain. "We all make choices; most of us get pretty much what we deserve.

“Let’s be reasonable,” suggests Bet-a-Bunch Murphy, which I personally think would make a pleasant change.

It is the home of a very unusual race, as violent in their way as the people of Earth."
"I will assume that's a good thing to be," said Flint dryly.
"For the purpose of this proposition, it most definitely is," said Kargennian, ignoring Flint's undisguised animosity. "They have a culture that worships weaponry fully as much as yours does."
"I don't know that we actually worship it."
"Perhaps I used the wrong word," replied Kargennian. "But the fact remains that their history and cultures are as fully committed to firearms as your own. To this day, most of them carry hand weapons, as barbaric as the concept may seem.

Is it true?"
"Probably. But just for the record, is what true?

“This is a grim business. There’s nothing romantic about harassing an overwhelming power with no hope of winning.”
“If he knows he can’t win, why does he do it?”
“To avoid losing.”
“That sounds profound, but it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense,” said Cain.

I’m trying to tell you that you can trust me because I’m motivated by the most basic human emotion: greed.

He has willpower to spare," I say. "Unfortunately, what he lacks is won'tpower.

A moral assassin," she said with an amused smile.
"Not everyone gets into this business because they like to kill people," he replied.
"Then why do you do it?"
"Because I find all forms of business distasteful," answered Chandler. "This one pays me enough so that I don't have to work very often.

The only thing I’m really good at is wishing I was somewhere else.

Well, it's a practical approach," she conceded. "But it's not very satisfying. I think an animal in the forest might have that same viewpoint."
"I spend most of my life with the animals in the forest," replied Chandler. "Very few of them have high blood pressure or heart attacks. Maybe they know something we don't know."
"They don't know anything," said Jade. "They just react."
"They stay warm and dry and well fed," he noted. "When all is said and done, that's all most humans are really trying to do.

It was an art form, and you don’t learn to be an artist. You’re either born one, or you aren’t.