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Grex > Books > #79: The Mysterious Quote - Winter 1999 Edition | |
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| 25 new of 195 responses total. |
gjharb
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response 166 of 195:
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Mar 16 20:00 UTC 1999 |
Ok. Hints about the author: Male, American, still living.
"D_____ began to read hungrily. as though starved for print. And the speed
next -- and why. Everybody else is a robot, a machine.
"Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must
wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines.
"You are pooped and demoralized," read D_____. "Why wouldn't you be?
Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which
wasn't meant to be reasonable."
"D_____H_____ read on: "You are surrounded by loving machines, hating
machines, greedy machines, unselfish machines, brave machines, cowardly
machines, truthful machines, lying machines, funny machines, solemn
machines," he read. "Their only purpose is to stir you up in every reasonable
way, so the Creator of the Universe can watch your reactions. They can no
more feel or reason than grandfather clocks.
"The Creator of the Universe would now like to apologize not only for
the capricious, jostling companionship he provided during the test, but for
the trashy, stinking condition of the planet itself. The Creator programmed
the robots to abuse it for millions of years, so it would be a poisonous,
festering cheese when you got here. Also, he made sure it would be
desperately crowded by programming the robots, regardless of their living
conditions, to crave sexual intercourse and adore infants more than almost
anything."
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gjharb
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response 167 of 195:
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Mar 16 20:07 UTC 1999 |
First two paragraphs got screwed up:
"D_____ now began to read hungrily, as though starved for print. And
the speed-reading course he had taken at the YMCA allowed him to make a
perfect pig of himself with pages and words.
"Dear Sir, poor sir, brave sir:" he read, "You are an experiment by the
Creator of the Universe. You are the only creature in the entire Universe
who has free will. You are the only one who has to figure out what to do next
-- and why. Everybody else is a robot, a machine.
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jep
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response 168 of 195:
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Mar 16 20:10 UTC 1999 |
Brian Aldiss?
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gjharb
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response 169 of 195:
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Mar 16 20:31 UTC 1999 |
Nope.
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flem
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response 170 of 195:
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Mar 16 22:26 UTC 1999 |
Stanislaw Lem?
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gjharb
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response 171 of 195:
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Mar 17 03:02 UTC 1999 |
Not Lem.
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sekari
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response 172 of 195:
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Mar 17 07:27 UTC 1999 |
douglass adams?
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cyklone
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response 173 of 195:
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Mar 17 12:46 UTC 1999 |
Kurt Vonegut?
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gjharb
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response 174 of 195:
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Mar 17 19:26 UTC 1999 |
Kurt Vonnegut it is. That quote was taken from Breakfast of Champions.
Cyklone - you are up.
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cyklone
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response 175 of 195:
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Mar 17 23:57 UTC 1999 |
For you M-netters, I was going to say irvingp, who blatantly stole that
excerpt for his plan (without attribution)
OK, here's a new fave of mine. My mother, of all people, turned me on to
this:
There were three other people at her sitting. Mrs. Ormerod from
Belsize Park, in a dark green hat that might have been a flowerpot in a
previous life; Mr. Scroggie, thin and pallid, with bulging colorless eyes;
and Julia Petley from Hair Today,* the hairdressers' on the High Street,
fresh out of school and convinced that she herself had unplumbed occult
depths. In order to enhance the occult aspects of herself, Julia had
begun to wear far too much handbeaten silver jewelry and green eyeshadow.
She felt she looked haunted and gaunt and romantic, and she would have, if
she had lost another thirty pounds. She was convinced that she was
anorexic, because every time she looked in the mirror she did indeed see a
fat person.
*Formerly A Cut Above the Rest, formerly Mane Attraction, formerly Curl Up
and Dye, formerly A Snip at the Price, formerly Mister Brian's
Art-de-Coiffeur, formerly Robinson the Barber's, formerly Fone-a-Car
Taxis.
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jazz
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response 176 of 195:
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Mar 18 00:14 UTC 1999 |
Tom Robbins?
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md
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response 177 of 195:
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Mar 18 00:42 UTC 1999 |
Helen Fielding?
