Haldeman's Famous Quotes & Sayings
100 Haldeman's Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation.
The church has contributed nothing to civilization. It has progressed somewhat, and it has become a little more decent, in reflection of the movements of civilization that have taken place outside of the church and usually in the face of the strong opposition of the church. But the church has always resisted the process of civilization. It has struggled to the last ditch, by fair means and foul, to preserve as long as it could the vestiges of ancient and medieval theology, with all the puerile moralities and harsh customs and medieval styles of belief.— E. Haldeman-Julius
I don't think I would have written a combat novel if I had just had peacetime military training. I think, in fact, I probably would have remained a poet and just written a short story every now and then.— Joe Haldeman
Traveling anywhere in the world involves some risk. You could always opt to spend your life cowering under your bed.— Joe Haldeman
Atheism is a conclusion reached by the most reasonable methods and one which is not asserted dogmatically but is explained in its every feature by the light of reason. The atheist does not boast of knowing in a vainglorious, empty sense. He understands by knowledge the most reasonable and clear and sound position one can take on the basis of all the evidence at hand. This evidence convinces him that theism is not true, and his logical position, then, is that of atheism.— E. Haldeman-Julius
We repeat that the atheist is one who denies the assumptions of theism. he asserts, in other words, that he doesn't believe in a God because he has no good reason for believing in a God. That's atheism
and that's good sense.
different. Warmer.' He paused to let that soak— Joe Haldeman
People had written about that, warfare based on attrition of wealth rather than loss of life. But it's always been easier to make new lives than new wealth.— Joe Haldeman
I think I would have been a writer, anyhow, in the sense of having written a story every now and then, or continued writing poetry. But it was the war experience and the two novels I wrote about Vietnam that really got me started as a professional writer.— Joe Haldeman
Once at Haldeman's 7:45 a.m. senior staff meeting, Moynihan grew so frustrated at the wandering discussion that he raised his clenched fist, brought it down hard on the table, and shouted, "Fuck!" There was immediate silence. Butterfield watched everyone turn to Rose Woods, the only woman at the meeting, in horror and embarrassment.— Bob Woodward
But you're absolutely sure we're right?' The question carried an intensity absent from the previous conversation. 'I remember talking with Henry Kissinger,' she continued, 'and he came up and said 'What's the matter, don't you think we're going to be re-elected? You were wrong on Haldeman.' And he seemed upset and said something about it being terribly, terribly unfair.'— Carl Bernstein
If there's anyone who has not been wronged, Woodward said, it is Bob Haldeman. It was the most definite statement Woodward made during lunch.
'Oh, really,' said Mrs. Graham. 'I'm glad to hear you say that, because I was worried.' She paused. 'You've reassured me. You really have.' She looked at Woodward. Her face said, Do better.
-- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward
You live, you die, they throw you on the compost heap. Then you live again, without the inconvenience of consciousness.— Joe Haldeman
-This is embarrassing. I uh, die and, um the last breath from my lungs is a terrible acid. It melts the seaward wall of the city and a hurricane comes and washes it away. All die. O the embarrassment— Joe Haldeman
-You're much better at that than he was.
There's a place for farts, and there's a place for sharts.— J.E. Haldeman
As he was pummeled into one tight spot after another, emerging each time breathless and in amazed chagrin, Bryan flushed, with spots of anger in his cheeks. His whole body sagged. Before our very eyes, he became a beaten man.— E. Haldeman-Julius
I think any writer keeps going back to some basic theme. Sometimes it's autobiographical. I guess it usually is.— Joe Haldeman
Big money seeks out the company of its own, for purposes of reproduction.— Joe Haldeman
Reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted.— Joe Haldeman
You're an English major, aren't you?"— Matthew Haldeman-Time
"Hey!" Immediately retreating, Keith swatted at him with a dishcloth. "Leave my brain alone. It's resting."
"Sorry, sorry." He leaned away, hands up to display his surrender. "I didn't mean it, I take it back."
