Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

He was delighted to recognize his own human name on two of the papers; he always got an odd thrill out of reading it, as if he were two places at once.

He was finding it ruinously expensive to be rich.

He's an honest politician--he stays bought.

Hendrick, I have explained these matters to you because it is useless to punish a man unless he knows why he is being punished.

Here’s to alcoholic brotherhood . . . much more suited to the frail human soul, if any, than any other sort.

Heroism' often consists in keeping your head in an emergency and doing the best you can with what you have instead of panicking and being shot in the tail. People who fight this way win more battles t...

Hit it! You have to hit it harder than that. Electrons are timid little things but notional; you have to let them know who’s boss.

I always get the shakes before a drop.

I am not a pacifist. Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay—and claims a halo for his dishonesty.

I don't see why human people make such a heavy trip out of sex. It isn't anything complex, it is simply the best thing in life, even better than food.

I had no sympathy for him and still haven’t. That old saw about To understand all is to forgive all is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand the more you loathe them.

I hate to tell you this, but you are just stupid and eager and sincere enough to make the kind of officer that men love to follow into some silly predicament.

I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats—I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way. I could show yo...

I needed a space suit the way a pig needs a pipe organ.

I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water: it may be his finest hour but it’s not his choice.

I refuse to grow younger. I came by my decrepitude the hard way and I propose to enjoy it.

I say ‘art’ advisedly, for art is undefined, undefinable, and without limits. I can use the word without fear of misusing it, for it has no exact meaning. There are as many meanings as there are artis...

I scrolled on down to the obituaries. I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.

I tried to dig out of the computer a call directory for Luna. But it was still sulking. I could not get it to list its own directory. So I tried some test problems on it. It insisted that 2 + 2 = 3.99...

I was not in bad health (aside from a cumulative hangover), I was still on the right side of thirty by a few days, and I was far from being broke. No police were looking for me, nor any husbands, nor...