Poul Anderson Quotes

Don’t get me wrong. These people are mine. I like and in many ways admire them. They’re the salt of the earth. It’s simply that I want other condiments too.

One man, one vote: A legal doctrine requiring that, from time to time, old gerrymanders be replaced with new ones. The object of this is the achievement of genuine democracy.

There really wasn’t much in a man’s life that mattered. But those few things mattered terribly.

I’ve seen so many gods come and go, what’s one more?

He was no respecter of windy theories about inborn racial traits, but there was something to be said for traditions so ancient as to be unconscious and ineradicable.

Hard to say whether personal immortality would be a good thing or not. Not for the masses, surely! Too many of them as it was. But a select few, like Terangi Maclaren—or was it worth the trouble? Even given boats, chess, music, the No Drama, beautiful women and beautiful spectroscopes, life could get heavy.

The old man murmured: “Aye, we draw to an end. Dying hurts. Nonetheless the forefathers were wise who in their myths made Nan coequal with Lesu. A thing which endured forever would become unendurable. Death opens a way, for peoples as well as for people.”

It was lonely, not even knowing yourself.

Anderson demonstrates that if one accepts a sham mystery as real, one has stopped or strayed in the search for truth, and truth has survival value.

What’s to explain? I’ve scant use for those types whose chief interest is their grubby little personal neuroses. Not in a universe as rich as this.

'Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.' Yeah, trouble is, the three classes of people aren't the same.

Before the spirit could seek into it, the mind must. She studied the tensor equations as once she studied the sutras, she meditated upon the koans of science, and at last she began to feel her oneness with all that was, and in the vision find peace.

Your son was in your own tradition."
"Better, I hope," said the old man. "There would be little sense to existence, did boys have no chance to be more than their fathers.

Freedom brings responsibility and often guilt. It may indeed provide a deeper satisfaction and a richer life, but the evaluation of such rewards is a distressingly subjective process. Perhaps no argument in favor of liberty can satisfy the intellect; perhaps the best we can hope for is a shared emotional conviction.

They tell me our kind was friendly with the old gods, and with older gods before them. Yet never have we made offering or worship. I’ve tried and failed to understand such things. Does a god need flesh or gold? Does it matter to him how you live? Does it swerve him if you grovel and whimper? Does he care whether you care about him?