Harry Turtledove Quotes & Sayings

If you're gonna be broke, you could pick plenty of worse places to do it than Tacoma. It's not too hot; it's not too cold. It's as green as any place could want to be. You've got the bay on one side and the mountains on the other. Mount Rainier is as big and beautiful a mountain as anybody would ever care to see. When you could see it through the haze, I mean. Even when it's not raining around there, the air's damp. No wonder it's all so green. Tacoma — Harry Turtledove

He'd never played in Wrigley Field - the Cubs had still been out at old West Side Grounds when he came through as a catcher for the Cardinals before the First World War. But seeing the ballpark in ruins brought the reality of this war home to him like a kick in the teeth. Sometimes big things would do that, sometimes little ones; he remembered a doughboy breaking down and sobbing like a baby when he found some French kid's dolly with its head blown off. Muldoon's eyes slid over toward Wrigley for a moment. "Gonna be a long time before the Cubs win another pennant," he said, as good an epitaph as any for the park - and the city. — Harry Turtledove

All the pools are going batshit like you wouldn't believe ... Batshit ... It's a technical term ... Fleidermausscheisse, okay?
Fleidermausscheisse? Kelly silently mouthed the word, and as silently clapped her hands. With a dictionary and patience, she could read scientific German. Thanks to fragments of Yiddish from her folks, she could make a better
not good, but better
stab at speaking it than most of her anglophone peers. But she knew she never would have come up with that particular terminus technicus in a million months of Sundays. — Harry Turtledove

Do you see things in black and white, or are there shades of gray for you?"
"I hope there's gray ... Black and white make things easier, but only if you don't want to think. — Harry Turtledove

People were as they were, not not as he wished them to be. — Harry Turtledove

What does not corrupt a man's heart cannot corrupt his life, or do him any lasting harm. — Harry Turtledove

He gathered enthusiasm when he thought of the goal, and not the means by which he had accomplished it. — Harry Turtledove

Plausible development, building from what we know about what really did go on, and a whacking good story ... Surrounded by Enemies delivers on both, big-time. So hold on to your hats, folks. You're in for quite a ride. — Harry Turtledove

People you don't like are pigheaded. Your friends are stubborn, or hold to their purpose.~Victor Radcliff — Harry Turtledove

Fiction has to be plausible. All history has to do is happen. — Harry Turtledove

An empty belly makes a stern taskmaster.~Victor Radcliff — Harry Turtledove

A horsefly can't do a horse much real damage, but it can drive it wild anyhow. — Harry Turtledove

For some idiot reason, the idea of going into the drink with a misspelled safety device weirded Bryce out. — Harry Turtledove

when we awoke someone had stolen the sea. — Harry Turtledove

Except when Yankees are around," Moss said. "Then they'll swear up and down that they didn't know what was going on. Some prick will probably write a book that shows how they didn't really massacre their Negroes after all." "Oh, yeah? Then where'd the smokes go?" Goodman asked. "I mean, they were there before the war, and then they weren't. So what happened?" "Well, we killed a bunch of 'em when we bombed Confederate cities." Moss was a well-trained attorney; he could spin out an argument whether he believed in it or not. "Some died in the rebellion. Some went up to the USA. Some died of hunger and disease - there was a war on, you know. But a massacre? Nah. Never happened." Barry Goodman's mouth twisted. "That's disgusting. That'd gag a maggot, damned if it wouldn't." "Bet your ass," Moss said. "You think it won't happen, though? Give it twenty years - thirty at the outside." "Disgusting, — Harry Turtledove

I'm a social caterpillar. I am not a social butterfly — Harry Turtledove

He said, "You misunderstand. We did not kill the nuggies and the other folk hereabouts. They see us, and then they commonly die."
"Of what?" I asked.
"Of embarrassment. — Harry Turtledove

I first tried a novel when I was 14. First finished one when I was 16. First started working on stuff that had a chance of being salable in my early 20s, then didn't write much fiction at all because I was in grad school. — Harry Turtledove

A horsefly can't do a horse much damage, but it can drive it wild anyway. — Harry Turtledove

When you thought of permanent oblivion, temporary oblivion was the only foxhole you had. — Harry Turtledove

You know what I mean. Is it true the folk hereabouts" - he pointed to the land ahead - "are cripples? Missing half their hindquarters?"
"The fauns? Cripples?" I laughed. "By the gods who made them, no! — Harry Turtledove

The Romans, spring and early — Harry Turtledove

I do first draft in longhand, which saves a lot of rewriting. I try to get a certain amount done each day. Don't always, but I try. Then I clean up in the rewrites. — Harry Turtledove

You can write better about a place you've seen for yourself. You don't have to have been there - I've sure written about places I've never seen - but it does help. — Harry Turtledove

Many things are possible. Few things are certain. — Harry Turtledove

I learned by reading an awful lot and by writing a half a million words of stuff nobody would do anything with except wrap old fish. — Harry Turtledove

Somewhere near the Alamo, a bugle brayed: either that or McCulloch's men had found some reason to torture a poor, defenseless donkey. — Harry Turtledove

Holy Jesus God, it's the Gerps shootin' us up! the manager shouted. He hadn't known whether to say Germans or Japs, and came out with both at once. — Harry Turtledove

That anyone would want to be famous still mystified Colin. As TV had trained him to do, he associated the word with divorces and court appearances and rehab and jail time. He knew more than he wanted about all of those except rehab, and that was the one famous people blew off anyway. — Harry Turtledove

You count snouts," Straha said. "Whichever side can persuade most snouts to join it prevails. It does not have to be clever. It does not have to be wise. It only needs to be popular. — Harry Turtledove

Well, I might even get used to the idea that she had no tail. — Harry Turtledove

The difference between bad and worse is a lot bigger than the difference between good and better. — Harry Turtledove