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Cordwainer Smith Quotes

We shall take a star out of the skies and shall set thousands of worlds on fire...

Cordwainer Smith

We shall take a star out of the skies and shall set thousands of worlds on fire...

Tags: fire, on, revolution, science, stars, world

You and I are animals, darling, not even real people, but people do not understand the teaching of Joan, that whatever seems human is human.

Cordwainer Smith

You and I are animals, darling, not even real people, but people do not understand the teaching of Joan, that whatever seems human is human.

About Author
Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913 – August 6, 1966), better known by his pen-name Cordwainer Smith, was an American author known for his science fiction works. Linebarger was a US Army officer, a noted East Asia scholar, and an expert in psychological warfare. Although his career as a writer was shortened by his death at the age of 53, he is considered one of science fiction's more talented and influential authors.

Was that what people learned between the stars? To care for other people very much indeed and to spring upon them only to reveal love and not devouring to their prey?

Cordwainer Smith

Was that what people learned between the stars? To care for other people very much indeed and to spring upon them only to reveal love and not devouring to their prey?

There is no call for you to get tragic about it. Tragedy is easy enough to contrive. And if you want to be tragic, you can be tragic without destroying thirty thousand other people or without wasting...

Cordwainer Smith

There is no call for you to get tragic about it. Tragedy is easy enough to contrive. And if you want to be tragic, you can be tragic without destroying thirty thousand other people or without wasting...

She warned him, kindly enough, about manners when he forgot the simple ceremonies of eating which everyone knew, such as standing up to unfold the napkin or putting the scraps into the solvent tray an...

Cordwainer Smith

She warned him, kindly enough, about manners when he forgot the simple ceremonies of eating which everyone knew, such as standing up to unfold the napkin or putting the scraps into the solvent tray an...

The revolution lasted six minutes and covered one hundred an twelve meters.

Cordwainer Smith

The revolution lasted six minutes and covered one hundred an twelve meters.

Tags: revolution, science fiction

KENnEDY SHOT. OSWALD SHOT TOO.

Cordwainer Smith

KENnEDY SHOT. OSWALD SHOT TOO.

You are Rod McBan the hundred and fifty-first. Specifically, you are a spinal column with a small bone box at one end, the head, and with reproductive equipment at the other end. Inside the bone box y...

Cordwainer Smith

You are Rod McBan the hundred and fifty-first. Specifically, you are a spinal column with a small bone box at one end, the head, and with reproductive equipment at the other end. Inside the bone box y...

There is no time for fear. It's much too interesting.

Cordwainer Smith

There is no time for fear. It's much too interesting.

There is no all-​purpose computer built that weighs as little as a hundred and fifty pounds. You do.

Cordwainer Smith

There is no all-​purpose computer built that weighs as little as a hundred and fifty pounds. You do.

She is a cat, he thought. That's all she is—a cat!

Cordwainer Smith

She is a cat, he thought. That's all she is—a cat!

Meeya Meefla, where

Cordwainer Smith

Meeya Meefla, where

Joan commented, upon sentence, My body is your property, but my love is not. My love is my own, and I shall love you fiercely while you kill me.

Cordwainer Smith

Joan commented, upon sentence, My body is your property, but my love is not. My love is my own, and I shall love you fiercely while you kill me.

Tags: love, underpeople

It was not the site of the earth which surprised him – it was the smell. .... This earth and air smelled alive. There was the odor of plants, of water, of things which he could not even guess. The air...

Cordwainer Smith

It was not the site of the earth which surprised him – it was the smell. .... This earth and air smelled alive. There was the odor of plants, of water, of things which he could not even guess. The air...

It was all of this: The beat and the heat and the neat repeat of the notes which poured from the congohelium—metal never made for music, matter and anti-matter locked in a fine magnetic grid to ward o...

Cordwainer Smith

It was all of this: The beat and the heat and the neat repeat of the notes which poured from the congohelium—metal never made for music, matter and anti-matter locked in a fine magnetic grid to ward o...

He looked at his dry old hand and it seemed to him that in this atmosphere, he had himself become more reptilian than human. I am caught by the dry, drab enturtlement of old, old age, he murmured, but...

Cordwainer Smith

He looked at his dry old hand and it seemed to him that in this atmosphere, he had himself become more reptilian than human. I am caught by the dry, drab enturtlement of old, old age, he murmured, but...

Chang nodded sagely. My father insisted on it. He said, ‘You may be proud of being a scanner. I am sorry you are not a man. Conceal your defects.’ So I tried. I wanted to tell the old boy about the up...

Cordwainer Smith

Chang nodded sagely. My father insisted on it. He said, ‘You may be proud of being a scanner. I am sorry you are not a man. Conceal your defects.’ So I tried. I wanted to tell the old boy about the up...

At sixteen Helen was already famous, and at seventeen already forgotten, and very much alone.

Cordwainer Smith

At sixteen Helen was already famous, and at seventeen already forgotten, and very much alone.

And now if they should break or you should fall, you might faint for a year or two. If that happens, your local system takes over: that's the pack on your back.

Cordwainer Smith

And now if they should break or you should fall, you might faint for a year or two. If that happens, your local system takes over: that's the pack on your back.

Crowding together to see something which would ease the boredom of perfection and time.

Cordwainer Smith

Crowding together to see something which would ease the boredom of perfection and time.