40 Quotes by Walter M. Miller Jr.

The visitor shrugged. "Like euthanasia? I'm sorry, Father, I feel that the laws of a society are what make something a crime or not a crime. I'm aware that you don't agree. And there can be bad laws, ill conceived, true. But in this case, I think we have a good law. If I thought I had such a thing as a soul, and that there was an angry God in Heaven, I might agree with you.

To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.

That contraption -- listen, Brother, they claim it thinks. I didn't believe it at first. Thought, implying rational principle, implying soul. Can the principle of a 'thinking machine' -- man-made -- be a rational soul? Bah! It seemed a thoroughly pagan notion at first. But do you know what?""Father?""Nothing could be that perverse without premeditation! It must think! It knows good and evil, I tell you, and it chose the latter.

It is not what you meant to say, but it is what your saying meant.

Be for Man the memory of Earth and Origin. Remember this Earth. Never forget her, but — never come back. If you come back, you might meet the Archangel at the east end of Earth, guarding her passes with a sword of flame. I feel it. Space is your home hereafter. It’s a lonelier desert than ours. God bless you, and pray for us.

Now, Reverend Father Abbot asked me to make the following announcements:"First, for the next three days we shall sing the Little Office of Our Lady before Matins, asking her intercession for peace."Second, general instructions for civil defense in the event of a space-strike or missile-attack alert are available on the table by the entrance. Everybody take one.

That's where all of us are standing now, he thought. On the fat kindling of past sins.

He did not like saying it. To communicate a fact seemed always to lend it fuller existence.

It never was any better, it never will be any better. It will only be richer or poorer, sadder but not wiser, until the very last day.