Jerry Pournelle Quotes

American - Journalist | August 7, 1933 - September 8, 2017

The importance of information is directly proportional to its improbability.

Jerry Pournelle

InformationImportanceProportional

In any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action.

Jerry Pournelle

ActionYouSituationWantRightAny

You see, I used to do a certain amount of market research by going to the local drugstore and seeing what the truck drivers would put up. Now it's all just copies from the latest best-seller list and damn little of anything else.

Jerry Pournelle

ResearchTruckYouSeeingNowDamn

You no longer have much in the way of knowing what to do in a big, epic novel about the future, because nobody knows what the hell is going to happen.

Jerry Pournelle

FutureHellYouNobodyWayKnowing

Write a lot. And finish what you write. Don't join writer's clubs and go sit around having coffee reading pieces of your manuscript to people. Write it. Finish it. I set those rules up years ago, and nothing's changed.

Jerry Pournelle

CoffeePeopleReadingYouRulesGo

We're basically after Joe's beer money, and Joe likes his beer, so you better make sure that what you give him is at least as pleasurable to him as having his six-pack of beer would be.

Jerry Pournelle

MoneyBeerBetterYouHimSure

We do a hard fantasy as well as hard science fiction, and I think I probably single-handedly recreated military science fiction. It was dead before I started working in it.

Jerry Pournelle

ScienceThinkDeadScience Fiction

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

Jerry Pournelle

ReflectionBelieveDoubtEverything

There were probably, what, 300 science-fiction members in the SFWA, of whom probably a hundred were active members in the sense that they were selling something every year, or every couple years.

Jerry Pournelle

YearSellingActiveYearsSomething

The hard part of writing at all is sitting your ass down in a chair and writing it. There's always something better to do, like I've got an interview, sharpening the pencils, trimming the roses. There's always something better to do. Going to a writer's club?

Jerry Pournelle

WritingBetterRosesChairDown

The Aztecs believe they started up in what's now New Mexico, and wandered for 10,000 years before they got down into where they are now, in Mexico City. That's a weird legend.

Jerry Pournelle

CityBelieveLegendWeirdDownNew

Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.

Jerry Pournelle

BusinessMeWritingLivingClass

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