Larry Niven

“Do you play games of chance?”“Emphatically yes. The process of living is a game of chance. To avoid chance is insanity.”

— Larry Niven

Gambling was safer than war. More fun, too. Best of all, it gave him better odds.

— Larry Niven

I’d thought my way into this mess. I should be able to think my way out, shouldn’t I?

— Larry Niven

A sufficiently intelligent being will look about her, solve all questions, then cease activity.

— Larry Niven

Ten thousand years wasn't enough...no lifetime was enough, unless you lived it in such a way as to make it enough.

— Larry Niven

Time is a one-way street with no parking spaces. You just have to keep going.

— Larry Niven

A machine has no mind to read; you never know when it’s going to betray you—

— Larry Niven

It does not destroy matter, which is reassuring. Rewriting one law of physics is worse than trying to eat one peanut.

— Larry Niven

A thrint was master over every intelligent beast. This was the Powergiver’s primal decree, made before he made the stars. So said all of the twelve thrintun religions, though they fought insanely over other matters.

— Larry Niven

Putting a monkey wrench in machinery is often the only way to force somebody to repair, replace, or redesign the machinery. Especially legal or social machinery.

— Larry Niven

A ramrobot had been the first to see Mount Lookitthat. Ramrobots had been first visitors to all the settled worlds. The interstellar ramscoop robots, with an unrestricted fuel supply culled from interstellar hydrogen, could travel between stars at speeds approaching that of light.

— Larry Niven

Matthew Leiah Keller sat beneath a watershed tree and brooded. Other children played all around him, but they ignored Matt. So did two teachers on monitor duty. People usually ignored Matt when he wanted to be alone. Uncle Matt was gone. Gone to a fate so horrible that the adults wouldn't even talk about it.

— Larry Niven

You look like a girl with a secret," Matt said. "I think it must be the smile." Matt smiled with one side of his mouth to show that he knew what was coming. She said it anyway. "So can I.

— Larry Niven

There were organ banks all over the world, inadequately supplied by people kind enough to will their bodies to medical science. The idea had spread like wildfire .... like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it.

— Larry Niven

Jesus Pietro wasn't used to dealing with ghosts. Grimly he set out to evolve them.

— Larry Niven

Jesus Pietro was worried. The Sons of Earth, if they got this far, would go straight to the vivarium to free their compatriots. But if Matthew Keller was his own agent... If the ghost of Alpha Plateau was not a rebel, but a thing with its own unpredictable purpose... Jesus Pietro worried.

— Larry Niven

Parlette spoke slowly and evenly. "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

The bleeding-heart symbol does not represent any known revolutionary organization. … Yes, the bleeding heart was something else again. A gruesome symbol on a vivarium floor. Fingers that broke without their owner noticing. An ink drawing appearing from nowhere on a dossier cover, like a signature. A signature.

— Larry Niven

He was sick of having to be afraid. It was a situation to drive a man right out of his skull. If he stopped being afraid, even for an instant, he could be killed! But now, at least for the moment, he could stop listening for footsteps, stop trying to look in all directions at once. A sonic stunner was a surer bet than a hypothetical, undependable psi power. It was real, cold and hard in his hand.

— Larry Niven

I have a kind of psychic invisibility. As long as I can stay scared, I can keep people from seeing me. That's what we have to count on.

— Larry Niven

Millard Parlette was near exhaustion. … Sometimes it seemed to him, that he was at the end of his life, that he'd waited just long enough to meet this — the crisis he'd foreseen a hundred years ago. … Known rebels moved freely through the Hospital, and no one could touch them. Their attitude toward the police was rude and contemptuous. Rumor had it that Millard Parlette was drafting new laws to further restrict police power. It didn't help that the rumors were true.

— Larry Niven

Louis knew a few xenophobes, and regarded them as dolts.

— Larry Niven

Fear is the brother of hate.

— Larry Niven

The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.

— Larry Niven

To witness titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal.

