Larry Niven

“Once Louis Wu had sworn to live forever.”

— Larry Niven

In challenging a kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap.

— Larry Niven

“There is no cause so good or noble that it will not attract fuggheads; and the fuggheads will get all the press.”

— Larry Niven

“Music had played suddenly through the cabin, complex and lovely, rich in minor tones, like the sad call of a sex-maddened computer.…

— Larry Niven

“This place is a playground for a questing mind.”

— Larry Niven

“have precious little free will," he was saying. "We're too intelligent not to see the right answers.”

— Larry Niven

“1a) Never throw shit at an armed man. 1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.”

— Larry Niven

We learn only to ask more questions.

— Larry Niven

“Everything starts as somebody's dream.”

— Larry Niven

“I asked him, "Do you know the difference between nude and naked?" He shook his head. "Nude is artistic. Naked is defenseless.”

— Larry Niven

Intelligence is just a tool to be used toward a goal, and goals are not always chosen intelligently.

— Larry Niven

And every friend I've got has been writing Mars stories. It was pretty clear I'd never catch up.

— Larry Niven

For each human being there is an optimum ratio between change and stasis. Too little change, he grows bored. Too little stability,…

— Larry Niven

Anything beats an expensive stack of paper.

— Larry Niven

“Humans," said the puppeteer, "should not be allowed to run loose. You will surely harm yourselves.”

— Larry Niven

“A civilization has the ethics it can afford. We”

— Larry Niven

If one must explain a magic trick, one should do so after the show is over.

— Larry Niven

My problem with new writers is that it takes me five or six years to memorise the right names.

— Larry Niven

Never be embarrassed or ashamed by anything you choose to write.

— Larry Niven

I have a kind of psychic invisibility. As long as I can stay scared, I can keep people from seeing me. That's…

— Larry Niven

It's very difficult for a black man to get out of South-Central Los Angeles, and get out civilized....The only men I know…

— Larry Niven

“Gradually he was learning the size, the scale of the Ringworld. It was unpleasant, like all learning processes. He”

— Larry Niven

In hindsight it may even seem inevitable that a socialist society will starve when it runs out of capitalists.

— Larry Niven

Stupidity is always a capital crime.

— Larry Niven

“I myself have dreamed up a structure intermediate between Dyson spheres and planets. Build a ring 93 million miles in radius -…

— Larry Niven