Philip José Farmer Quotes

I have been forced into this situation and may like it. To survive you must lie better than the liars, deceive more than the deceivers, and kill the killers first! To me it’s sheer necessity, though justified!

Chance, another word for destiny.

The ideal was the light; the real, the shadow.

The trouble with you, Peter—one of the troubles—is you worry too much about other people's behavior. And you have too high ideals for them, ideals which you yourself don't try to live up to."
"I know I can't live up to them, so I make a no pretense," Frigate said.
"But it bothers me that others claim to have these ideals and to be living up to them. If I point out that they aren't, they get angry."
The little Moor chuckled. "Naturally. Your criticism threatens their self-image. If that were to be destroyed, they, too, would be destroyed. At least, they think so.

If you live very long time or are immortal, perhaps you learn everything about everything in order to pass the time.

Human infants are semi-robots who possess, however, a limited though vigorous free will. Some of them become adults who use free will as much as possible. But the majority use their free will only once in their lives, that is, at the moment they unconsciously decide they won’t ever use their free will.

Of course, I’m only indulging in mankind’s vice of trying to make a symbol out of coincidence.

Sawbeaked epitome of bodiless
Idea, tossed by gusts of ether, dive
Through abstract mists and raid the sea of fact
Eat rich strange fish, grow long bright feathers, press
Form's flesh around thought's rib, and so derive
From the act of beauty, beauty of the act.

Burton did not believe in miracles. Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles — if you knew all the facts.

why should human beings have another chance at an afterlife? They were such miserable, conniving, self-deceiving, hypocritical wretches.

Beauty is beautiful because it is doomed to perish!

Oh, I'd reach beyond the comma of you
To the invisible phrase, the dangling Omega! No use. No act
Of mine or mind denies the ante-cerebellum fact
Of furry you, poised fleetingly, bright flex,
Black reflex, too leaping for me to ink and fix
As period to end what has no period, no, no
End...

Burton sighed, laughed loudly, and said, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Another fairy tale to give men hope. The old religions have been discredited — although some refuse to face even that fact — so new ones must be invented.”

TV, the worst thing that had happened to the twentieth century. After the atom bomb and overpopulation, of course.

And how in God’s name did Santiago find out about the laser? Even Queen Victoria’s sex life wasn’t a better secret.