Joe Haldeman famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

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

#Book #Writing #Adultery
Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.
-- Joe Haldeman

#Men #Eight #Tonight
There's no such thing as writing about the future. The future hasn't happened yet.
-- Joe Haldeman

#Writing
The 1143-year-long war hand begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate. Once they could talk, the first question was 'Why did you start this thing?' and the answer was 'Me?
-- Joe Haldeman

#War #Two #Race
Doctors donâ€™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

#Doctors #Skins #Bags
Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human.
-- Joe Haldeman

#War #Human Nature #Inevitable
One thing most of us agree on is that the universe exists (people who deny that usually follow some trade other than science), so if some theoretical particle interaction would lead ultimately to the nonexistence of the universe, then you can save a lot of electricity by not trying to demonstrate it.
-- Joe Haldeman

#People #Trying #Electricity
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

#Faces #Quiet #Birth
Big money seeks out the company of its own, for purposes of reproduction.
-- Joe Haldeman

#Purpose #Bigs #Company
The worst advice a young writer can get is "Write what you know." Imagination is more important than experience.
-- Joe Haldeman

#Writing #Imagination #Advice
Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being thereâ€¦the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted.
-- Joe Haldeman

#Buddhism #Reality #Way
A good sign that an army has been around too long is that it starts getting top-heavy with officers.
-- Joe Haldeman

#Army #Long #Heavy
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 enemyâ€™s information, political posturesâ€”dozens, literally dozens of factors.
-- Joe Haldeman

#Military #War #Simple
Rationalism doesn't require "belief," only observation. The real, measurable world doesn't care what you believe.
-- Joe Haldeman

#Real #Believe #World

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