Cyril M. Kornbluth

Cyril M. Kornbluth (July 2, 1923 – March 21, 1958) was an American science fiction author.

For novels and stories co-written with Frederik Pohl, see Frederik Pohl's Wikiquote page

Quotes

Short fiction

See Cyril M. Kornbluth's Internet Science Fiction Database page for original publication details

A Mile Beyond the Moon (1958)

Page numbers from the mass market paperback edition published by Macfadden Books (Catalogue number 40-100) in 1962

• You have a sense of humor, Mr. Kazam. That’s a rare thing in the religious.
  • Kazam Collects (p. 97)

• It was then that I drifted into the nut cult business. I found out that all you need for capital is a stock of capitalized abstract qualities, like All-Knowingness, Will-Mind-Urge, Planetude and Exciliation. With that to work on I can make my living almost anywhere on the globe.
  • Kazam Collects (p. 103)

• “He began with the complicated salute of the Astral Confederation and got down to business. ‘Brother Kazam,’ he said, ‘I wish to show you an ancient sacred book I have just discovered.’ I laughed, of course. By that time I’d already discovered seven ancient books by myself, all ready-translated into the language of the country I would be working at the time. The ‘Isba Kazhlunk’ was the most successful; that’s the one I found preserved in the hide of a mammoth in a Siberian glacier.”
  • Kazam Collects (pp. 103-104)

• Greed advise with hate; greed wins; greed always wins.
  • The Last Man Left in the Bar (p. 117)

• They were immigrants into the sea; like all immigrants they longed for the Old Country. Then the second generation. Like all second generations they had no patience with the old people or their tales. This was real, this sea, this gale, this rope! Then the third generation. Like all third generations it felt a sudden desperate hollowness and lack of identity. What was real? Who are we? What is NEMET which we have lost? But by then grandfather and grandmother could only mumble vaguely; the cultural heritage was gone, squandered in three generations, spent forever. As always, the fourth generation did not care.
  • Shark Ship (p. 155; NEMET = “Northeastern Metropolitan Area”)

Not This August (1955)

All page numbers from the first mass market paperback edition, published by Bantam Books (Catalogue number A1492)

Nominated for the 1956 Hugo Award

• Of course, I shouldn’t be telling you state secrets, but I've noticed at home that a state secret is something known to everybody who makes more than fifty thousand a year and to nobody who makes less.
  • Chapter 1 (pp. 9-10)

• God help the human race if you thugs are its fighters for liberty.
  • Chapter 17 (p. 127)