The Naked Sun Quotes
"But here was a Spacer who might have been an Earthman for all his appearance. He was bald."
"There will be no necessity for facing the outdoors."
"It is customary to devote a single room to a single purpose."
"The fear of disease on the part of Spacers is by no means so extreme."
"Jehoshaphat, we're all human; even the Spacers."
"Jehoshaphat! To the—the outdoors. It's all this planet is made of."
"You have been told nothing, Plainclothesman Baley, about the crime for which your services have been solicited. I imagine you are quite curious about that."
"No crime, you see. Our population is tiny and widely scattered. There is no occasion for crime; therefore no occasion for police."
"True, but the first crime of violence in two centuries of history."
"Unfortunate, yes. More unfortunately still, the victim was a man we could scarcely afford to lose. A most inappropriate victim. And the circumstances of the murder were particularly brutal."
"Yet the deed was done. Rikaine Delmarre is dead."
"Jehoshaphat! What do these Solarians do for themselves?"
"Seeing isn't involved. You see my image. You're viewing me."
"A robot isn't human, Daneel. On Earth, it cannot be a legal witness."
"Murder rests on three legs, each equally important. They are motive, means, and opportunity. For a good case against any suspect, each of the three must be satisfied."
"I don't care about Dr. Thool. I said competent medical advice. Your doctors don't know anything, any more than your detectives would, if you had any. You had to get a detective from Earth. Get a doctor as well."
"You're scared as hell. You think you'll be next if you pursue this thing. You're giving in so they'll let you alone; so they'll leave you your miserable life."
"No! You listen to me. I'd advise you to. You're a big time Spacer and I'm an Earthman, but with all respect, with deepest and most humble apologies, you're scared."
"But I won't be ordered off by you. Not while there's a case to which I've been assigned that's still open. Try getting rid of me against my will and you'll be looking down the throats of space-based artillery."
"I am used to seeing and that's the way it's going to be. I'll want the official approval of your office for all of that."
"If you kick us off, the next deputation to visit Solaria will consist of warships. I'm from Earth and I know how the system works. Hurt feelings mean warships by return trip."
"I may not, through inaction, allow you to come to harm, Partner Elijah. Yet under the circumstances, nothing but inaction is possible. The logic is unassailable. I shall do nothing. I trust you will remain safe and in good health."
"I have to get used to it, he thought, and stared at the blue until his heart beat rapidly and the lump in his throat swelled beyond endurance."
"And there was that comfort about robots; they asked no questions."
"On Earth, with its buried Cities, day and night, waking and sleeping, were man made periods, adjusted to suit the needs of the community and the planet."
"Seeing her was never very easy, but, of course, it is something one learns to bear in time and she was not the intrusive sort."
"Culture dictates invention; a phrase I believe I have invented."
"The pursuit will be over. The rights mankind will be heir to will be life, liberty, and happiness. Just that. Happiness."
"I've developed propositions that are quite new and startling, and yet basically true."
"Robots tend to displace human labor. The robot economy moves in only one direction. More robots and fewer humans."
"We have the first new society, the first really new one, the first great social invention since the farmers of Sumeria and Egypt invented cities."
"Skies above, there isn't an instinct around that can't give way to a good, persistent education. Not in human beings, where instincts are weak anyway."
"Each individual repeats his own evolutionary history as he develops."
"Discipline today for a better life tomorrow is a true expression of First Law if robots could only be made to see it."
"Skies above! How do children ever manage to grow up?"
"It's an arrow. It is fired by a bow, which makes a taut string do the work."
"I'm not confident of being able to control all the robots if I'm not here in person."
"I've viewed novels set on the other Outer Worlds where seeing goes on all the time. It's different in a novel. It just seems like a multiview."
"You needn't laugh. I've had some of my pedestals on display. I've given shows."
"The structure of light remained as they left the room. It stayed behind, holding Baley's imprisoned soul fast in the gray of the Cities."
"Space was large, space was lonely, yet he found it drawing him. His mind pictured himself striding the surface of a world with thousands of miles and light-years of room all about him."
"Why should he find attraction in this thought of loneliness? He didn't want loneliness. He wanted Earth and the warmth and companionship of the man-crammed Cities."
"The picture failed him. He tried to conjure up New York in his mind, all the noise and fullness of it, and found he could remain conscious only of the quiet, air-moving chill of the surface of Solaria."
"Baley had a vision. The sun was moving down to the horizon because the planet's surface was moving away from it, a thousand miles an hour, spinning under that naked sun, spinning with nothing to guard the microbes called men that scurried over its spinning surface, spinning madly forever, spinning—spinning…"
"It's late afternoon," called Gladia back to him. She had run toward the pond and was sitting on a stone bench at its edge. "Come here," she shouted, waving. "You can stand if you don't like to sit On stone."
"The whole sequence might have been an innocent one. She might never have realized how the outdoors would affect me."
"Walls were crutches! Darkness and crowds were crutches! He must have thought them so, unconsciously, and hated them even when he most thought he loved and needed them."
"He felt himself filling with a sense of victory, and, as though victory were contagious, a new thought came, bursting like an inner shout."
"Earth! New York! Jessie and Ben! The comfort and familiarity and dearness of home!"
"He dwelled on it, half asleep, and the thought of Earth failed to conjure the comfort he expected. There was an estrangement between himself and the Cities."
"He said, ‘Space was large, space was lonely, yet he found it drawing him. His mind pictured himself striding the surface of a world with thousands of miles and light-years of room all about him.’"
"‘It's only a flower. There are thousands more.’ Suddenly, before his fingers more than touched the yellow cup, she snatched it away, her eyes kindling."
"Imagine being close enough to tell. I don't wear perfume because no one is close enough. Except now. But I suppose you smell perfume often, all the time. On Earth, your wife is always with you, isn't she?"
"You're such an Earthman. I'd splash where he was standing in his own room or on his own estate. The water couldn't touch him, but he would duck just the same. Look at that."
"But what if some human threatened to teach the robots how to harm humans; to make them, in other words, capable of revolting? Would that not be the ultimate crime?"
"You will not be harmed," said Baley coldly, "if you co-operate."
"I don't want to forget everything," said Gladia softly.
"The tribe, sir. Cooperation between individuals."
"There's only one direction out of our dead end and that's outward, toward Space."
"It was not something to run from, that fear, but something to fight."
"He had gone out to solve a murder and something had happened to him."
"He had told Minnim the Cities were wombs, and so they were. And what was the first thing a man must do before he can be a man? He must be born. He must leave the womb."