Spider Robinson

Just as there areof Conservation of Matter and , so there are in fact Laws of Conservation ofand . Neither can ever be created or destroyed. But one can be converted into the other.

— Spider Robinson create

A man shouldforever, ortrying.

— Spider Robinson man

In awherehas metastasized like slow carcinoma, that crazy Irishman was backward enough to try to raise , like hothouse . In an era during which even judicious use of alcohol has been increasingly bad-rapped, the man who came to be known as The Mick ofwas backward enough to think that thecan look just that essential tad better when seen through a flask, brightly. (As long as you let someone else drive you home afterward.) Above all, he — and his goofball customers — believed that shared pain is lessened, and shared Joy increased. Now he is gone. Gone back whence he came, and we are all the poorer for it. But I refuse to say that we will not see his like again. Or hisagain.

— Spider Robinson war

Sharedis lessened; shared , increased — thus do we refute .

— Spider Robinson

To all thethere ever were or ever will be, whatever they may be called — and to all the merry maniacs and who are fortunate enough to stumble into one: may none of them arrive too late!

— Spider Robinson hate

The delusion that one's sexual pattern is The Only Right Way To Be is probably the single most common sexual-psychosis syndrome of this era, and it is virtually almost always the victim's fault. You cannot acquire this delusion by observing .

— Spider Robinson sex

" is an ," I said. "Did you know that?" I turned to look at her and she was staring. She laughed experimentally, stopped when I failed to join in. "And I'm a pair of pants with a hole scorched through the ass?"

— Spider Robinson men

Asforgot to say,To live outside the , you must be .

— Spider Robinson live

I smelled her before I saw her. Even so, the first sight was shocking.

— Spider Robinson

I had just seen the two most horrible things. The first was the . They say that when the bomb went off at Hiroshima, some people's shadows were baked onto walls by it. I think that smile got baked on the surface of myin much the same way. I don't want to talk about that smile.

— Spider Robinson people

Five days of wireheading alone should have killed her, never mind sudden cold turkey.

— Spider Robinson mind

Animated the face might have been beautiful — any set of features can support— but even a superb makeup job could not have made her pretty.

— Spider Robinson beautiful

I was putting together a picture of athat would have depressed anyone with the sensitivity of a rhino. Back when I had first seen her, when her features were alive, she had looked sensitive. Or had that been a trick of the juice?

— Spider Robinson live

I wanted to understand.

— Spider Robinson want

I've tried it with men and women and boys and girls, in the dark and in the desert sun, with people I cared for and people I didn't give a damn about, and I have never understood the pleasure in it. The best it's ever been for me is not uncomfortable.

— Spider Robinson women

" is an iron," I said. "Did you know that?" I turned to look at her and she was staring. She laughed experimentally, stopped when I failed to join in. "And I'm a pair of pants with a hole scorched through the ass?" "If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an ."

— Spider Robinson men

Man has historically devoted much more subtle and ingenious thought to inflictingthan to giving others— which, given his gregarious , would seem a much more survival-oriented behavior. Poll any hundred people at random and you'll find at least twenty or thirty who know all there is to know about psychologicaland psychic castration — and maybe two who know how to give a terrific back-rub.

— Spider Robinson people

Call it… . The thing like pleasure that you feel when you've done athing or passed up a real tempting chance to do a bad thing. Or when the unfolding of thejust seems especially apt. It's nowhere near as flashy and intense as pleasure can be. Believe me! But it's got something going for it. Something that can make you do without pleasure, or even accept a lot of pain, to get it.

— Spider Robinson pain

"It took a couple of hundred million years to develop a thinking ape and you want a smart one in a lousy few hundred thousand? That lemming drive you're talking about is there — but there's another kind of drive, another kind of force that's working against it. Or else there wouldn't still be any people and there wouldn't be the words to have this conversation and—" She paused, looked down at herself. "And I wouldn't be here to say them."

— Spider Robinson art

Now I can say that I have sampled the spectrum of the pleasure system at both ends — none and all there is — and I think the rest of my life I will dedicate myself to the middle of the road and see how that works out. Starting with the very weak tea and toast I'm going to ask you to bring me in another ten minutes or so. With maltose. But as for this other stuff, this joy thing, that I would like to begin learning about, as much as I can. I don't really know adamned thing about it, but I understand it has something to do with sharing and caring and what did you say your name was?

— Spider Robinson life

is an iron… and that's a hot one.

— Spider Robinson

It's always coldest before the warm.

— Spider Robinson war

Nikky has more fiber than I do, I guess: he doesn't let a little thing like death slow him down.

— Spider Robinson death

Never attribute to malice, that which can be reasonably explained by stupidity.

— Spider Robinson reason

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