Robert J. Sawyer Quotes

“That’s not an appealing thought.”
Afsan had never worried about how appealing any given idea was, only about how accurate it might be.

I have no choice, do I?
Afsan turned his blind eyes on his friend. "That's the funny thing about being a leader, Dybo: you rarely do."

The fundamental of war has always been dehumanizing the enemy, seeing him as a soulless animal.

Only a fool fights in a building that’s on fire.

Kyle was both deeply great and deeply flawed—peaks and valleys, more and less than she’d ever thought he was.
But, she realized, whatever he was now, she could accept it; the fit between them wasn’t ideal, and probably never would be. But she knew in her heart that it was better than it could be with anyone else. And perhaps acknowledging that was as good a definition of love as any.

You are spoiled by being a sociologist, Lansing. In the hard sciences, we occasionally have to face the reality that some of our theories will actually be disproven.

Jag barked dismissively. “Philosophy,” he said. “Not science. They just want to believe that.”

...but there, because there is no grace of God, go I.

It turned out that big-bucks science had been a purely mid-twentieth-century phenomenon, starting with the Manhattan Project and ending with the fall of the Soviet Union.

As one of my Jewish friends has been known to observe, the Jews who survived World War II were either now atheists or hadn’t been paying attention.

Cheetah is an APE," said Kyle. "You know, a computer simulation the apes humanity."
"I really do find the use of the term 'ape' offensive," said Cheetah.
Kyle smiled. "See? Genuine-sounding indignation. I programmed that myself. It's the first thing you need in a university environment: the ability to take offense at any slight, real or imagined."

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I shook my head. "Have you ever noticed how many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities come at the end of a person's life? Count me out."

You humans seem to have a profound capacity for ignoring obvious evidence.

Must God be defined in a way that places him or her beyond the scope of science?
I’d always believed that there was nothing beyond the scope of science.
And I still believe that.
Where do you draw the line?
Right here. For me, the answer was right here.
How do you define God?
Like this. A God I could understand, at least potentially, was infinitely more interesting and relevant than one that defied comprehension.

“Good luck—and God protect.” I was sure that little reference to God was for the sake of the network cameras. Ching-Mei was an atheist. She only had faith in empirical data, in experimental results.