Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinleinwas an American science-fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was an influential and controversial author of the genre in his time...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth7 July 1907
CountryUnited States of America
art race creating
Once there was a race, quite unlike the human race - quite. I have no way of describing to you what they looked like or how they lived, but they had one characteristic you can understand: they were creative. The creating and enjoying of works of art was their occupation and their reason for being.
trust secrecy tyranny
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny
old-friends way doe
Death is an old friend; I know him well. I lived with him, ate with him, slept with him; to meet him again does not frighten me death is as necessary as birth, as happy in its own way.
pigs benefits waste
A fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
law people statistics
By the laws of statistics we could probably approximate just how unlikely it is that it would happen. But people forget especially those who ought to know better, such as yourself that while the laws of statistics tell you how unlikely a particular coincidence is, they state just as firmly that coincidences do happen.
brave done
I did the only really brave thing I have ever done in my life: I inched forward.
tired mature
It's amazing how much 'mature wisdom' resembles being too tired.
motivational memories men
Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact.
heart cutting gambling
There is no such thing as 'social gambling.' Either you are there to cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it -- or you're a sucker. If you don't like this choice -- don't gamble.
congratulations self hymns
The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned.... Our hymns were loaded with arrogance - self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day.
women years mind
In the eighty or ninety years I have given to this subject, trying to trace out the meanderings of their twisty little minds, the only thing that I have learned for certain about women is that when a gal is gonna, she's gonna. All a man can do is cooperate with the inevitable.
editors giving likes
You have to give an editor something to change, or he gets fretful. After he pees in it, he likes the flavor better, so he buys it.
surprising happens
History is never surprising after it happens.
brother should-have knives
He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word - such as grok which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word.