J. Neil Schulman > Quotes

“We’re told we have a government by popular consent. At least in one sense that’s true. Every government always exercises the maximum amount of power its rulers feel the people will stand for without revolting. If this government—or an element within it—is drastically increasing its use of power, then the leaders either feel they have the popular support—or apathy—to get away with it, or they’re taking desperate chances because they’re being pressed to the wall.”
― J. Neil Schulman, Alongside Night

“Everything that NASA does—from the start by law—was to be open and unclassified and it has been. This is one of the things that I have cited—and that Arthur Clarke has cited—as being a payoff on the space program right now. Expensively as they've done it, nevertheless all that bread cast on the waters has already come back severalfold in the way of unclassified new technology that doesn't even have patents on it. You can get these things and you can use them all you please. I know that a lot of people are not aware of this but anyone in engineering that has any engineering interest is likely to be aware of it if he has taken the trouble to have himself placed on the mailing list.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Robert Heinlein Interview And Other Heinleiniana

“There are a number of people who can't seem to realize that things could be mighty rough—even rougher than they are now—if there wasn't the slightest bit of deterrence.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Robert Heinlein Interview And Other Heinleiniana

“our civilization is very young. None of us live long enough to cope with too much. About the time we begin to get our thoughts straightened out we begin to go senile. Or, in the mean time, we've been knocked over by a taxicab or died of the plague or something else. We don't live that long.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Robert Heinlein Interview And Other Heinleiniana

“Maybe the only way I can explain is to say that the old statesman Edmund Burke was wrong. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to go into politics.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form

“Not that thick book called The Purpose of Your Life. You get that one later. These are "How To" manuals. Each is called Getting By When You're Up The Creek Without a Paddle, Fighting Back When You're Sick of Getting Pushed Around, Love—What It is and How to Survive It, or How to Keep From Going Crazy When Everyone Around You Already Is.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Robert Heinlein Interview And Other Heinleiniana

“And, the best short definition of natural rights and property rights I can give you is to be found in five paragraphs from Ayn Rand’s essay, “Man’s Rights,” in the book The Virtue Of Selfishness–Copyright 1963”
― J. Neil Schulman, Origitent: Why Original Content Is Property

“Sheckley.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“Ayn Rand was a genius.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“I’ve started writing a treatise on the role of “willing suspension of disbelief” in fiction and drama. Its working title is The Technobabble Sufficiency.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“After spending my life thinking I was an architect, I was a sailor adrift at sea.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“a sailor moves through life only the present moment is valid or important.  A”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“God is both a scientist and an artist.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“General Guerdon.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“The Singing Revolution”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“Agorism is the only philosophy that explains why, in an East German alley, a hooker and a bible smuggler ducking into the same doorway to avoid the police not only won’t turn each other in but are also both acting right and proper.”
― J. Neil Schulman, J. Neil Schulman's Alongside Night

“The creation of property, therefore, is an act necessary to human survival–and as such the requirements of our survival as human beings sanction our taking those actions, and those sanctions are called rights.”
― J. Neil Schulman, Origitent: Why Original Content Is Property

“So my solution is simple. If you can’t be held fully accountable for your actions, you need a keeper. Or to put it another way: if you’re not grown-up enough to be trusted with a gun, you need a keeper. And the keeper — of the fetus, or the animal, or the tree, or the mental incompetent — is the one who is held responsible for the well-being of his charge, and for any liabilities resulting from its doings.”
― J. Neil Schulman, Origitent: Why Original Content Is Property

“You know why writers are always the savvy and sexy characters in novels and movies? It’s because all novels and movies are written by writers.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man

“An architect never repudiates anything she’s loved.”
― J. Neil Schulman, The Fractal Man