Larry Niven
American science fiction author, most famous as the author of Ringworld (1970), his "Known Space" stories, and Niven's laws.
Someone or something was in this room, something or someone with the power to make people forget. ... He was reaching for the stunner on his desk when something caught his eye. It was the dossier for Matthew Keller, senior. A crude drawing defaced its yellow cover.
Two open arcs, joined, in black ink. Three small closed loops beneath.
The bleeding heart. It certainly hadn't been there before.
Jesus Pietro opened the folder. He could smell his own fear, and feel it, in the cool perspiration that soaked his shirt. As if he'd been afraid for hours.
Forget the infinities: Concentrate on detail.
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers ... What they really hate are lousy programmers.
3) Stories to end all stories on a given topic, don't.
11) There is a time and place for tact.
And there are times when tact is entirely misplaced.
8) History never repeats itself.
Seen through the glow of a building orgasm, a woman seems to blaze with angelic glory.
17) No technique works if it isn't used.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
19) Think before you make the coward's choice. Old age is not for sissies.
To witness titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal.
The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.
1a) Never throw shit at an armed man.
1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.
From the beginning there had been a revolutionary group. Its name had changed several times, and Matt had no idea what it was now. He had never known a revolutionary. He had no particular desire to be one. They accomplished nothing, except to fill the Hospital's organ banks. How could they, when the crew controlled every weapon and every watt of power on Mount Lookitthat? If this was a nest of rebels, then they had worked out a good cover. Many of the merrymakers had no hearing aids, and these seemed to be the ones who didn't know anyone here. Like Matt himself. In the midst of a reasonably genuine open-house brawl, certain people listened to voices only they could hear.
The bleeding-heart symbol does not represent any known revolutionary organization. ... Yes, the bleeding heart was something else again. A gruesome symbol on a vivarium floor. Fingers that broke without their owner noticing. An ink drawing appearing from nowhere on a dossier cover, like a signature. A signature.
9) Ethics change with technology.
5) If you've nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn't get it then, let it not be your fault.
4) It is a sin to waste the reader's time.
The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!
Here is where the predictions failed: We didn't take Cargo Cult mentality into account: "if somebody has something I don't, he must have stolen it."
We didn't understand how good we could get at communication — when you have something that someone else doesn't, the whole damn planet knows it.