Keith Laumer

John Keith Laumer (June 30, 1925 — January 23, 1993) was an American science fiction author.

Quotes

Short fiction

The Star Treasure (1970)

Page numbers from the original publication in Venture Science Fiction magazine (February 1970).

• I was still alive, but that was a mere detail, subject to change. (p. 13)

• Adventure has been defined as somebody else having a difficult time, a long way away. (p. 17)

• The last burst picked me up and threw me a thousand miles into an open grave and the mud showered down on me and a giant tombstone fell out of the sky to mark the place, but I didn’t care any more, because I was far away, in that place where the heroes and the cowards lie together with a fine impartiality, waiting for eternity to pass, slowly, like a procession of snails creeping across an endless desert toward a distant line of mountains. (p. 18)

• “You’re talking to yourself.”
  “It’s all right. I’m not listening.” (p. 78)

Timetracks (1972)

Page numbers from the mass market paperback first edition, published by Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-345-02575-X, first printing

See Keith Laumer's Internet Science Fiction Database page for original publication details

• The Third Era had recognized the impossibility of correcting the effects of human interference with more human interference.
  • The Timesweepers (p. 27)

• Man clings to his self-orientation at the psychological center of the Universe. You can face any challenge within that framework, suffer any loss, endure any hardship—so long as the structure remains intact.
  • The Timesweepers (p. 36)

• Lucifer hurried on. “But I assure you that most of what you’ve heard is grossly exaggerated. That is to say, I’m not really as bad as all that. I mean, there are different kinds of er, badness. There is the real evil, and then there’s sin. I’m, ah, associated with sin.”
  “The distinction seems a subtle one, Mr., ah, Lucifer—”
  “Not really, professor. We all sense instinctively what true evil is. Sin is merely statutory evil—things that are regarded as wrong simply because there’s a rule against them. Like, ah, smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor and going to movies on Sunday, or wearing lipstick and silk hose, or eating pork, or swatting flies—depending on which set of rules you’re going by. They’re corollary to ritual virtues such as lighting candles or spinning prayer wheels or wearing out-of-date styles.”
  Dimpleby leaned back and steepled his fingers. “Hmmm. Whereas genuine evil…?”
  “Murder, violence, lying, cheating, theft,” Lucifer enumerated. “Sin, on the other hand, essentially includes anything that looks like it might be fun.”
  “Come to think of it, I’ve never heard anything in praise of fun from the anti-sin people,” Curl said thoughtfully.
  “Nor from any ecclesiastic with a good head for fund-raising,” Dimpleby concluded.
  “It’s all due to human laziness, I’m afraid,” Lucifer said sadly. “It seems so much easier and more convenient to observe a few ritual prohibitions than to actually give up normal business practices.”
  • The Devil You Don’t (pp. 48-49)

• Are you sure you’re really the Devil and not someone else with the same name?
  • The Devil You Don’t (p. 52)

• So—let’s remember the Uranium Rule. Don’t Do It! The Other Guy May Be Bigger!
  • The Time Thieves (p. 103)

• Most taboos have to do with eating, sex, elimination or gods; so remember, look before you sit down, lie down, squat down or kneel down!
  • The Time Thieves (p. 103)

• To be adult is to be disillusioned. Only realities count.
  • The Time Thieves (p. 110)

A Trace of Memory (1963)

All page numbers from the mass market paperback edition published by Tor Books ISBN 0-812-54373-4, first printing (November 1984)

• Foster shook his head. “The inherent inertia of the human mind,” he said. “How it fights to resist new ideas.”
  • Chapter 3 (p. 37)

• I’m arguing with myself and I can’t tell who’s winning.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 49)

• I know; you don’t consider it impossible. That’s the trouble with you; you don’t consider anything impossible. It would make life a lot easier for me if you’d let me rule out a few items—like leprechauns who hang out at Stonehenge.
  • Chapter 5 (p. 61)

• “It’s a failing of your culture,” Foster said, “that hypothesis becomes dogma almost overnight. You’re too close to your Neolithic, when the blind acceptance of tribal lore had survival value. Having learned to evoke the fire god from sticks, by rote, you tend to extend the principal to all ‘established facts.’”
  • Chapter 5 (p. 61)

• There’s nothing like a little slavery to make a man appreciate even a modest portion of freedom.
  • Chapter 14 (p. 166)

• I wanted to tell him that all lives are the same length when viewed from the foreshortened perspective of death, and that life, like music, requires no meaning but only a certain symmetry.
  • Chapter 18 (p. 253)

A Plague of Demons (1965)

All page numbers from the mass market paperback edition published by Pocket Books ISBN 0-671-82975-0, first printing (December 1979)

Nominated for the 1966 Nebula Award

• “All right. Let’s begin with the world situation.”
  “I’d prefer a more cheerful subject—like cancer.”
  • Chapter 1 (p. 10)

• Yours is not to reason why, eh? I guess you’re lucky at that. It’s not dying that hurts—it’s living.
  • Chapter 10 (p. 134)

• “Why do you fight this war?”
  The alien mind howled out its war slogan—as incomprehensible as an astrologer’s jargon.
  • Chapter 13 (p. 164)

• Out of the synthesis of opposites, a cancerous growth called Beauty came into being; obscene antisurvival concepts named Loyalty, Courage, Justice were born into the universe.
  Wherever the elemental Purities encountered this monstrous hybrid, a battle of extermination was joined. Good could compromise with Evil, but neither could meet with the half-breed, Art.
  • Chapter 13 (p. 169)

The Other Side of Time (1965)

All page numbers from the mass market paperback edition published by Signet (catalogue number Q5255), first printing (November 1972)

• Judge a chap on what he does, and not what he is, eh? None of us can help our natural tendencies—and perhaps overcoming one’s instincts is in the end a nobler achievement than not having the impulse in the first place.
  • Chapter 5 (p. 56)

• I know it’s hard to grasp at first. I seem to recall I was a bit difficult to convince once. We are accustomed to thinking we know everything. There’s a powerful tendency to just disbelieve anything that doesn’t fit the preconception.
  • Chapter 7 (p. 81)

• I took all these details in as the mighty carnivore looked me over, yawned, and paced majestically toward me, frowning across at the distant herds like a troubled politician wondering who to pay the bribe to.
  • Chapter 10 (p. 121)

• It was easy to see the mechanics of schizophrenia at work here. From wishing, it was an easy jump to believe.
  • Chapter 10 (p. 123)

• “I say, old man, you’re developing something of a persecution complex, I’m afraid—”
  “That’s easy, when you’re persecuted.”
  • Chapter 11 (p. 128)

Lafayette O'Leary

The Time Bender (1966)

All page numbers from the mass market paperback omnibus edition, The Universe Twister, published by Baen Books ISBN 978-1-4165-5597-1, first printing (October 2008)

• “Just what is your position here?”
  “I’m an adviser to his Majesty.” Nicodaeus smiled blandly. “He thinks I’m a master of magic, of course, but among these feather-heads a little common sense is sufficient to earn one a reputation as a wise man.”
  • Chapter 4 (p. 67)

• “Him and his pet dragon—”
  “More folklore, I take it?”
  “Well, I never actually seen this dragon.”
  “Hmmm. Funny how nobody I’ve met has seen it, but they all believe in it.”
  • Chapter 7 (p. 124)

• Magic, after all? He felt the untrimmed hair at the nape of his neck rising. But then, maybe it was just electronics—magic rationalized.
  • Chapter 10 (p. 175)

The World Shuffler (1970)

All page numbers from the mass market paperback omnibus edition, The Universe Twister, published by Baen Books ISBN 978-1-4165-5597-1, first printing (October 2008)

• “None of that, either,” he commanded. “Keep your mind on the immediate problem—just as soon as you figure out what the immediate problem is,” he added.
  • Chapter 1 (p. 274)

• “It’s an old trick,” the security chief said. “Reverse cunning, we call it in the security game; indistinguishable from utter stupidity.”
  • Chapter 7 (p. 380)

• “M-magic?” Lafayette stuttered.
  “Nonsense. Electronics.”
  • Chapter 7 (p. 389)

The Shape Changer (1972)

All page numbers from the mass market paperback omnibus edition, The Universe Twister, published by Baen Books ISBN 978-1-4165-5597-1, first printing (October 2008)

• He turned; she stood in the doorway, clad in an invisible negligee.
  • Chapter 2 (p. 526)

• Strange—I go along for months at a time—even years—without so much as a mild concussion—and then bam—slam—bash! They start using my head for a practice dummy. That’s how I can tell that I’m having an adventure.
  • Chapter 4 (p. 557)

• “Quelius—you’re nuts—did you know that?”
  “Of course. That’s quite all right. Better embarked on an exciting insanity than moldering away in dull normality. One thing you can’t deny: we psychotics lead interesting lives.”
  • Chapter 11 (p. 713)

Dinosaur Beach (1971)

All page numbers from the mass market paperback edition published by Baen Books ISBN 0-671-65581-7, first printing (July 1986)

• Rules had been made, and even enforced from time to time. When the first absolute prohibition of time meddling came along, it was already far too late.
  • Chapter 4 (p. 19)

• “Take it easy, girl,” I said, and patted her shoulder; I knew my touching her would chill her down again. Not a nice thing to know, but useful.
  • Chapter 15 (p. 71)

• Don’t go female on me now. We don’t have time for nonsense.
  • Chapter 15 (p. 71)

• “Are you all right?” Mellia said.
  “It’s nothing a month in the intensive care unit wouldn’t clear up.”
  • Chapter 21 (p. 93)

• Sure—that’s the concept. It wouldn’t be the first concept that had to be modified in the face of experience.
  • Chapter 21 (p. 96)

• One nice thing about working with a piece of machinery: you don’t waste time trying to justify your actions.
  • Chapter 26 (p. 123)

• Less than total control is no control at all. You will obey my instructions, Mr. Ravel. In every detail. Or I will scrap the project.
  • Chapter 26 (p. 124)

• It was a nasty little village, poverty-stricken, ugly, hostile, much like little towns in all times and climes.
  • Chapter 28 (p. 131)

• The Karg looked at her with the interested expression of a coroner who sees his customer twitch.
  • Chapter 29 (p. 142)

• Too late, I realized how I had trapped myself. I had let sleep in as a guest, and death had slipped through the door.
  • Chapter 32 (p. 156)

• “Impossible!” he said, as if he believed it—or as if he wanted awfully badly to believe it.
  • Chapter 37 (p. 183)

• An idea was beginning to get through, and he wasn’t liking it very well.
  • Chapter 39 (p. 191)

• The human mind is a pattern, nothing more. The first dim flicker of awareness in the evolving forebrain of Australopithecus carried that pattern in embryo; and down through all the ages, as the human neural engine increased in power and complexity, gained control of its environment in geometrically expanding increments, the pattern never varied.
  Man clings to his self-orientation as the psychological center of the Universe. He can face any challenge within that framework, suffer any loss, endure any hardship—so long as the structure remains intact.
  Without it he’s a mind adrift in a trackless infinity—lacking any scale against which to measure his aspirations, his losses, his victories.
  Even when the light of his intellect shows him that the structure is itself a product of his brain; that infinity knows no scale, and eternity no duration—still he clings to his self-non-self concept, as a philosopher clings to a life he knows must end, to ideals he knows are ephemeral, to causes he knows will be forgotten.
  • Chapter 40 (pp. 192-193)