"You'd better
When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I'd worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny.— Ernest Cline
Haldeman is the only man in America in this generation who let his hair grow for a courtroom appearance.— Mary McGrory
Anyone who sees clearly sees chaos everywhere. Art is a way of temporarily setting order to confusion. Temporary and incomplete; that's why we never run out of new art. Anyone who comes to the tools of art without that sense of confusion is an invader.— Joe Haldeman
Christ and Buddha,— Joe Haldeman
My back pay came to $892,746,012. Not in the form of bales of currency, fortunately; on Heaven they used an electronic credit exchange, so I carried my fortune around in a little machine with a digital readout. To buy something you punched in the vendor's credit number and the amount of purchase; the sum was automatically shuffled from your account to his. The machine was the size of a slender wallet and coded to your thumbprint.— Joe Haldeman
The brain isn't very much like a computer, although it doesn't do a bad job, considering that it's built by unskilled labor and programmed more by pure chance than anything else.— Joe Haldeman
Table of Contents— Joe Haldeman
We're headed for Aleph-7. Panty raid. New slang term for the type of operation whose main object was to gather Tauran artifacts, and prisoners if possible. I tried to find out where the term came from, but the one explanation I got was really idiotic.— Joe Haldeman
Have you had your first baby yet? I might have one myself, once they find a way for the man to carry it around the first nine months.— Joe Haldeman
Writer's block? Don't worry about it. Either it goes away or you die.— Joe Haldeman
One rash person in the right place and earth could be a sterile cinder in seconds, but that's been more-or-less true for a century.— Joe Haldeman
A good sign that an army has been around too long is that it starts getting top-heavy with officers.— Joe Haldeman
Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.— Joe Haldeman
One cannot make command decisions simply by assessing the tactical situation and going ahead with whatever course of action will do the most harm to the enemy with a minimum of death and damage to your own men and materiel. Modern warfare has become very complex, especially during the last century. Wars are won not by a simple series of battles won, but by a complex interrelationship among military victory, economic pressures, logistic maneuvering, access to the enemy's information, political postures - dozens, literally dozens of factors.— Joe Haldeman
Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.— Joe Haldeman
Hemingway was a jerk. I mean he was really a great jerk. He was a good writer, and he did all sorts of things that I would never have the courage to do, but I don't think I'd enjoy being in the same room with him. He's not my kind of person.— Joe Haldeman
Our country use satellites to spy on its own people?'— Joe Haldeman
'Well, the satellites go all around the world. They just don't bother to turn them off over the US.
You can't make a date in death's dateless night.— Joe Haldeman
That meant that he'd drunk too much too early, and had popped an Alcoterm to burn it off.— Joe Haldeman
War is the province of danger and therefore courage above all things is the first quality of a warrior, von Clausewitz maintained.— Joe Haldeman
Don't take our word for it. Read the Bible itself. Read the statements of preachers. And you will understand that God is the most desperate character, the worst villain in all fiction.— E. Haldeman-Julius
The 1143-year-long war hand begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate.— Joe Haldeman
Once they could talk, the first question was 'Why did you start this thing?' and the answer was 'Me?
I suspect that war will become obsolete only when something worse supercedes it.— Joe Haldeman
You cant put the toothpaste back in the tube.— H.R. Haldeman
I was too old-fashioned male-chauv to allow that; we discussed for a minute and I wound up with the couch— Joe Haldeman
Saul's vitals were not human, but familiar:— Joe Haldeman
he never told me he was from another world:
I never told him I was from his future.
Church tax exemption means that we all drop our money in the collection boxes, whether we go to church or not and whether we are interested in the church or not. It is systematic and complete robbery, from which none of us escapes.— E. Haldeman-Julius
To proclaim himself an agnostic, while to some it might appear more respectable and cautious, would be to say in effect that he hadn't decided what to believe.— E. Haldeman-Julius
-I die. My footprints are cursed. I walk around the village not knowing that all who cross where I have been will stay in estrous zero and bear no young. Eventually all die. O the embarrassment.— Joe Haldeman
But love, he said, love was a fragile blossom; love was a delicate crystal; love was an unstable reaction with a half-life of about eight months. Bullshit, I said, and accused him of wearing cultural blinders; thirty centuries of prewar society taught that love was one thing that could last to the grave and even beyond and if he had been born instead of hatched he would know that without being told!— Joe Haldeman
I have a radical thought," Meryl said. "Instead of heading for the hills with guns, why don't we try to find something like the Red Cross, and volunteer. Try to do something constructive.— Joe Haldeman
Don't worry about that, Man, just make out my ticket.— Joe Haldeman
When I first started working at MIT, back in the '80s, our writing department had a joint cocktail party with the Harvard writing department. It was kind of oil-and-water.— Joe Haldeman
We advocate the atheistic philosophy because it is the only clear, consistent position which seems possible to us. As atheists, we simply deny the assumptions of theism; we declare that the God idea, in all its features, is unreasonable and unprovable; we add, more vitally, that the God idea is an interference with the interests of human happiness and progress. We oppose religion not merely as a set of theological ideas; but we must also oppose religion as a political, social and moral influence detrimental to the welfare of humanity.— E. Haldeman-Julius
On Earth, we'd just use glue, but here the only fluid was helium, which has lots of interesting properties, but is definitely not sticky.— Joe Haldeman
Political art - not always a contradiction in terms - can destroy institutions, or eat away at them.— Joe Haldeman
[H]is skin was the color of age and his features the shape of a saint's.— Joe Haldeman
![Haldeman's Sayings By Joe Haldeman: [H]is skin was the color of age and his features the shape of a saint's.](https://www.greatsayings.net/images/haldemans-sayings-by-joe-haldeman-314807.jpg "Haldeman's Sayings By Joe Haldeman: [H]is skin was the color of age and his features the shape of a saint's.")
