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Robert A. Heinlein

American science-fiction author (1907 - 1988).

Being a fiction author, all Heinlein left us is quotations from characters in his novels. There are lots to choose from, here are a couple from Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love:

"History does not record anywhere or at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it."

"Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proven innocent."

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The following is an introduction by Robert Heinlein to Tenderfoot In Space which originally appeared in Boy's Life. Heinlein added this introduction to the carbon copy before he sent it to the UCSC Archives.

"This was written a year before Sputnik and is laid on the Venus earthbound astronomers inferred before space probes. Two hours of rewriting - a word here, a word there - could change it to a planet around some other star. But to what purpose? Would The Tempest be improved if Bohemia had a sea coast? If I ever publish that collection of Boy Scout stories, this story will appear unchanged.

Nixie is (of course) my own dog. But in 1919, when I was 12 and a Scout, he had to leave me - a streetcar hit him.

If this universe has any reasonable teleology whatever (a point on which I am unsure), then there is some provision for the Nixies in it."


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Assignment in Eternity

Assignment in Eternity
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The “nova effect” makes the H-bomb look like a kitchen match–one bomb can vaporize an entire planet. An undercover agent carrying the secret of this weapon must defeat an insane opponent, one who has decided that when she dies, the Earth will go “nova” with her.