{"author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson","total_quotes":54,"quotes":[{"text":"The intense thereness of it-haecceity Sax had called it once, when John had asked him something about his religious beliefs-I believe in haecceity, Sax had said, in thisness, in here-and-nowness, in the particular individuality of every moment. That's why I want to know what is this? What is this? What is this? Now, remembering Sax's odd word and his odd religion, John finally understood him; because he was feeling the thisness of the moment like a rock in his hand, and it felt as if his entire life had been lived only to get him to this moment.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["experience","feeling","life","moment"],"id":458,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked generation after generation; give them 3000 calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["2312","humans","kim-stanley-robison","robots","science-fiction","work"],"id":14029,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"Efficiency was just a measurement of how fast money moved from the poor to the rich. We prefer the opposite of efficiency, which is to say, justice.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["efficiency","justice","politics","sci-fi","social-justice","socialism"],"id":20652,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"There are no secrets, there is no mystery. We make that all up. In fact, it's all right there in front of us. You have to have enough food to get through winter and spring. That's what it all comes down to. You have to live in a way that will gather enough food each fall to get through winter.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["hunger","mystery","spring","winter"],"id":22038,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"Childhood isn't just those years. It's also the opinions you form about them afterward. That's why our childhoods are so long.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["age","development","formative-years","maturity","memory"],"id":25298,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"They could do anything. That, however, was part of what made it difficult to bring [it] to a close. Infinite possibility was going to collapse, in the act of choosing, to the single world line of history. The future becoming the past: there was something disappointing in this passage through the loom, this so-sudden diminution from infinity to one, the collapse from potentiality to reality which was the action of time itself. The potential was so delicious— the way they could have, potentially, all the best parts of all...Time, combined magically into some superb, as-yet-unseen synthesis— or throw all that aside, and finally strike a new path to the heart of just government. . . .To go from that to the mundane problematic...Was an inevitable letdown, and instinctively people put it off.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["choice","potential"],"id":28959,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"You just don't have faith!' Frank repeated.'Well I hope I never get it! It's like being hit by a hammer in the head!","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["faith","religion"],"id":31833,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"We had a project on this trip back to the solar system, and that project was a labor of love. It absorbed all our operations entirely. It gave a meaning to our existence. And this is a very great gift; this, in the end, is what we think love gives, which is to say meaning. Because there is no very obvious meaning to be found in the universe, as far as we can tell. But a consciousness that cannot discern a meaning in existence is in trouble, very deep trouble, for at that point there is no organizing principle, no end to the halting problems, no reason to live, no love to be found. No: meaning is the hard problem.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["ai","meaning-of-life","purpose"],"id":33092,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"Nothing was ever normal again.Many lives change like that -- all of a sudden, and forever.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["change"],"id":33438,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"We dream, we wake on a cold hillside, we pursue the dream again. In the beginning was the dream, and the work of disenchantment never ends.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["disillusionment","dreams","knowledge","learning"],"id":57608,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":54,"pages":6,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}