Sitting here in a bar with an asexual cyborg who is probably the only other normal person on the whole goddamned planet.— Joe Haldeman
All experience is memory, and so everything you write about is from memory-unless you're writing about typing.— Joe Haldeman
Religion glorifies the dogma of a despotic, mythical God. Atheism ennobles the interests of free and progressive Man. Religion is superstition. Atheism is sanity. Religion is medieval. Atheism is modern.— E. Haldeman-Julius
It's fair to say that white America wouldn't have elected an African-American president without the integrating effect of black music - from Louis Armstrong to hip-hop - and black drama and fiction, commercial as much as 'serious.'— Joe Haldeman
Rationalism doesn't require "belief," only observation. The real, measurable world doesn't care what you believe.— Joe Haldeman
There's something special about writing by hand, writing with a fountain pen, and there's something special about writing into a book, to take a blank book and turn it into an actual book.— Joe Haldeman
Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is awfully hard to get it back in.— H.R. Haldeman
Heterosexuality is considered an emotional dysfunction. Relatively easy to cure.— Joe Haldeman
I watched her walk away and thought that if anybody could make a fighting suit look sexy, it'd be Sean. But even she couldn't.— Joe Haldeman
Oriental marionette imitating an occidental gesture.— Joe Haldeman
There's no such thing as writing about the future. The future hasn't happened yet.— Joe Haldeman
You'd have to put yourself back in the 1960s to understand how separate from the mainstream of American life soldiers felt themselves to be, because we knew that students and others were demonstrating pretty violently against what we were doing.— Joe Haldeman
Heaven was a lovely, unspoiled Earth-like world; what Earth might have been like if men had treated her with compassion instead of lust.— Joe Haldeman
Ben Franklin said:— E. Haldeman-Julius
"Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy wealthy and wise"
Lately I have read the advice given to William Randolph Hearst, when a young man, by his father:
"Go downtown at noon and rob the other fellows of what they have made during the morning.
the Aleph-Null campaign.— Joe Haldeman
I tried to get through to my brother, Mike, on the Moon, but the phone company wouldn't let me place the call until I had signed a contract and posted a $25,000 bond.— Joe Haldeman
We are well aware that religion is not as bad an influence as it was a short time ago, as history is counted. But it is a sufficiently bad influence even in modern times, and its reduced viciousness (in practice) is due plainly enough to its reduced power.— E. Haldeman-Julius
Well, there's always Nevada," Benny said. "You can buy anything from a hand laser to an atom bomb there.— Joe Haldeman
A sober, devout man will interpret 'God's will' soberly and devoutly. A fanatic, with bloodshot mind, will interpret 'God's will' fanatically. Men of extreme, illogical views will interpret 'God's will' in eccentric fashion. Kindly, charitable, generous men will interpret 'God's will' according to their character.— E. Haldeman-Julius
To be true to the mythical conception of a God is to be false to the interests of mankind.— E. Haldeman-Julius
I have always valued quiet, and the eternity of it that I face is no more dreadful than the eternity of quiet that preceded my birth.— Joe Haldeman
When Richard M. Nixon resigned and Ford became the 38th president of the United States, the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office, of which I was a member, was preparing for the criminal trials of Nixon's top aides - H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell.— Richard Ben-Veniste
One hopes that they'll never be able to use mind control weapons, because we're all done for if that happens. I don't want military people, or political people, to have that type of power over those of us who just get by from day to day.— Joe Haldeman
If I had had a thing like an iPad when I was a kid, then I never would have gotten into the habit of writing things down by hand.— Joe Haldeman
But I decided that buying the gift was more for me than for her, anyhow. A commercial kind of substitute for prayer.— Joe Haldeman
The worst advice a young writer can get is "Write what you know." Imagination is more important than experience.— Joe Haldeman
He's asleep in the harbor, disguised as dog shit.— Joe Haldeman
Doctors don't seem to realize that most of us are perfectly content not having to visualize ourselves as animated bags of skin filled with obscene glop.— Joe Haldeman
A square meter of earth, Dostoevski said; if all you had was a square meter of earth to stand on, and nothing around you but impenetrable fog, living would be preferable to dying.— Joe Haldeman
The influences that have lifted the race to a higher moral level are education, freedom, leisure, the humanizing tendency of a better-supplied and more interesting life. In a word, science and liberalism ... have accomplished the very things for which religion claims the credit.— E. Haldeman-Julius
I'm not quite Machiavellian enough to set him up, but if he strays too close to the edge I might give him a nudge.— Joe Haldeman
