Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.
Book 1956
Double Star quotes
About the book
Out-of-work actor Lorenzo Smythe is hired to impersonate a kidnapped politician, John Joseph Bonforte, at a ceremony that could decide relations with the Martians. The short job turns into a much longer role as he comes to share the man's beliefs.
7 quotes
Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong — but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.
There is solemn satisfaction in doing the best you can for eight billion people. Perhaps their lives have no cosmic significance, but they have feelings. They can hurt.
His bow to me must have been calculated on a slide rule; it suggested that I was about to be Supreme Minister but was not quite there yet, that I was his senior but nevertheless a civilian — then subtract five degrees for the fact that he wore the Emperor's…
I have never been impressed by the formal schools of ethics. I had sampled them — public libraries are a ready source of recreation for an actor short of cash — but I had found them as poor in vitamins as a mother-in-law's kiss. Given time and plenty of…
People don't really want change, any change at all — and xenophobia is very deep-rooted. But we progress, as we must — if we are to go out to the stars.
Son, suppose you tend to your knitting and I tend to mine.