Robert Sheckley Quotes

Population growth and the multifarious forms of pollution: the human animal was overgrazing his range. The human animal had destroyed everything in sight, killed off the other big animals, used up millions of years of deposits of fresh water, oil, coal, and minerals. Fragile ecosystems had been pushed to the limit, some of them beyond recovery. The death of the earth was undramatic, but it was happening, and fast. And the governments continued to squabble and defend their various economic, religious, and social doctrines. The wealth of nations large and small was bled into the continuing efforts to increase the size, ingenuity, and ferocity of the armed forces. The humans were killer ants, devoting all their time to breeding more powerful mandibles.
Something had to be done immediately to preserve and maintain the great interlocking global system of ecosystems that sustained all life upon the earth. Only by managing the entire earth as a single unit could the basis of life continue on beyond the next century or two.
But twentieth-century civilization was locked into its self-destructive groove. Nothing could be officially done until the various threats became much more threatening. But by the time that stage had been reached, it would probably be too late to do anything.

Paradox is the inevitable forerunner of chaos.

It was the sort of atmosphere of good humor which so often accompanies a total absence of good taste.

It is not very logical to look over the attributes you possess and then declare that they are the most important attributes in the universe.

Blount’s face registered psychopathic amazement, idiot incredulity, moronic disbelief.

Do you have any papers for Will Barrent?" "None," the lawyer said. "His case is in different hands. I'm afraid it might not be completely processed until after the Games are over." "But I'll probably be dead then," Barrent said. "That, I can assure you, won't stop the papers from being properly served," the fat lawyer said proudly. "Dead or alive, you will retain all your rights.

All his studies had been for extraterrestrial exploration. There was no place for him on Earth; and now he was barred from space.

I recognized this as one of the illusions that Venice casts over the visitor.
This cunning city fostered and endless capacity for self-deception. Labyrinthine, it encouraged convoluted thinking. It was the spell of Venice that lured Guesci into expending the maximum of guile for the minimum of effect.

Had he been right or was he just another visionary?

Kettelman bristled. Nothing got him angrier than when people implied he was paranoid. It made him feel persecuted.

As a matter of fact, I am amazed at what has happened to science fiction in recent years. It has become a heavy academic field. And science fiction writers are being accorded a respect now, which I, as one of their peers and well-wishers, can only view with alarm and suspicion.
It seems like only yesterday, though it was in fact some 20 years ago, that all of us were writing pulp-action stories about a nebulous and ill-defined region that we called the future. Now our yarns are analysed in university classrooms for virtues we never suspected that they had. This is particularly true in America, the country that coined the word ‘overkill’ and then demonstrated its practical applications.

How does the fool build his paradise?—out of the crumbling bricks of illusion and the watery cement of hope.

It wouldn’t be so bad. There was, after all, a certain joy in hard, dedicated work, a sort of pleasure in denying oneself pleasures, and a sour happiness to be found in steadiness, circumspection, dependability…
To hell with that!

Mr. Rath’s iron face registered a rather corrugated disgust. People were useless as witnesses. Worse than useless, since they were frequently misleading. For reliability, give him a robot every time.

He had poured too much gilt on the lily; in striving to create a paragon, he had only succeeded in producing a paradox.