The Fabulous Riverboat Quotes
"Resurrection, like politics, makes strange bedfellows. I can't say that the sleeping is very restful."
"A ninety-five-year-old Huck Finn, give or take a few thousand years."
"Ignorance, the mother of hysteria, or is it vice versa?"
"He looked through the telescope at the right bank and cursed again."
"I don't believe in miracles, but this is one. We've no business being alive."
"Tehuti? That's what I said. Please don't interrupt, Sam."
"I've thought for a long time that this world, and our resurrection, are not the work of supernatural beings."
"I'm not so sure. I think it's been established that the stones have something to do with the resurrections."
"There's not much room to maneuver on a river only a mile and a half wide."
"It's a sad world, just as sad, in most ways, as the old Earth."
"I must write, though I'd get more writing done if I didn't talk so much."
"If I can bring one genius into this vale of heavy tears, I will think my life worthwhile."
"Sounds as if he's a lost soul before he's dead, don't he?"
"I pay tribute to the Prince of Darkness, yes."
"You're a strange man. Evil, I think. Certainly not God-fearing."
"I'm on my way to bigger and better things, my provincial friend."
"Out of nothing I come, through a world populated by asses I pass, and into nothing I go."
"You're the kind of human being I like. I chose well."
"You fool! You'll need bauxite for aluminum and platinum for a catalyst."
"I'm with you human beings, and I intend to see that my people do not complete their filthy project."
"I'll be damned! Does that mean that these... these people... have been keeping an eye on us for half a million years?"
"I feel like a yellow dog, although there's no reason I should."
"What's the matter? I'm suffering from guilt before I've even incurred it."
"By the great horn spoon! Let some peasant who's cut out for this drudgery do it!"
"Damn them! Damn him! I'll build the boat and I'll get to the north pole!"
"I want my Livy back! And I want my daughters!"
"The hell of it, Bill, is there isn't much I can do."
"Damn you and all your kind! Why couldn't you have let things be as they were on Earth?"
"Every day is fine here, you can't even talk about the weather, let alone do anything about it!"
"What do you mean? Doesn't it disturb you to see that?"
"But old Earth is dead; they are living in a new world."
"I never heard of the Nazis on Earth, you know, since I died in a plane crash in 1922."
"Even when he holds his head high, he will jump if somebody cracks a whip."
"The truth is, we can defend ourselves quite well—but we cannot invade and occupy any large territory."
"I'd just as soon not have my name attached to it."
"The mere fact that we would have these guns would demonstrate our technological and military superiority."
"The world changed much after you died, John—uh, Your Majesty."
"You'll hear those words a lot in the future if you deal with Hacking."
"Merdo, Johano! Not even a Plantagenet gobs on my floor!"
"The whole idea sickens me. If you'd seen the tragedies... well, never mind."
"John, I ought to arrest your assertions for vagrancy. They certainly are without any visible support."
"If you had shown that he wanted her when she had made it plain that he could have her, then she might not have turned to von Richthofen."
"Where's the black men! Your black population is about one-tenth of your population, and so you ought to have at least one black on a ten-man Council!"
"It's a matter of pride. I have thousands of hours more flying time than Richthofen, in planes far more complex and bigger and speedier."
"Never let it be said that Samuel Langhorne Clemens wasted good whiskey. Or even bad, for that matter."
"Perhaps he felt that he had to put any white, no matter who, in his place."
"The day the boat sets out on the long journey, you can be its chief engineer."
"Only the heads of the state and the workers who had built this place knew about it."
"The only way to neutralize the pain-expanding effects then was to pour liquor down the patient."
"He wondered if Gwenafra was dead or if she had been captured."
"The sky was bright with the jampack of huge stars and the extensive glowing gas clouds."
"To rush into any hut and try to rescue one woman was to throw away their chances of doing any good for Parolando."
"The exceptions were the Wahhabi Arabs, whose religion forbade drinking alcohol."
"The job of chief engineer can still be yours."
"But by the time they were inside the dam, he felt better."
"The River was a great place for bad pennies, if you could call the Twelve that."
"The waters roared out in a wall at least a hundred feet high."
"The plain was buried under a whirl and toss of waters."
"The two armies on the plain and the sailors were all dead."
"But Parolando extended for ten miles along The River."
"The fabulous Riverboat, gleaming white with red and black and green trimmings, moved out from the canal and into The River."
"It was ironic that they would flee to the very country the citizens of which had been forbidden entrance to Parolando."
"He watched the pilot, Robert Styles, steering the boat for the first time."
"Joe roared—he sounded like a lion suddenly released from its cage."
"Nobody, absolutely nobody, the Stranger, the Devil, God, nobody, no matter what his powers, is going to stop me!"