Walter Tevis Quotes

It all began, I suppose, with learning to build fire—to warm the cave and keep the predators out. And it ended with time-release Valium.

He thought, looking at the cat, if only you were the intelligent species on this world. And then, smiling wryly, maybe you are.

The sky at the top of the gray ocean has become much lighter now. The sun is about to rise. I will end this recording for now and stop the bus and walk outside and watch the sun rise over the ocean.
My God, the world can be beautiful.

"I'm like everybody else. This kind of living ain't much better than being dead." He laughed again, shaking his head from side to side. "And it ain't much better on the outside, to tell the truth. No real work to do, except the same kind of crap you do in here. At the Worker Dormitories they told us, 'Labor fulfills.' Horseshit."

Bob seems to know almost everything; but he doesn’t know when or why people stopped reading. “Most people are too lazy,” he said. “They only want distractions.”

He had never seen anything funny about monkeys.

Biff is really stupid in most ways. It’s just that she’s very real—is very much a cat—and that makes her seem intelligent to you. I can read her whole mind at a glance, and there’s very little there. But she feels good. She would not want to be anything other than a cat.