Spider Robinson Quotes

You humans are at least aware of that supreme paradox—that free will exists to an extent for the individual, but disappears in the group—although you can’t work with it.

"It took me the better than a quarter century to learn, the hard way, that hard work at something you want to be doing is the most fun that you can have out of bed (and that working at something you don't want to be doing is a logical impossibility-we are all self-employed.)

To learn that the dummies are the ones who think it is possible to cheat the boss or the customers without cheating themselves; to learn that the smart man finds ways to make everything he does be work; to learn that "leisure" time is truly pleasurable (indeed tolerable) only to the extent that it is subconscious grazing for information with which to infuse newer, better work."

Perhaps you’ve heard the one about the difference between a bass player and a large pepperoni pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four. I

"Your diet must be about fifty-fifty, carrots and locoweed," Annie said softly.
He froze.
"I can't figure out what in the name of God's labia majora you think you're doing...but I'm impressed by how well you're doing it in the dark. You must have eyes like a cat."

Shared pain is lessened
Shared joy is increased
Thus do we refute entropy

Callahan dried his big meaty hands on his apron and cleared his throat with a sound like a bulldozer in pain.

Librarians are the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don't ever piss one off.

What shocked us the most was that we had no idea why we should be so shocked. Like opening a ginger ale and finding Jamesons' inside: nothing wrong with it, but it sort of takes you by surprise.

...one of the secret masters of
the world: a librarian. They
control information. Don't ever p**s one off.

Tom said what struck him was how little progress churches have made in two hundred years toward convincing people that the unknown is not by definition evil.

A surprising percentage of your own society, with all your heritage of murder, would like to believe that Life survives by going to the supermarket. So the ideal would be to train cattle to make butcher knives and take turns cutting each other up at a convenient location.

You can show a dozen guys murderin' each other on TV but you can't ever show two people making love. A naked blade is reckoned to be less obscene than a naked woman.

Sure, you could knock down the World Trade Center. But that only impresses the people who live in sight of the World Trade Center.

Sexual intercourse vests no property rights.

Shared sorrow is lessened, shared joy is increased