"Not even the thought of death can upset the man who is going into space for the first time. The journey into the unknown transcends the framework of anxiety, at least for a while."

Robert Sheckley Literature See all quotes by Robert Sheckley →

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“I’ll follow the reedy tenor of his excuses and blast them with the bellowy bass of irrefutable logic!”

“It was one hell of an inspection when you went around finding how many sane men you had left.”

“Even rulers, notoriously the slowest of men to change, realized that something had to be done.”

“Blaine remembered how strange, dark, atavistic and noble Hull’s lordly selection of death has seemed. Pretentious, of course; but then, life itself was a pretension in the vast universe of unliving matter.”

“In a way it made no difference, since nothing is permanent except our illusions.”

“After many centuries we have rediscovered nature’s way of keeping populations in hand. Nature does it the old-fashioned way, by killing people.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Mike Nichols: Interviewer: Are you going to the afterparty? Nichols: I don't know, is there another party, after the party? Interviewer: Yeah. After your dinner. Nichols: I didn't know that. I don't t…"

— M.I.A.

Music1975

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"Does anyone come back from this? I don't know the answer to that, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let this destroy me."

— Paul Reubens

Entertainment1952–2023

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"Does Michael Jackson or Archie Bunker or the president of General Motors need to know about quantum mechanics? Of course not. You can live a full life without that. But if you don’t believe that the u…"

— Frank Wilczek

Science1951

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"What the poet has in mind . . . is that poetic value is an intrinsic value. It is not the value of knowledge. It is not the value of faith. It is the value of imagination. The poet tries to exemplify …"

— Wallace Stevens

Business1879–1955

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