Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

Oh, "Tanstaafl." Means "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." And isn't,' I added, pointing to a FREE LUNCH sign across room, 'or these drinks would cost half as much. Was reminding her that anything free costs twice as much in long run or turns out worthless.

Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.

If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it.

I know where I came from—but where did all you zombies come from?I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I do not take. I did once—and you all went away.So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light.You aren’t really there at all. There isn’t anybody but me—Jane—here alone in the dark.I miss you dreadfully!

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Customs, morals--is there a difference?

Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. [He is also a fool.]

He was finding it ruinously expensive to be rich.

Churches thrive on martyrdom and persecution.

The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can "prove" anything from it.

There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted - but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service.

It seems to me that any law that is not enforced and can't be enforced weakens all other laws.

A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.

Science fiction" means different things to different people. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra"—in which case the term science fiction has piled up a lot of expensive overtime.

...I have this one nasty habit. Makes me hard to live with. I write......writing is antisocial. It's as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is likely to turn and bite right to the bone... and not even know that he's doing it. As writers' wives and husbands often learn to their horror......there is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured. In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear you at all... and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites...

I know why we laugh. We laugh because it hurts, and it's the only thing to make it stop hurting.

Richard, Bill has the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the world owes him a living. He told me sincerely - smugly! - that of course everyone was entitled to the best possible medical and hospital service - free of course, unlimited of course, and of course the government should pay for it.

Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist--a master--and that is what Auguste Rodin was--can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is . . . and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be . . . and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body.

Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.

English is capable of defining sentiments that the human nervous system is quite incapable of experiencing.

Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot at the tax collector...and miss.

Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires.

Belief gets in the way of learning.

I had never been much interested in Pluto, too many facts and too much isolation.

The way to find justice is to deal fairly with other people and not worry about how they deal with you.

In the twentieth century, nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed as in America---and nowhere else was there such a deep interest in it.

Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act, which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person.

Yes, sir, there are things to see and do on the French Riviera without spending money.

I'm not feisty. But when you're as small as I am and female if you don't stand up for your rights, you're sure to be pushed around by big, hairy, smelly men with delusions about male superiority.

I waited. Women talk when they want to. Or don't.

Property is not the natural and obvious and inevitable concept that most people think it is.

The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.

More depended on the student than on the school.

The worst that can possibly have happened to him is death and that we are all in for---if not this morning, then in days, or weeks, or years at most.

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason - but one cannot have both.

Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong - but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.