Larry Niven Quotes & Sayings

There were timelines branching and branching, a mega-universe of universes, millions more every minute. Billions? Trillions? The universe split every time someone made a decision. Split, so that every decision ever made could go both ways. Every choice made by every man, woman, and child was reversed in the universe next door. — Larry Niven

The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it. — Larry Niven

If one must explain a magic trick, one should do so after the show is over. — Larry Niven

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. — Larry Niven

Meet Crazy Eddie — Larry Niven

I need exercise and solitude. This time of confinement has threatened my sanity! — Larry Niven

A civilization has the ethics it can afford — Larry Niven

In hindsight it may even seem inevitable that a socialist society will starve when it runs out of capitalists. — Larry Niven

If you can heat some bourbon, I can drink it," said the kzin. "If you cannot heat it, I can still drink it." "Nessus? — Larry Niven

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. — Larry Niven

In general, I don't know when inspiration will pop up. — Larry Niven

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! — Larry Niven

Humans," said the puppeteer, "should not be allowed to run loose. You will surely harm yourselves. — Larry Niven

Johnny, did you ever hear of the Club of Rome?" Johnny had, but the audience would need reminding. "They were the people who did computer simulations to find out how long we could get along on our natural resources. Even with zero population growth - " "They tell us we're finished," Sharps broke in. "And that's stupid. We're only finished because they won't let us really use technology. They say we're running out of metals. There's more metal in one little asteroid than was mined all over the world in the last five years! And there are hundreds of thousands of asteroids. All we have to do is go get 'em." "Can we?" "You bet! Even with the technology we already have, we could do it. Johnny, out there in space it's raining soup, and we don't even know about soup bowls. — Larry Niven

1a) Never throw shit at an armed man.
1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man. — Larry Niven

And every friend I've got has been writing Mars stories. It was pretty clear I'd never catch up. — Larry Niven

Stupidity is always a capital crime. — Larry Niven

We learn only to ask more questions. — Larry Niven

But you've never even been as far as the Moon. — Larry Niven

On a world built to ordered specification, there was no logical reason for such a mountain to exist. Yet every world should have at least one unclimbable mountain. — Larry Niven

Remember the Finagle Laws. The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. The universe is hostile." "But — Larry Niven

Nessus sprawled bonelessly in his couch. He looked ridiculously, ludicrously comfortable. — Larry Niven

Never be embarrassed or ashamed by anything you choose to write. — Larry Niven

Everything starts as somebody's dream. — Larry Niven

My problem with new writers is that it takes me five or six years to memorise the right names. — Larry Niven

Consider the true picture. Think of myriads of tiny bubbles, very sparsely scattered, rising through a vast black sea. We rule some of the bubbles. Of the waters we know nothing ... — Larry Niven

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

It is a cardinal sin to bore the reader. — Larry Niven

Fear is the brother of hate. One — Larry Niven

Why hadn't they built a lot of little Ringworlds instead? — Larry Niven

Fear is the brother of hate. — Larry Niven

We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes. — Larry Niven

Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it. — Larry Niven

The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in. - Robert A. Heinlein — Larry Niven

Engineers. You had to love them. (The alternative was strangling them, and he didn't want that catching on.) There — Larry Niven

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

Hopeless causes are the only ones worth fighting for. The fight for the taxpayer is the most hopeless of them all. — Larry Niven

They used to teach us that evolution of intelligent beings wasn't possible," she said. "Societies protect their weaker members. Civilizations tend to make wheel chairs and spectacles and hearing aids as soon as they have the tools for them. When a society makes war, the men generally have to pass a fitness test before they're allowed, to risk their lives. I suppose it helps win the war." She smiled. "But it leaves precious little room for the survival of the fittest. — Larry Niven

I asked him, "Do you know the difference between nude and naked?"
He shook his head.
"Nude is artistic. Naked is defenseless. — Larry Niven

We need to take command of the solar system to gain that wealth, and to escape the sea of paper our government is becoming, and for some decent chance of stopping a Dinosaur Killer asteroid. — Larry Niven

Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked. — Larry Niven

What have they said to us?"
"I could translate, but it would be meaningless. They have welcomed us in the name of their Emperor, who appears to be an over-Master. The short, round one is Mediator to this Emperor."
"Ah. We have at last found one who can communicate. Speak to her."
"But he has said nothing!"
"Say nothing in return. — Larry Niven

Never tell a computer to forget it. — Larry Niven

I don't have a strong interest in history. — Larry Niven

In a collaboration, each author will do 75% of the work. — Larry Niven

Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless. — Larry Niven

I see war as that insane enterprise wherein men dig up the riches of the earth and hurl them at one another. - ATTRIBUTED TO JOSEPH DANIEL HARRINGTON — Larry Niven

Heat is produced as a waste product of civilization." "I — Larry Niven

The hammer has fallen. — Larry Niven

Dune; Nova; Double Star; The Corridors of Time; Cat's Cradle; Half Past Human; Murder in Retrospect; Gideon's Day; The Red Right Hand; The Trojan Hearse; A Deadly Shade of Gold; Conjure Wife; Rosemary's Baby; Silverlock; King Conan. He'd packed books not to entertain, nor even to illustrate philosophies of life, but to rebuild civilization. — Larry Niven

