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A civilization has the ethics it can afford

Larry Niven

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Larry Niven
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: April 30
Author
Mathematician
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Laurence van Cott Niven
Afford
Ethics
Civilization

More quotes by Larry Niven

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My problem with new writers is that it takes me five or six years to memorise the right names.
Larry Niven
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As for AIDS, it's a plague. We are human, we get plagues. They come along every so often, kill off two thirds of the population in the next generation it's a quarter after that it's a childhood disease.
Larry Niven
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There were timelines branching and branching, a mega-universe of universes, millions more every minute. Billions? Trillions? The universe split every time someone made a decision. Split, so that every decision ever made could go both ways. Every choice made by every man, woman, and child was reversed in the universe next door.
Larry Niven
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I don't have a strong interest in history.
Larry Niven
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SF isn't a genre SF is the matrix in which genres are embedded, and because the SF field is never going in any one direction at any one time, there is hardly a way to cut it off.
Larry Niven
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I'm not predicting I just love playing with superconductors.
Larry Niven
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We learn only to ask more questions.
Larry Niven
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We should not have assumed that a political space station could be built.
Larry Niven
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Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.
Larry Niven
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And every friend I've got has been writing Mars stories. It was pretty clear I'd never catch up.
Larry Niven
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I've got five or six unpublished stories kicking around looking for somebody to buy them.
Larry Niven
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There is no cause so good or noble that it will not attract fuggheads and the fuggheads will get all the press.
Larry Niven
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Everything starts as somebody's daydream.
Larry Niven
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The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim
Larry Niven
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That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
Larry Niven
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Hopeless causes are the only ones worth fighting for. The fight for the taxpayer is the most hopeless of them all.
Larry Niven
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One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better.
Larry Niven
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The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation.
Larry Niven
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The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.
Larry Niven
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How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf?
Larry Niven