Frasi di Joe Haldeman

“Perché ti capitano quelle stanche quando tu ne hai voglia, e quelle vogliose quando sei stanco tu? Mi prestai all'inevitabile.”

“In effetti, era lei che aveva imparato un trucco nuovo. Lo chiamava il cavatappi francese. Non volle dirmi, però, chi glielo aveva insegnato. Mi sarebbe piaciuto stringergli la mano, a quel tipo. Quando avessi recuperato le forze.”

“Mi sentii stringere la gola, e capii che tutti i sadici nastri d'addestramento, tutte le morti orribili durante le esercitazioni non erano bastati a prepararmi a quella improvvisa realtà… che anch'io avevo una bacchetta magica, e potevo puntarla verso un essere vivente e trasformarlo in un pezzo fumante di carne semicotta; io non ero un soldato di professione, non avevo mai voluto esserlo, avrei preferito non doverlo essere”

“Non ci sono parole per descrivere un sandwich d'insalata di pollo e una birra fresca dopo due anni di merda riciclata.”

“Marygay […] qui nessuno è infelice.”

“In ogni nido c'è un utero artificiale che si prende cura di una persona per i primi otto o dieci mesi dopo l'attivazione. Quella che lei chiamerebbe nascita avviene in un periodo di giorni; non è l'evento drastico e traumatico di una volta.”

“Lo scopo era di impedire alle persone di fare i bambini nel modo biologico. Perché: 1) mostravano una deplorevole mancanza di buon senso nella scelta del partner genetico; e 2) il Consiglio riteneva che le differenze razziali avessero lo spiacevole effetto di dividere inutilmente l'umanità; con un controllo totale delle nascite, in poche generazioni sarebbe invece stato possibile fare in modo che tutti appartenessero a un'unica razza.”

“Cominciavo a rendermi conto che non avevo la più vaga idea di come dovessi comportarmi, socialmente. Quasi tutto il mio comportamento "normale" era basato su un complesso, tacito codice d'etichetta sessuale. Adesso dovevo trattare gli uomini come se fossero donne e viceversa? Oppure trattare tutti quanti come fratelli e sorelle? Era una gran confusione.”

“Dopo cinquecento anni, continuavano a metterli dietro, i fermagli dei reggiseni.”

“Io sono, noi siamo cloni di un singolo individuo. Circa duecentocinquant'anni fa, il mio nome era Kalm. Adesso è Uomo. […] Io sono più di dieci miliardi di individui, ma una sola coscienza [.. ] Nessun altro tipo umano viene attivato, poiché io sono il modello perfetto. Gli individui che muoiono vengono sostituiti.”

“Il fatto era che l'economia terrestre aveva bisogno d'una guerra, e quella era l'ideale. Offriva un magnifico pozzo senza fondo in cui buttare danaro a palate, ma serviva a unificare l'umanità.”

“The 1143-year-long war hand begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate.

Once they could talk, the first question was 'Why did you start this thing?' and the answer was 'Me?”

“Reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted.”

“There's no such thing as writing about the future. The future hasn't happened yet.”

“Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.”

“She hadn’t been such a bad girl before the power went to her head.”

“Maybe after the war we’ll be civilized again. That’s the way it has always happened in the past.”

“We did it with their government’s foreknowledge and permission, of course—and there were no civilian casualties, equally of course. Once they’re dead they’re rebels.”

“CAROL: You don’t care for the music?
JACQUE: Music! It’s just a gimmick to sell lutes and flutes.”

““You’re actually a soldier,” he said to me, “and you go along with this foolishness?”
“I didn’t ask to be a soldier. And I can’t imagine a peace as foolish as this war we’re in.””

“If you asked him, he would say the only connection between free will and religion in his life was the fact that he hadn’t set foot in a synagogue since he turned eighteen.”

“I had to stifle an impulse to laugh. Surely “cowardice“ had nothing to do with his decision. Surely he had nothing so primitive and unmilitary as a will to live.”

“I never found anyone else and I don’t want anyone else. I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty. If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse.”

“We’re inferring from an absence of data,” Jacque said. “That’s lousy science.”

““Everybody rich and happy.” She smiled. “Also complacent and rather stupid, you may have noticed.””

“Nobody else in that platoon can tell a Hamiltonian from a hamburger.”

“Some are born crazy,” Amelia said. “Some achieve craziness. We had craziness thrust upon us.”

“I have always valued quiet, and the eternity of it that I face is no more dreadful than the eternity of quiet that preceded my birth.”

“One thing most of us agree on is that the universe exists (people who deny that usually follow some trade other than science), so if some theoretical particle interaction would lead ultimately to the nonexistence of the universe, then you can save a lot of electricity by not trying to demonstrate it.”

“It was so much more complicated than it had to be, but the changeling had noted that this was true of every human biological function that wasn’t involuntary.”

“Big money seeks out the company of its own, for purposes of reproduction.”

“Men started to geoform the earth in the middle of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, a lot of the early work was done by people who failed to see the earth as a closed set of mutually interrelated systems.”

“Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human.”

“It was an ideological war for some—the defenders of democracy versus the rebel strong-arm charismatic leaders. Or the capitalist land-grabbers versus the protectors of the people, take your pick.”

“Human nature does change, and the fact that we’ve developed tools to direct that change is quintessentially human. And it must be a nearly universal concomitant to technological growth everywhere in the universe; otherwise there would be no universe. Unless we’re the only technological intelligence in the universe, Julian pointed out; so far there’s no evidence to the contrary. Maybe our own existence is evidence that we’re the first creatures to evolve far enough to hit the reset button. Somebody does have to be first.
But maybe the first is always the last.”

“It was making me a little queasy. Doctors don’t seem to realize that most of us are perfectly content not having to visualize ourselves as animated bags of skin filled with obscene glop.”

“She smiled. “I wouldn’t mind. Is that a difference between men and women or between you and me?”
“I think it’s a difference between you and merely sane people.””

“Like a lot of things that everybody knows, it wasn’t true.”

“Rationalism doesn’t require “belief,” only observation. The real, measurable world doesn’t care what you believe.”