Fritz Leiber quotes - page 3

Besides, what difference did if make if there had been two genuine coincidences? The universe was full of them. Every molecular collision was a coincidence. You could pile a thousand coincidences on top of another, he averred, and not get Tom Digby one step nearer to believing in the supernatural. Oh, he knew intelligent people enough, all right, who coddled such beliefs. Some of his best friends liked to relate "yarns” and toy with eerie possibilities for the sake of a thrill. But the only emotion Tom ever got out of such stuff was a nauseating disgust. It cut too deep for joking. It was a reversion to that primitive, fear-bound ignorance from which science had slowly lifted man, inch by inch, against the most bitter opposition. (Fritz Leiber)
Thoughts are dangerous, he told himself, and thoughts against all science, all sanity, all civilized intelligence, are the most dangerous of all. View quote
Fritz Leiber
Now is a bearable burden. What buckles the back is the added weight of the past's mistakes and the future's fears. View quote
Fritz Leiber
It was funny, though, how the human mind would cast doubt even on itself in order to explain away unusual and unconventional things it had seen vividly and unmistakably. It left you in the middle, the human mind did. View quote
Fritz Leiber
He knew that ahead lay many perils-threats to his bodily welfare. And recently Jarles had come to have a great respect for that bag of flesh and bones which contained his ego. View quote
Fritz Leiber
You know, all insanity is a form of artistic expression, I often think. Only the person has nothing but himself to work with-he can't get at outside materials to manipulate them-so he puts all his art into his behavior. View quote
Fritz Leiber
I thought of how people are like planets-lonely little forts of mind with immense black distance barring them off from each other. View quote
Fritz Leiber
Conscience is only social pressure,” he told her, tense without quite knowing why, "the impulse to submerge your ego in that of the herd, and do what other people want you to because you're afraid of their censure. Realistic self-interest frees a person from the childish restrictions of conscience.” "Are you sure of that, Jarles? What about your dreams? Conscience may be partly what you say it is, but it's more than that. It's hearkening to the wisest thoughts that have occurred to the minds of the human race. View quote
Fritz Leiber
No matter how hard and wearisome an age this might be, it was certainly a very exciting one with regard to manifestations of the supernatural. View quote
Fritz Leiber
That's what everybody's been looking for since the Year One-something a little more than sex. View quote
Fritz Leiber
They, like many priests, had been much too fanatical and not nearly as clever as the god they served. (Fritz Leiber)
The Devourers want not only the patronage of all beings in all universes, but-doubtless because they are afraid someone will some day raise the ever-unpleasant question of the true worth of things-they want all their customers reduced to a state of slavish and submissive suggestibility, so that they are fit for nothing whatever but to gawk at and buy the trash the Devourers offer for sale. View quote
Fritz Leiber
The Devourers want to brood about their great service to the many universes-it is their claim that servile customers make the most obedient subjects for the gods. View quote
Fritz Leiber
You've got to believe there's some sort of sense in everything that crazies say.” "Crazies?” "All of us. View quote
Fritz Leiber
"Tire Devourers want only to amass cash and to raise little ones like themselves to amass more cash and they want to compete with each other at cash-amassing. And the Devourers want to brood about their great service to the many universes - it is their claim that servile customers make the most obedient subjects for the gods -and to complain about how the work of amassing cash torture their mind and frustrating their digestions. Beyond this, each of the Devourers also secretly collects and hides away forever, to delight no eyes but his own, all the finest objects and thoughts created by true men and women (and true wizards and true demons) and bought by the Devourers at bankruptcy prices and paid for with trash or this is their ultimate preference-with nothing at all. View quote
Fritz Leiber
Better freedom and a chilly road than a warm hearth and servitude. View quote
Fritz Leiber
What is superstition, but misguided, unobjective science? And when it comes down to that, is it to be wondered if people grasp at superstition in this rotten, hate-filled, half-doomed world of today? Lord knows, I'd welcome the blackest of black magic, if it could do anything to stave off the atom bomb. View quote
Fritz Leiber
What is superstition, but misguided, unobjective science? View quote
Fritz Leiber
The Devourers are the most accomplished merchants in all the many universes - so accomplished, indeed, that they sell only trash. There is a deep necessity in this, for the Devourers must occupy all their cunning in perfecting their methods of selling and so have not an instant to spare in considering the worth of what they sell. View quote
Fritz Leiber
Sooner give a cobra a kiss, than a secret to a woman. View quote
Fritz Leiber
I know, I know, the folk here are narrow-visioned, custom-bound. But matched with the twisted minds of civilization, they're straight as pines. (Fritz Leiber)
And I, well, in the month I've been here I've learned that the only way to survive in civilization is to abide by its unwritten rules-far more important than its laws chiseled in stone-and break them only at peril, in deepest secrecy, and taking all precautions. View quote
Fritz Leiber
Revenge is empty. It cannot bring back the dead. View quote
Fritz Leiber
Thieves and astrologers moved restlessly in their sleep, sensing that the hours of night and work were drawing near. View quote
Fritz Leiber
What's the use of knowing the name of a skull? One would never have occasion to talk of it,” said the fat thief loudly. "What interests me is that it has rubies for eyes. View quote
Fritz Leiber