— Larry Niven

The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. The universe is hostile.

— 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

Seen through the glow of a building orgasm, a woman seems to blaze with angelic glory.

— Larry Niven

The majority is always sane.

— Larry Niven

Tell them the universe is too complicated a toy for a sensibly cautious being to play with.

— Larry Niven

Rod privately suspected the Scots studied their speech off duty so they’d be unintelligible to the rest of humanity.

— 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

“Perhaps I was expecting too much.”“Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.”

— Larry Niven

“It’s a nitwit idea.”“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

He liked everything about the university except the students.

— Larry Niven

And that’s another reason I don’t want contact between your species and mine. You’re all Crazy Eddies. You think every problem has a solution.

— Larry Niven

I sometimes wonder why the aristocracy isn’t extinct, the lot of you seem so stupid sometimes.

— Larry Niven

As I said, it was inevitable, and I don’t let laws of nature upset me.

— Larry Niven

She waited for him to explain a universe in which there was so much injustice.

— Larry Niven

It had been a long dull evening, with only the thought of leaving the party early to look forward to.

— Larry Niven

Doctor, you keep asking me to see your point of view, which is based on ethics. You never see mine, which isn’t.

— Larry Niven

“Can you take orders?”“Means yes.”

— Larry Niven

He felt good. At worst he had found a brand-new way to die.

— 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

He’s a computer. Perfect memory, rigid logic, no judgment. I forgot. I talked to him like a human being, and now—

— Larry Niven

My self-centeredness is as human as your fanaticism.

— Larry Niven

Too much imagination and I’ll scare myself to death. Too little and I’ll get myself killed.

— Larry Niven

Suddenly Corbell missed Mirabelle terribly. He mourned her, not because she was dead, but because she was gone.

— Larry Niven

War between the sexes had always seemed silly to Corbell. Too much fraternizing with the enemy, ha-ha.

— Larry Niven

Civilization must have become awfully stereotyped before its collapse.

— Larry Niven

We learn only to ask more questions.

— Larry Niven

Forget the infinities: Concentrate on detail.

— Larry Niven

There is never no hope left. Remember.

— Larry Niven

Sometimes there’s no point in giving up.

— Larry Niven

Cooking was creation itself; It seemed to put the universe in perspective.

— Larry Niven

“I copied it.”“Sure you did, joker, but they drew what they thought you wanted and you copied what you thought you saw—”

— Larry Niven

Sex was a game nobody lost.

— Larry Niven

What’s intelligence for if not for seeking knowledge?

— Larry Niven

“It’s a joy,” she said, “watching you keep your mouth shut.”

— Larry Niven

We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders. They're watching their feet: provable mistakes are bad for them. We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes.

— Larry Niven

The wealth of the universe is all over your head. 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

We've fallen way behind. Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.

— Larry Niven

Cheap superconductors imply maglev trains everywhere. Computers could get big again, with RAM/ROM rising by powers of forty and fifty, if superconductors shed the heat. Laser handguns against superconducting armor. I'm not predicting; I just love playing with superconductors.

— Larry Niven

Here is where the predictions failed: We didn't take Cargo Cult mentality into account: "if somebody has something I don't, he must have stolen it." We didn't understand how good we could get at communication — when you have something that someone else doesn't, the whole damn planet knows it.

— 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

2) Never fire a laser at a mirror.

— Larry Niven

3) Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun.

— Larry Niven

5) Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.

— Larry Niven

6) It is easier to destroy than create. Bin Laden tore down the World Trade Center? Let's see him build one. If human beings didn't have a strong preference for creation, nothing would get built, ever.

— Larry Niven

7) Any damn fool can predict the past.

— Larry Niven

8) History never repeats itself.

— Larry Niven

9) Ethics change with technology.

— Larry Niven

10) Anarchy is the least stable of social structures.

— Larry Niven

11) There is a time and place for tact. And there are times when tact is entirely misplaced.

