Quotes by David Gerrold

“Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.”

“The problem with the gene pool is that theres no lifeguard.”

“I have memories - but only a fool stores his past in the future.”

“If a thing is worth doing, its worth doing for money”

“Understanding the laws of nature does not mean that we are immune to their operations.”

I think I exist, therefore I exist. I think.

Something went klunk. Like a nickel dropping in a soda machine. One of those small insights that explains everything. This was puberty for these boys. Adolescence. The first date, the first kiss, the first chance to hold hands with someone special. Delayed, postponed, a decades worth of longing--while everybody around you celebrates life, you pretend, suppress, inhibit, deprive yourself of you own joy--but finally ultimately, eventually, you find a place where you can have a taste of everything denied.

When I was ten years old, one of my friends brought a Shaleenian kangaroo-cat to school one day. I remember the way it hopped around with quick, nervous leaps, peering at everything with its large, almost circular golden eyes. One of the girls asked if it was a boy cat or a girl cat. Our instructor didnt know; neither did the boy who had brought it; but the teacher made the mistake of asking, How can we find out? Someone piped up, We can vote on it! The rest of the class chimed in with instant agreement and before I could voice my objection that some things cant be voted on, the election was held. It was decided that the Shaleenian kangaroo-cat was a boy, and forthwith, it was named Davy Crockett. Three months later, Davy Crockett had kittens. So much for democracy. It seems to me that if the electoral process can be so wrong about such a simple thing, isnt it possible for it to be very, very wrong on much more complex matters? We have this sacred cow in our society that what the majority of people want is right—but is it? Our populace cant really be informed, not the majority of them—most people vote the way they have been manipulated and by the way they have responded to that manipulation—they are working out their own patterns of wishful thinking on the social environment in which they live. It is most disturbing to me to realize that though a majority may choose a specific course of action or direction for itself, through the workings of a representative government, they may be as mistaken about the correctness of such a choice as my classmates were about the sex of that Shaleenian kangaroo-cat. Im not so sure than an electoral government is necessarily the best.

To say that a writers hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-its like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writers build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home. The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it.

I have a very simple philosophy of life:Kindness. Ferocious, unrelenting, ruthless, committed, passionate, kindness.Life is sacred everywhere. We all have better things to do than beat each other up.Arguing for the exception is to invest it with energy, its to negotiate the loophole. The commitment to kindness must be total.

The fifties are a peaceful time, a quiet sleeping time between two noisy bursts of years, a blue and white time filled with sweet yellow days, music and bright smelling memories.

I mean, I tried to change, I did, everybody tries to change, Michael. Not just the queerboys. You look in the mirror and all you see is whats wrong, Im not _this_ enough or Im not _that_ enough, and you spend your whole life trying to fix yourself, because you just want to be okay inside your head, you know?I know you know this, Michael, thats why youre here. Youre looking for the fix. Yeah, thats why they call it a fix. Because you think youre broken. Only youre not--that broken feeling? Thats normal. Thats how you know youre normal. If youre not feeling it, you really are broken, thats the joke

Somebody should have warned the Trojans. Beware of gifts bearing Greeks.

Life is full of little surprises.Time travel is full of big ones.

Understanding the laws of nature does not mean that we are immune to their operations.

If you were a kid in 1955, you would pick up a copy of Popular Science and it would say, This is the kind of car youre going to be driving in five years or in 20 years youll be able to take a jet plane from New York to London in four hours, or something like that. We actually got used to the idea that the futures going to be different.

Star Trek is the McDonalds of science fiction; its fast food storytelling. Every problem is like every other problem. They all get solved in an hour. Nobody ever gets hurt, and nobody needs to care. You give up an hour of your time, and you dont really have to get involved. Its all plastic.

Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.

Whats interesting about the shift from an industrial age to a technological age is that we keep inventing new media: movies, records, radio, television, the Internet, and now ebooks - and one of the things thats most interesting about the invention of a new medium is watching it reinvent itself as it penetrates the culture.

In the 20th century, we had a century where at the beginning of the century, most of the world was agricultural and industry was very primitive. At the end of that century, we had men in orbit, we had been to the moon, we had people with cell phones and colour televisions and the Internet and amazing medical technology of all kinds.