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

More quotes by Larry Niven

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If one must explain a magic trick, one should do so after the show is over.
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Love was a delicious blend of warm and cold. There was comfort in making love. It solved no problems: but one could run away from problems.
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We should not have assumed that a political space station could be built.
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Anything beats an expensive stack of paper.
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The Product of Freedom and Security is a constant (F X S = k). Giving up freedom for security is beginning to look naive.
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I don't have a strong interest in history.
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I've got five or six unpublished stories kicking around looking for somebody to buy them.
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Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun.
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.
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Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.
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I'm not predicting I just love playing with superconductors.
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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.
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The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.
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The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim
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Bruce Sterling is one terrific writer and he's relatively new, but I don't know how long he's been doing it he probably doesn't need the publicity anymore!
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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.
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A civilization has the ethics it can afford
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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.
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Everything starts as somebody's daydream.
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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