I watched the spinning stars, grateful, sad and proud, as only a man who has outlived his destiny and realizes he might yet forge himself another, can be.

One of the disadvantages of traveling alone is that when you fall there is none to assist you.

Did you ever look back at some moment in your past and have it suddenly grow so vivid that all the intervening years seemed brief, dreamlike, impersonal—the motions of a May afternoon surrendered to routine?

It was my turn to be silent while a small family of moments crossed my path, single file, from the left, sticking their tongues out at me.

Don’t wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.

Time means a lot to me, paperwork wastes it, and I have always been a firm believer in my right to do anything I cannot be stopped from doing. Which sometimes entails not getting caught at it. This is not quite so bad as it sounds, as I am a decent, civilized, likable guy. So,...

When inspiration is silent reason tires quickly.

I enjoy slaughtering beasts, and I think of my relatives constantly.

Once past the comfort zone in either direction, humans soon lost the ability to discriminate bad from worse.

I don’t know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something–or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it’s just an ego trip.

Nobody steals books but your friends.

Collins and Morales represent a segment of society which, if attacked with the weapons society sanctions, one finds buffered by innumerable layers of law, bureaucracy, lies, evasions. They rest secure within their palaces, confident that they possess defenses against all possible attacks within the rules of the game, yet willing to violate those rules themselves....

There’s no such thing as civilization. The word just means the art of living in cities.

While I had often said that I wanted to die in bed, what I really meant was that in my old age I wanted to be stepped on by an elephant while making love.

In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils; and on that great Day of which the prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on the day the world is utterly cleansed of evil, then...

I sometimes think of us as a gang of mean little old ladies in a combination rest home and obstacle course.

It is anticipation and recollection that fill the heart—never the sensation of the moment.

Life is full of doors that don’t open when you knock, equally spaced amid those that open when don’t want them to.

Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?””Because the world has need of your humility, your piety, your great teaching and your Machiavellian scheming.

I try to sit down at the typewriter four times a day, even if it’s only five minutes, and write three sentences.

I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.

I know, too, that death is the only god who comes when you call.

I feel obligated to point out, though, that I have always been a sucker for ideas I find aesthetically pleasing. The cosmic sweep of the thing – an interstellar kula chain – affirming the differences and at the same time emphasizing the similarities of all the intelligent races in the galaxy – tying them together,...

Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You’ve crossed...

When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.

I was not always that way, but perhaps the shadow Earth, where I spent so many years, mellowed me a bit, and maybe my hitch in the dungeons of Amber reminded me somewhat of the quality of human suffering. I do not know. I only know that I could not pass by the hurt I...

It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm...

Do you work for the government, any government?””I pay taxes, which means I work for the government, part of the time. Yes.

Siddhartha considered the ways of the demon, and in that moment he struck.

He smelled the smells of commerce and listened to the cursing of the sailors, both of which he admired: the former, as it reeked of wealth, and the latter because it combined his two other chief preoccupations, these being theology and anatomy.

Wheels turning, the motorcycle’s roar grows steady, which, too, is a form of silence.

Then every man would be as a god, you see. The result of this, of course, would be that there would no longer be any gods, only men. We would give them knowledge of the sciences and the arts, which we possess, and in so doing we would destroy their simple faith and remove all...

To paraphrase Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, and all those guys, “I wish I had known this some time ago.

No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.

Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?” asked Tak.”Yes—and no,” said Yama, “If by ‘demon’ you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape—then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect.””Oh?...

If it will give you any satisfaction in the end, I still care for you. Either there is no such thing as love, or the word does not mean what I have thought it to mean on many different occasions. It is a feeling without a name, really—better to leave it at that. So take...

A totally nondenominational prayer: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure...

In the State of Denmark there was the odor of decay…

Then you must reconcile yourself to the fact that something is always hurt by any change. If you do this, you will not be hurt yourself.

Good-bye and hello, as always.

The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe.

Once a Buddha, always a Buddha, Sam. Dust off some of your old parables. You have about fifteen minutes.’ Sam held out his hand. “Give me some tobacco and a paper.

The day of battle dawned pink as the fresh-bitten thigh of a maiden.

If you ever loved anything in your life, try to remember it. If you ever betrayed anything, pretend for a moment that you have been forgiven. If you ever feared anything, pretend for an instant that those days are gone and will never return. Buy the lie and hold to it for as long as...

You are one of the few successful persons I know.””Me? Why?””You know precisely what you are doing and you do it well.””But I don’t really do much of anything.””And of course the quantity means nothing to you, nor the weight others place upon your actions. In my eyes, that makes you a success.””By not giving...

But I recall the springtime of the world as though it were yesterday—those days when we rode together to battle, and those nights when we shook the stars loose from the fresh-painted skies!

Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -you just don’t know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you’d mapped out...

An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time. One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to have a chance of succeeding.

It is a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you.

First, a man may in some ways be superior to his fellows and still serve them, if together they serve a common cause which is greater than any one man. I believe that I serve such a cause, or I would not be doing it.