Ethics change with technology. — Larry Niven

Louis suggested that the ship be called 'Lying Bastard'. For their own reasons, Teela and Speaker agreed. For his own reason, Nessus did not object. — Larry Niven

The luck of Teela Brown. — Larry Niven

Treat your life like something to be sculpted. — Larry Niven

Species evolve to meet the environment. An intelligent species changes the environment to suit itself. As soon as a species becomes intelligent, it should stop evolving. — Larry Niven

I do suspect that privacy was a passing fad. — Larry Niven

Never fire a laser at a mirror. — Larry Niven

In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature. — Larry Niven

I've got five or six unpublished stories kicking around looking for somebody to buy them. — Larry Niven

How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf? — Larry Niven

You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed. — Larry Niven

Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun. — Larry Niven

That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers. — Larry Niven

Spray a book with insect spray, drop it in a bag, add some mothballs and seal it. Put it in another bag and seal it. Another. The packages piled up on the floor, each a book sealed in four plastic envelopes. — Larry Niven

The witnessing of titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal. — Larry Niven

The puppeteer unrolled completely. 'Did I hear you call me cute? — Larry Niven

Cliff shrugged. None of their ideas sounded — Larry Niven

For two hundred and fifty years the kzinti had not attacked human space. They had nothing to attack with. For two hundred and fifty years men had not attacked the kzinti worlds; and no kzin could understand it. Men confused them terribly. — Larry Niven

I myself have dreamed up a structure intermediate between Dyson spheres and planets. Build a ring 93 million miles in radius - one Earth orbit - around the sun. If we have the mass of Jupiter to work with, and if we make it a thousand miles wide, we get a thickness of about a thousand feet for the base.
And it has advantages. The Ringworld will be much sturdier than a Dyson sphere. We can spin it on its axis for gravity. A rotation speed of 770 m/s will give us a gravity of one Earth normal. We wouldn't even need to roof it over. Place walls one thousand miles high at each edge, facing the sun. Very little air will leak over the edges.
Lord knows the thing is roomy enough. With three million times the surface area of the Earth, it will be some time before anyone complains of the crowding. — Larry Niven

There were the meaningless greetings the humans called "formalities": insincere inquiries into the state of health, nebulous benedictions and hopes for past well-being; all compensations for the lack of human Mediators. — Larry Niven

I'd repair our education system or replace it with something that works. — Larry Niven

One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better — Larry Niven

Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn. — Larry Niven

The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim — Larry Niven

The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right! — Larry Niven

Intelligence is just a tool to be used toward a goal, and goals are not always chosen intelligently. — Larry Niven

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. — Larry Niven

I'm not predicting; I just love playing with superconductors. — Larry Niven

Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen. — Larry Niven

Jesus Pietro wasn't used to dealing with ghosts. It would require brand new techniques. Grimly he set out to evolve them. — Larry Niven

We should not have assumed that a political space station could be built. — Larry Niven

I've spent a lot of my life among people brighter than myself. — Larry Niven

I never got good at predicting what millions of people will suddenly decide is rational. — Larry Niven

I love superconductors. — Larry Niven

I do not believe they've run out of surprises. — Larry Niven

The brightest minds in our field have been trying to find a definition of science fiction for these past seventy years. The short answer is, science fiction stories are given as possible, not necessarily here and now, but somewhere, sometime. — Larry Niven

The best advice I was ever given was on my twenty-first birthday when my father said, Son, here's a million dollars. Don't lose it. — Larry Niven

I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world. — Larry Niven

My fur is matted, my eyes refuse to refocus, my sthondat-begotten room is too small, my microwave heater heats all meat to the same temperature, and it is the wrong temperature, and I cannot get it fixed. — Larry Niven

For each human being there is an optimum ratio between change and stasis. Too little change, he grows bored. Too little stability, he panics and loses his ability to adapt. One who marries six times in ten years won't change jobs. One who moves often to serve his company will maintain a stable marriage. A woman chained to one home and family may redecorate frantically or take a lover or go to many costume parties. — Larry Niven

There had been a popular joke on Freedom, started by a man named Calder. Looking down from space, he had said, the dominant life forms on Earth were obviously the cereals and other grasses. They occupied all the most desirable and fertile land; and they had tamed insects and animals to care for them. In particular, they had domesticated the bipeds to nurture and cultivate them and to save and plant their seed. Now, watching the farmers, Alex could easily imagine that they were worshiping and genuflecting before their masters. — Larry Niven

Exercise is wonderful," said Louis. "I could sit and watch it all day. — Larry Niven

The Product of Freedom and Security is a constant (F X S = k). Giving up freedom for security is beginning to look naive. — Larry Niven

The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools. — Larry Niven

That's the only part that bugs me about this. It's so empty out there." "True. On the other hand, if the Sun blows up we'll be in an unrivaled position to say, 'What was that?'" "Oh, — Larry Niven

The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum — Larry Niven

Anything that can go wrong, will — Larry Niven

We play your part in order to understand you, but you each seem to play a thousand parts. It makes things difficult for an honest, hard-working bug-eyed monster. — Larry Niven

Sometimes the only way to call attention to bad construction was to set fire to the building. — Larry Niven

Anything beats an expensive stack of paper. — Larry Niven