John Barnes Quotes

18 Sourced Quotes

Shan had always said that in any multiple choice about human motivation, the real answer was always "all of the above."

John Barnes
If you want to learn a culture, you have to learn how to like what it likes, rather than go looking for something that you like.

John Barnes
There's a rule or something that if a girl can crack you up, you have to do what she says.

John Barnes
You know, when someone hurts my feelings, somehow it does not comfort me to know that it was deliberate... On the other hand, knowing that someone else thinks they are assholes helps a great deal." "I think that's some kind of rule for the universe.

John Barnes
Almost every culture in the Thousand Cultures had some wisdom literature, and much of it was the same between any two cultures.... Cultures tend to be alike in much of what they think are the basic virtues, but one of the ones they are most alike in, though it rarely appears in their book of wisdom, is: Distrust strangers, fear foreigners, dread novelty.

John Barnes
Human beings always say they prefer peace, but it takes a saint to talk us into not assaulting our neighbors.

John Barnes
It's a good idea for diplomats to keep their word in small matters. It makes the later complete betrayals more of a surprise.

John Barnes
They're so dedicated to logic and reason that common sense hasn't got much to do with it.

John Barnes
Once you were in, they put a note in your file that said you were in therapy, and all your teachers saw that file. They might as well have tattooed CRAZY on your forehead. The next year every teacher would be watching you for the first weird thing you did—and has there ever been a kid who never does anything an adult considers weird?

John Barnes
I know I pretend to be the apolitical businessman a lot, but the reality is that like anybody who's interested in getting people together with the things they need and want, I have an agenda. I want people to get what they want, and I want them ideally to get it fro me, but most of all I want them to be free to want it and to make offers to get it. Those poor stupid fanatics have ben sold on the idea that what they want is the ability to give themselves a little priggish congratulations over having done the right thing. They'd rather be right than happy. More importantly, they'd rather that I be right than happy and they're not about to leave the choice up to me. I say, let 'em die, and I hope it's slow and it hurts.

John Barnes
I've been thinking, he said. Which is not an easy thing for a teacher to admit to.

John Barnes
One of the stranger beliefs in science fiction is a passionate belief in Beautiful Writing—lots and lots of extraspecial exciting words thrown no hurled no CASCADED upon the reader in a shimmering shower of precious verbal gleaming gleanings and a singing pillar of righteous fiery syntactic spinach. The only thing that was good in that sentence was the spinach, and the hell with it.

John Barnes
Useless people are not improved by giving them the impression they are useful.

John Barnes
"And just like this, all of a sudden, your people and mine will begin to talk?" "It only looks sudden from some places. Running off a cliff is sudden if you don't know it's there, even if you have been running toward it for days." "That's not a reassuring metaphor." "It isn't meant to be."

John Barnes
[Regarding politicians]... like any group of people selected for ambition and nothing else, they turn out to be a pretty bad lot. Like mandarins in China, colonial administrators in the British Empire, lawyers in old North America, or the reconstruction agencies after the Slaughter — individually there are decent people who do some good, but as a class they're amoral, vicious leeches with a good cover story.

John Barnes
People who put principles before people are people who hate people. They don't much care about how well it works, just about how right it is... they may even like it better if it inflicts enough pain.

John Barnes
There is a saying among those of us who have careers with the Council of Humanity that skiers, cooks, painters, and diplomats must work with what is in front of them.

John Barnes
In discussing the existence, or not, of the soul: "I am Caledon. Quite a few of my fellow Caledons still believe there is some essence to a human being, something that makes a person unique." "And you don't." "I don't. I see that people who believe in anything beyond plain physical reality are mainly engaged in making themselves or others miserable."

John Barnes