Quote

There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot'.

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
Characters
Novel
Mistake
Technical
Opinion
Literary
Term
Author
Belief
Opinions
Character
Beliefs
Idiot

More quotes by Larry Niven

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I've got five or six unpublished stories kicking around looking for somebody to buy them.
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The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim
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The majority is always sane.
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I do suspect that privacy was a passing fad.
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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.
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Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.
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I don't have a strong interest in history.
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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.
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If one must explain a magic trick, one should do so after the show is over.
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Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun.
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Everything starts as somebody's daydream.
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Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.
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My problem with new writers is that it takes me five or six years to memorise the right names.
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In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature.
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In a collaboration, each author will do 75% of the work.
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I'm not predicting I just love playing with superconductors.
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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.
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We should not have assumed that a political space station could be built.
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Stupidity is always a capital crime.
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The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.
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