Stranger in a Strange Land

I haven't read this since high school! This novel beget Grok and thus Groklaw.

I just found out from this essay that this 1961 First edition version of Stanger in a Strange Land is a massively edited version of 160,000 words. An unedited version of 220,000 words was released by the Heinlein estate in 1991. Of course at The Heinlein Society where I found this essay, there is a treasure trove of material!

Some memorable quotes that struck me as I read (for more quotes check out wikiquote):

"[planets] were infected with that oddity of distorted entropy called life"

"Ben is not a winchell! He's a lippmann!"

"don't invent debt that does not exist, or next you will be trying to feel gratitude... 'Gratitude' is a euphemism for resentment... The Japanese have five ways to say 'thank you' - and every one translates as resentment, in various degrees."

"Religion is a solace to many people and it is even conceivable that some religion, somewhere, really is Ultimate Truth. But in many cases, being religious is merely a form of conceit. The Bible Belt faith in which I was brought up encouraged me to think that I was better than the rest of the world; I was 'saved' and they were 'damned' —we were in a state of grace and the rest of the world were 'heathens' and by 'heathen' they meant such people as our brother Mahmoud. It meant that an ignorant, stupid lout who seldom bathed and planted his corn by the phase of the Moon could claim to know the final answers of the Universe. That entitled him to look down his nose at everybody else. Our hymn book was loaded with such arrogance —mindless, conceited, self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us and us alone, and what hell everybody else was going to catch come Judgment Day." - this from the uncut edition, much more lyrical I think.