— Larry Niven

16) There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it. To prove a point, one may seek out a foolish Socialist, thirteenth century Liberal, Scientologist, High Frontier advocate, Mensa member, science fiction fan, Jim Bakker acolyte, Christian, witch, or fanatical devotee of Special Interest Lib. It doesn't really reflect on the cause itself. Ad hominem argument saves time, but it's still a fallacy.

— Larry Niven

17) No technique works if it isn't used.

— Larry Niven

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

19) Think before you make the coward's choice. Old age is not for sissies.

— Larry Niven

1) Writers who write for other writers should write letters.

— Larry Niven

2) Never be embarrased or ashamed about anything you choose to write. (Think of this before you send it to a market)

— Larry Niven

3) Stories to end all stories on a given topic, don't.

— Larry Niven

4) It is a sin to waste the reader's time.

— Larry Niven

5) If you've nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn't get it then, let it not be your fault.

— 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

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

There’s always another problem behind the one you just solved. Does that mean that you should stop solving problems?

— 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.

— Larry Niven

Drugs: “There’s no way to keep them from getting in. Anyone who wants drugs can get them. We make arrests where we can, and so what? Me, I’m betting on Darwin.”“The next generation won’t use drugs because they’ll be descended from people who had better sense.”

— Larry Niven

That's the thing about people who think they hate computers … What they really hate are lousy programmers.

— Larry Niven

Think of it as evolution in action.

— Larry Niven

God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.

— Larry Niven

Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn.

— Larry Niven

Everything starts as somebody's daydream.

— 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

The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.

— Larry Niven

Part of being a coward is wanting security.

— Larry Niven

Do you know what it’s like to be suddenly poor and not know how to live poor?

— Larry Niven

There is no turning away from knowledge.

— Larry Niven

“Do you believe in hunches?”“Neither do I. Except just this once.”

— Larry Niven

The moral of this story is, anything you don’t understand is dangerous until you do understand it.

— Larry Niven

“Does it help you to know that you’ve ruined my day?”“It does, yes.”

— Larry Niven

I didn’t want to find her. Not now. Our bargain had been clear, and also inevitable; and there are advantages to sleeping alone. I’ll think of them in a moment.

— Larry Niven

Just take my word for it, will you? Assume I’m a genius.

— Larry Niven

Was he deadpan because he didn’t care anymore? How much boredom can you meet in three hundred years?

— Larry Niven

Any time seems long when you need to make a decision but can’t.

— Larry Niven

“Do you like strange places and faraway people—or vice versa?”“Both.”

— Larry Niven

The trouble with sharing too many beds was that one’s chance of running into a really bad situation was improved almost to certainty.

— Larry Niven

Presently she gave her considered opinion. “Idiots.”“No. They’re just like all of us: They want something for nothing.”

— Larry Niven

I had to grin. Morris was shocked and horrified. I’d shown him a brand new sin.

— Larry Niven

A species that can’t develop spaceflight is no better than animals.

— Larry Niven

When you trade among the stars, there is no repeat business.

— Larry Niven

Stupidity is always a capital crime.

— Larry Niven

The morning was blacker than the inside of a smoker’s lungs.

— Larry Niven

There was this about him: he knew who I was, but he hadn’t remembered my name. Ron Cole had better things to think about than what name belonged with whom. A name was only a tag and a conversational gambit.

— Larry Niven

I asked him, “Do you know the difference between nude and naked?”“Nude is artistic. Naked is defenseless.”

— Larry Niven

Anyone who says human nature can’t be changed is out of his head. To make it stick, he’s got to define human nature—and he can’t.

— Larry Niven

Peace isn’t a stable condition, not for us. Maybe not for anything that lives.

— Larry Niven

“That’s impossible. Isn’t it? Carlos?”Carlos’ mouth twisted. “Not if it’s being done.”

— Larry Niven

In a universe the size of ours almost anything that can happen, will.

— Larry Niven