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valkyrie
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response 178 of 195:
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Mar 18 00:57 UTC 1999 |
Terry Pratchett
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cyklone
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response 179 of 195:
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Mar 18 02:34 UTC 1999 |
OK Brenda, you have half of it, now who's the other? ;)
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mcnally
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response 180 of 195:
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Mar 18 06:15 UTC 1999 |
Unless I miss my guess It's from "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and
Neil Gaiman. I'd say, though, that Brenda should get credit.
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cyklone
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response 181 of 195:
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Mar 18 13:11 UTC 1999 |
Yup, Mike got it right, with the names of both authors. However, since he
deferred to Brenda, she's up next. BTW, if you like Doug Adams, you'll
love "Good Omens", a humorous look at Armageddon and the bureaucracies of
Heaven and Hell . . . . .
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mooncat
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response 182 of 195:
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Mar 18 13:18 UTC 1999 |
(Good Omens is wonderful. :) Have to love a book that has a HellHound
named 'Dog' -no spoiler, there is a 'cast list' at the beginning of the
book- and an angel who didn't fall, but sauntered vaguely downwards...)
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valkyrie
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response 183 of 195:
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Mar 18 16:56 UTC 1999 |
I knew good omens, just didn't have it in front of me for the other author's
name :). I'll post a quote later today.
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valkyrie
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response 184 of 195:
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Mar 19 12:17 UTC 1999 |
Ok, I expect someone to get this fairly soon, since I don't have any
obscure books :).
When I was in middle school there was a spate of magazines publishing
fantastic stories, not alone ghost stories, but weird yarns of every sort.
magic ships plying the ether to other stars. Strange inventions. Trips
to the center of the earth. Other "dimensions." Flying machines. Power
from burning atoms. Monsters created in secret laboratories.
I used to buy them and hide them inside copies of Youth's Companion and
Young Crusaders, knowhing instinctively that my parents would disappreove and
confiscate. I loved them and so did my outlaw chum Bert.
It couldn't last. First there was an editorial in Youth's Companion:
"Poison to the Soul--Stamp it Out!" Then our pastor, Brother Draper, preached
a sermon against such mind-corrupting trash, with comparisons to the evil
effects of cigarettes and booze. Then our state outlawed such publications
under the "standards of the community" doctrine even before passage of the
national law and the parallel executive order.
And a cache I had hidden "perfectly" in our attic disappeared. Worse, the
works of Mr. H. G. Wells and M. Jules Verne and some others were taken out
of our public library.
You have to admire the motives of our spiritual leaders and elected
officials in seeking to protect the minds of the young. As Brother Draper
pointed out, there are enough exciting and adventurous stories in the Good
Book to satisfy the needs of every boy and girl in the world; there was simply
no need for profane literature. He was not urging censorship of books for
adults, just for the impressionable young. If persons of mature years wanted
to read such fantastic trash, suffer them to do so--although he, for one,
could not see why any grown man would want to.
Have at it :)
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jazz
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response 185 of 195:
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Mar 19 14:02 UTC 1999 |
On the bright side, what's come to replace them is Neal Stephenson and
Anne Harris and Janet Hagan.
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void
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response 186 of 195:
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Mar 19 14:14 UTC 1999 |
robert a. heinlein?
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aruba
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response 187 of 195:
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Mar 19 15:16 UTC 1999 |
It sounds like Heinlein, but I can't quite place it. The line about there
being enough stories in the Bible for everyone is familiar, though.
Hmmm. I'll guess Asimov.
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jep
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response 188 of 195:
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Mar 19 15:40 UTC 1999 |
It's a familiar quote, and it does sound like Heinlein. I cannot place
the story, though.
Oh, yes I can, it's from "Job: A Comedy of Justice" by Heinlein.
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valkyrie
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response 189 of 195:
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Mar 19 16:35 UTC 1999 |
Looks like void got it. I was hoping it'd last a little longer than
a couple hours, but oh well :).
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flem
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response 190 of 195:
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Mar 19 21:28 UTC 1999 |
Heinlein isn't likely to last long around here. Even I'd have gotten that
one, had I been timely enough. :)
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