269 Quotes by Kim Stanley Robinson

You can say that if you went crazy then you were crazy, and you couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. But that isn't the way it works, not in the real world. I mean, that's the sad thing about insane people; almost all of them know perfectly well that something is seriously wrong with them; that's what makes them so scared, so depressed. They know.

Economics was like psychology, a pseudoscience trying to hide that fact with intense theoretical hyperelaboration. And gross domestic product was one of those unfortunate measurement concepts, like inches or the British thermal unit, that ought to have been retired long before.

Things are sold for less than it costs to make them. ... lots of business do go bankrupt. The ones that don't haven't actually sold their thing for more than it costs to make. They've just ignored some of their costs. ... they shove some of their production costs off their books.

That's a large part of what economics is - people arbitrarily, or as a matter of taste, assigning numerical values to non-numerical things. And then pretending that they haven't just made the numbers up, which they have. Economics is like astrology in that sense, except that economics serves to justify the current power structure, and so it has a lot of fervent believers among the powerful.

And in this curious state I had the realization, at the moment of seeing that stranger there, that I was a person like everybody else. That I was known by my actions and words, that my internal universe was unavailable for inspection by others. They didn't know. They didn't know, because I never told them.

Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked generation after generation; give them 3000 calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike.

You just don't have faith!" Frank repeated."Well I hope I never get it! It's like being hit by a hammer in the head!

And Sarah still looked like the sexiest librarian on earth, which is as those of you who frequent libraries know means very sexy indeed, but with that added owlish touch that drives you wild.

Desire is life trying to continue to be life. All living things desire, bacteria feel desire. Life is wanting.