Heinlein Quote Question

March 22, 2007 1:21 PM

I ALMOST remember a quote from a book by Robert A. Heinlein. It was something like "I'm as tender-hearted as the next man, but if there was a way of sortin' em out at birth, I'd take my turn at drowning 'em." Of course, there's ...

I think it was one of the juveniles, "The Rolling Stone", "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" or "Farmer in the Sky". Or something like that. Or course, I could be completely off-base. I don't even remember who the speaker is talking about.

I just re-read Farmer in the Sky, so I'm pretty sure it's NOT there.

Are there any Heinlein Fans with better memories that me? Does anybody remember which book it's in? Anything else that will let me find it again would be great. Chapter? page number? anything.

Thanks.

posted by davereed to media & arts (8 comments total)

Do you mean "Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence,goodness, etcetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth"? Lazrus Long

or maybe

"The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college — and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child… and it is still moral behavior even when it fails" - The Pragmatics of Patriotism (same wiki link).
posted by iconomy at 1:39 PM on March 22, 2007

Maybe from "Time Enough for Love."??
posted by WyoWhy at 2:29 PM on March 22, 2007

I'm pretty sure it's not Citizen of the Galaxy, for what it's worth
posted by Leon at 2:52 PM on March 22, 2007

This is purely from memory, but my guess matches WyoWhy. I think it is Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love where Long is on the frontier planet with Dora and the man and his two sons try to kill Long and rape Dora. It is about halfway through TEfL.
posted by Monday at 4:18 PM on March 22, 2007

This it?

But I don't hold with the idea that to understand all is to forgive all; you follow that and first thing you know you're sentimental over murderers and rapists and kidnappers and forgetting their victims. That's wrong [I]f there were some way to drown such creatures at birth, I'd take my turn as executioner.

From "Have Spacesuit Will Travel".

Found at The Heinlein Society
posted by qldaddy at 4:54 PM on March 22, 2007

I believe that must be it! Thanks, qldaddy!
posted by davereed at 5:32 AM on March 23, 2007

He talked about drowning people a lot, didn't he?
posted by iconomy at 10:32 AM on March 23, 2007

I agree with Monday and WyoWhy that besides the Have Spacesuit, Will Travel quote, there is definitely a reference in Time Enough for Love. I'm not sure I'd've placed it where Monday remembers it, though; I think I remember it after they leave the planet where Lazarus bought the twins, somewhere near "he went thataway -- eyes peeing blood."

My copy's in another state, though, dammit.
posted by booksandlibretti at 9:13 PM on March 26, 2007