Lionel Shriver Quotes

Nut With A Nuke

A nuclear weapon is not just a football that you can use at will.

To me, nuclear weapons are the secret crisis of our time. Frankly, everyone needs to reread John Hersey's 'Hiroshima.'

I have to bring to your notice a terrifying reality: with the development of nuclear weapons Man has acquired, for the first time in history, the technical means to destroy the whole of civilization in a single act.

I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.

My feelings of revulsion and foreboding about nuclear weapons had not changed an iota since 1945, and they have never left me. Since I was 14, the overriding objective of my life has been to prevent the occurrence of nuclear war.

The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't.

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

Our nuclear weapons are meant purely as a deterrent against nuclear adventure by an adversary.

It's a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack.

All mankind is now learning that these nuclear weapons can only serve to destroy, never become beneficial.

There is only one thing worse than one nation having the atomic bomb -- that's two nations having it.

In the past, science has often been able to provide adequate protection against new weapons it has given into the hands of an aggressor, but it cannot promise such efficient protection against the destructive use of nuclear power

Russia will likely have the atomic bomb by mid-1953.

Don’t you realize that the Federal Government has the atomic bomb.

We do not believe that a nuclear war should be fought and we do not believe that a nuclear war can be won.

The atomic bomb was the turn of the screw. It has made the prospect of future war unendurable.

We were at war and it was necessary and right for us to make [atomic] bombs.

If we made atomic bombs, we would bring about a terrible change in the world. Who knows what would happen from this?

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and of Hiroshima.

The sole purpose of nuclear weapons must be to deter their use by others.

The only use for an atomic bomb is to keep somebody else from using one.

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

Even with the best intentions, you can have a nuclear war, a nuclear holocaust, through miscalculation, through accidents.