L. Neil Smith > Quotes

“...occasionally I like carrying raw steel to remind myself of an important lesson.
The blade's an extension of the hand, the agent--no pun intended--of my will. Most people understand this immediately of edged weapons...
The trick--and few are subtle or sophisticated enough to master it--is to see that this is equally true... by implication, of all machines.”
― L. Neil Smith, The Nagasaki Vector

“Nine tenths of everything is tax. Everything you buy has a complicated history of robbery: land, raw materials, energy, tools, buildings, transport, storage, sales, profits. Don’t forget the share you contribute toward the personal income tax of every worker who has anything to do with the process. Inflation by taxation: there are a hundred taxes on a loaf of bread. What kind of living standard would we enjoy if everything cost a tenth of what it does? What kind of world? Think of your home, your car, your TV, your shoes, your supper—all at a 90% discount! Government can’t fight poverty—poverty is its proudest achievement!”
― L. Neil Smith, The Probability Broach

“- ... It causeth unease.
- Oh it doth, doth it?”
― L. Neil Smith, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu

“There exists no ”invisible hand“—that was always an unfortunate turn of phrase—but billions of highly visible fingers, doing, purely for personal gain, what others will freely barter for, with the sole object of improving their lives and those of their children.”
― L. Neil Smith, Tom Paine Maru

“he didn’t care who ran the universe—he’d break whatever rules it suited him to disobey in any case, whoever was in charge—”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“I do not know, my friend. It seems wrong somehow that the success of a race be measured by its ability to do violence.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“Nor did that intelligence provide him with an answer to his real problem. He knew submorons, many of them working for him, whose capacity to enjoy life was infinite compared to his.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“Just who in the Hall are you, anyway?” Vuffi Raa said. Lando looked at the robot sharply. He hated having his good lines stolen.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“the Nazis burned books in public. Liberals suppress opinions that differ from their own through influences they want kept secret. The right wing destroyed books. The left destroys authors. —William Wilde Curringer, Unfinished Memoirs”
― L. Neil Smith, Pallas

“Have you no respect?” Lando stopped, gave the robot a sober look. “Not a grain of it—not when it’s being imposed on me by the architecture.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“The trouble with two partners having separate sets of mortal enemies is that said enemies don’t always make distinctions.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“That’s true. On the other hand, everybody has to start again, fresh every day, from wherever they are.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“With reflexes that were more like precognition, Han threw everything he had into an equally frantic bank.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“Flexible armor is for bullets and energy beams. It’s no protection at all against an unarmed man.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“In a sense, the Republicans and Democrats had been professional athletic teams, striving mightily to defeat each other for the money, the spectacle, for victory itself, but for nothing else. They might even exchange members, who would be expected to play as hard for their new team as they had for their old.”
― L. Neil Smith, Pallas

“The life of a gambler was somewhat checkered.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“How was it that someone who loved life could be unafraid to die?”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“the surest way to lie to others is to lie to oneself first. If you can convince the single soul who knows the falsehood for what it is, then everyone else is an easy mark.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

“the hunter’s tools are deadly weapons, capable not only of feeding him and his family, but of defending his life, liberty, and property against predators and thieves—including tax collectors. Requiring more subtlety and dexterity than raw power, they can be wielded to good effect by women, or even children.”
― L. Neil Smith, Pallas

“Unless, as human beings, we come not only to accept but to openly rejoice in our fundamental and inescapable nature as predators, we condemn ourselves, as individuals and as a species, to unhappy, unnecessarily guilt-haunted lives. If we don’t allow ourselves to prey on other creatures, as is our nature, we’ll prey on ourselves and each other as we have throughout most of our agricultural history. Perhaps worse, soaked with guilt, however undeserved, we’ll continue handing our lives and minds over to any charlatan, however absurd, who offers us expiation, however false, for our sins, however imaginary.”
― L. Neil Smith, Pallas

“he limbered up, swung the guns up and down, side to side. The chair followed with them, giving him an exhilarating ride that was probably the real reason he liked the weapon so much.”
― L. Neil Smith, Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian