William Barton (writer)

William Renald Barton III (born September 28, 1950) is an American science fiction writer.

Quotes

When We Were Real (1999)

All page numbers are from the mass market paperback first edition published by Warner Books (Aspect), ISBN 0-446-60706-1

• Thinking about death’s a funny thing. Stupid. Like wondering where you were before you were born.
  • Chapter 1 (p. 17)

• There’s always a moment of transition for you, that one moment when you turn from outsider to in, when you leave your past behind and suddenly mesh with the new life you’ve joined.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 64)

• Human society begins with what nature makes male and female mammals want from each other.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 69)

• Well, that happens in fairy tales, doesn’t it? In real life, when a manager fucks up and ruins a million working people’s lives, when he bungles so badly the company loses a decade’s profits, his Christmas bonus turns up a little short. That’s all.
  • Chapter 4 (p. 76)

• Risk meaningless death at the hands of a soulless corporate entity?
  Hmmm. How much are they paying?
  • Chapter 5 (p. 101)

• A woman’s laughter can charm a man out of his senses.
  • Chapter 7 (p. 170)

• Seduction’s so easy when its target has the same object in mind.
  • Chapter 8 (p. 186)

• War, they say, is just business conducted through other means.
  • Chapter 11 (p. 252)

• That’s all I remember, really. We fly around. I shoot the guns. The explosions are pretty. People die. What the hell are they fighting for? Freedom? What the hell is that?
  You’re born out of nothing. You live for a while. You die. You go back to nothing.
  What kind of fool dies for a word?
  A better class of fool than the one who dies for a paycheck?
  Don’t know.
  • Chapter 12 (p. 262)

• Idle relics of the past. Things that let us imagine we’ve lived, when nothing else remains.
  • Chapter 14 (p. 332)