Some Heinlein quotes part 2

As previously mentioned (here), I have been searching for a Robert Heinlein (RAH) quote around the idea ‘make it idiot-proof and the world/universe will build a better idiot’. Through that search I have been noting other quotes by the same author that I have rediscovered in the process. Having already posted one set of favourite quotes (here), this is part 2.

To begin, I have found a few more Heinlein phrases that I find notable and quotable:

• He foresaw the internet: "Electrons don’t care. Once data of any sort go into the net, time is frozen. All that is necessary is to remember that all the endless riches of the past are available any time you punch for them" (Heinlein, 1982, p. 213). And "People are so used to the computer net today that it is easy to forget what a window to the world it can be—and I include myself. One can grow so canalized in using a terminal only in certain ways—paying bills, making telephonic calls, listening to news bulletins—that one can neglect its richer uses. If a subscriber is willing to pay for the service, almost anything can be done at a terminal that can be done out of bed" (Heinlein, year, p. 212)
  
  
• "One might almost define intelligence as the level at which an aware organism demands, 'What's in it for me?'" (Heinlein, 1982, p. 91). There's nothing like a WIIFM!
  
  
• He had a nice view towards phones: "'It took you long enough to answer your phone.' 'It’s my phone, Mr. Secretary. Sometimes I don’t answer it at all'" (Heinlein, 1968, p. 173)
  
  
• "It sounded logical—but I could not forget Kettering’s Law: 'Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence'" (Heinlein, 1980, p. 106; 2020, p. p. 98)
  
  
• "a thousand reasoned opinions are never equal to one case of diving in and finding out" (Heinlein, 1981, p. 29)
  
  
• "Vengeance is mine, saith the lord, [...] then Mine only if Gwen leaves me any" (Heinlein, 1986, p. 58)
  
  
• About the 'luck' that comes from being organised: "Why were you on that frequency? Because you were wearing a space suit. Why were you wearing it? Because you were determined to space. When a space ship called, you answered. If that is luck, then it is luck every time a batter hits a ball. Kip, ‘good luck’ follows careful preparation" (Heinlein, 1977, p. 250)

Lastly, we have a couple of author stories about RAH:

• Heinlein was the master of in-cueing the reader, as was ably noted by Harlon Ellison. "Heinlein has always managed to indicate the greater strangeness of a culture with the most casually dropped-in reference: the first time in a novel, I believe it was in 'Beyond This Horizon', that a character came through a door that...dilated. And no discussion. Just: 'The door dilated.' I read across it, and was two lines down before I realized that the image had been that the words had urged forth. A dilating door. It didn't open, it irised! Dear God, how I knew I was in a future world" (Ellison, 1968, p. 8; Westfahl, G., & Clarke, 2005, p. 361)
  
  
• "You don't pay back, you pay forward". The story of this goes as follows: "Mr. Heinlein was enormously helpful. Years later, when I [, SciFi writer Jerry Pournelle,] was an established writer, I asked him how I could pay him back. 'You can’t,' he said. 'You don’t pay back, you pay forward.' I never forgot that, just as I never forgot the wonderful things his ‘juvenile’ stories did for me" (Pournelle, 1999, p. 10)
  
  

Thanks for sharing this walk down memory lane: I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have :-)

Sam

References:

Ellison, H. (1968, September). A Voice from the Styx. Psychotic, 23, 5-11. https://fanac.org/fanzines/SF_Review/SF_Review327.pdf

Heinlein, R. A. (1953). Gulf [1949]. In Assignment in Eternity (pp. 7-67). The New American Library.

Heinlein, R. A. (1968). Stranger in a Strange Land (first edition 1961). Berkley Books.

Heinlein, R. A. (1977). Have Space Suit - Will Travel (first printing 1958). The Ballantine Publishing Group.

Heinlein, R. A. (1980). The Number of the Beast. NEL (New English Library) Paperback.

Heinlein, R. A. (1982). Friday. Holt Rinehart & Winston.

Heinlein, R. A. (1986). The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: A comedy of manners. Hodder & Stoughton (UK).

Heinlein, R. A. (2020). The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes. Caezik SF and Fantasy.

Pournelle, J. (1999). Starswarm: A Jupiter novel. Tor Books.

Westfahl, G., & Clarke, A. C. (2005). Science Fiction Quotations: From the inner mind to the outer limits. Yale University Press.