Poul Anderson Quotes

75 Sourced Quotes

You are much too kind, said Holger, overwhelmed.
Nay. Alfric waved his hand. You mortals know not how tedious undying life can become, and how gladly a challenge such as this is greeted. 'Tis I should thank you.

Poul Anderson
Look, these were none of them supermen. In fact, they were either weaklings who'd been assigned civilian-type jobs, or warriors as ignorant and superstitious as brutal. Aside from what specialized training fitted them for Wallis's purposes, he'd never tried to get them properly educated. If nothing else, that might have led to questioning of his righteousness and infallibility.

Poul Anderson
Bombing: A method of warfare which delivers high explosives from the air, condemned because of its effects upon women, children, the aged, the sick, and other non-combatants, unless these happen to have resided in Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Osaka, etc., though not Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Cf. missile.

Poul Anderson
Missile: A self-contained device which delivers high explosives from the air, condemned because of its effects upon women, children, the aged, the sick, and other non-combatants, unless these happen to have resided in Saigon, Da Nang, Hué, etc. Cf. bombing.

Poul Anderson
There really wasn't much in a man's life that mattered. But those few things mattered terribly.

Poul Anderson
We're mortal - which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful - but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?

Poul Anderson
I say that a God who would come between two who have been to each other what we have been, is not one I would heed.

Poul Anderson
My mother taught me a Spanish saying, he remarked, that it takes four men to make a salad: a spendthrift for the oil, a philosopher for the seasonings, a miser for the vinegar, and a madman for the tossing.

Poul Anderson
And ninety-nine percent of the human race, no matter how smart they are, will do the convenient thing instead of the wise thing, and kid themselves into thinking they can somehow escape the consequences. We're just built that way.

Poul Anderson
The old man murmured: Aye, we draw to an end. Dying hurts. Nonetheless the forefathers were wise who in their myths made Nan coequal with Lesu. A thing which endured forever would become unendurable. Death opens a way, for peoples as well as for people.

Poul Anderson
So much American science fiction is parochial — not as true now as it was years ago, but the assumption is one culture in the future, more or less like ours, and with the same ideals, the same notions of how to do things, just bigger and flashier technology. Well, you know darn well it doesn't work that way...

Poul Anderson
Anybody can find infinite Mandelbrot figures in his navel.

Poul Anderson
Happier are all men than the dwellers in Faerie – or the gods, for that matter…Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness that can see naught above or beyond itself…the day draws nigh when Faerie shall fade, the Erlking himself shrink to a woodland sprite and then to nothing, and the gods go under. And the worst of it is, I cannot believe it wrong that the immortals will not live forever.

Poul Anderson
'Tis colder outside than a well-born maiden's heart.

Poul Anderson
"I've heard assorted rhapsodies about humankind going to the stars, of course. Who hasn't? Each of them founders on the practical problems."
"The fish that first ventured ashore had considerable practical problems."

Poul Anderson