James Tiptree Jr. Quotes

All I can say is that laughter is my music; I would deeply suspect an argument which hadn't laughter.

Being, I imagine, must be very simple. It is Becoming which is so messy and which I am all for.

Absolutes are absolutely dangerous.

Passing in any crowd are secret people whose hidden response to beauty is the desire to tear it into bleeding meat.

You can understand why a system would seek information - but why in hell does it offer information? Why do we strive to be understood? Why is a refusal to accept communication so painful?

Anyone who shoots a real gun at you when drunk and angry is simply not husband material, regardless of his taste in literature.

I've had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation.

Any chance beats no chance.

I am one of those that always get accidentally guillotined when the Great Day of Liberation comes, because ... I guess ... I am full of parentheses. Revolutions can't abide parentheses.

I cannot teach -- if I teach as teaching should be I become so exhausted I nearly die, I seem to have no middle gear.

good is too often allied with vulnerability and evil with power.

Man is an animal whose dreams come true and kill him.

The only way I can possibly heat my so-called mind up to working temperature is to imagine I'm talking to someone I admire.

Evil is the voltage of good; the urge to goodness, without the potential of evil, is trivial.

I dreamed horse and lived horse and expected, if necessary, to marry a horse; for all practical purposes I was a horse.

You know, exams are like war -- the birth rate of ideas goes up. Anything to keep from this dismal regimen, says poor mind, and hopefully tosses up another distraction.

And here is our girl, looking-- If possible, worse than before. (You thought this was Cinderella transistorized?)

Before he could lose courage he flung himself back and slammed his sleep-inducer to full theta.