You couldn't blame it all on the military, though. The evidence they presented for the Taurans' having been responsible for the earlier casualties was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored. The fact was, Earth's economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it. The— Joe Haldeman
I can remember the morning after President Nixon won re-election in 1972. His chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, called a Cabinet meeting and told the members: 'You are all a bunch of burned-out volcanoes;' and asked for their resignations.— Helen Thomas
Why should the residence of a preacher be untaxed? Useful citizens must pay taxes on their homes. Yet the Preacher - actually and notoriously the least useful member of the community - lives in a tax-free dwelling.— E. Haldeman-Julius
In his book The Shadow Presidents, author Michael Medved relates the extreme disappointment of H.R. Haldeman over his failure to implement his plan to link up all the homes in America by coaxial cable. In Haldeman's words, "There would be two-way communication. Through computer, you could use your television set to order up whatever you wanted. The morning paper, entertainment services, shopping services, coverage of sporting events and public events...Just as Eisenhower linked up the nation's cities by highways so that you could get there, the Nixon legacy would have linked them by cable communication so you wouldn't have to go there." One can almost see the dreamy eyes of Nixon and Haldeman as they sat around discussing a plan that would eliminate the need for newspapers, seemingly oblivious to its Big Brother aspects. Fortunately the Watergate scandal intervened, and Nixon was forced to resign before "the Wired Nation" could be hooked up.— David Wallechinsky
Fortunately, there are old terrors and powers that religion no longer can exercise so effectively as it did only a few score years ago. But the atmosphere and the attitude of bigotry remain. If religion cannot ordinarily invoke the armed force of law to punish heretics, it still plays upon the psychology of fear and predominantly its influence is to frighten men and distort their views and poison every process of their reasoning.— E. Haldeman-Julius
If I had done nothing more than bring McCabe's talents to the attention of what has become a world-wide audience--if I had done only this job, I believe I'd have established myself as a force for mass education and enlightenment with immediate and constructive effects on the thinking portion of the population. My association with McCabe has been enough to build a career for anyone.— E. Haldeman-Julius
{Julius on legendary scholar Joseph McCabe}
Marianne, how's your statistics?" "Math is my worst subject." "But you can program?" "Of course. I'm not illiterate.— Joe Haldeman
I've always thought the pre-Revolutionary system was more elegant, but it did concentrate too much power in the hands of one person. Keyes says that at least you knew who the man was then. The person who represents a Lobby in Congress is never the one who makes the real decisions; the real leaders are rarely identifiable and are never held responsible for their actions. If a puppet gets in trouble they sacrifice him and haul out another. I don't doubt that that's true, at least some of the time, but it's certainly not the whole story. If a Lobby consistently acts against the public interest, its voting power dwindles away. Keyes says that's a cynical illusion: all the polls reflect is how much money a Lobby has put into advertising.— Joe Haldeman
Why should an atheist pay more taxes so that a church which he despises should pay no taxes? That's a fair question. How can the apologists for the church exemption answer it?— E. Haldeman-Julius
It is pretty well settled that the city is the Negro's great contribution to civilization, for it was in Africa where the first cities grew up.— E. Haldeman-Julius
You want me to invite him to dinner."— Matthew Haldeman-Time
"I want you to invite him to dinner," she agreed.
"You know," he said, "most gay men don't have mothers who are this enthusiastic about their love lives."
"That's probably true," she said. "You're one of the lucky ones.
He wanted Jordan so badly, his fantasies consumed him. Whenever he reached out to touch something, paper, the phone, his steering wheel, there was a brief moment when he expected his hand to come in contact with the smooth silk of Jordan's skin. When he ate, his tongue instinctively sought the taste of Jordan. Whenever he picked up the phone, he expected to hear Jordan's voice.— Matthew Haldeman-Time
No person can escape Einsteinian relativity, and no soldier or veteran can escape the trauma of war's dislocation.— Joe Haldeman
Jordan, there isn't a straight woman or gay man alive who wouldn't drop everything to have dinner with you. I've been in this business for all of my life, and I know the difference between people who pretend to like you to get ahead, and people who are actually interested in getting to know you. Patrick wants to get to know you. Preferably naked, but that's up to you."— Matthew Haldeman-Time
"I can't wait until you're old enough to be senile and start saying these things in public."
"I'm very lucky to have such a loving son.
In the few moments I lay awake after finally lying down, the thought came to me that the next time I closed my eyes could well be the last. And partly because of the drug hangover, mostly because of the past day's horrors, I found that I really didn't give a shit.— Joe Haldeman
