"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
— Douglas Adams

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

"The Guide says that there is an art to flying,” said Ford, “or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
— Douglas Adams

" "I don't want to be a man," said Jace. "I want to be an angst-ridden teeenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead."
"Well," said Luke, "you're doing a vantastic job.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

"The major problem- one of the major problems, for there are several- one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of whom manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
— Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer"
— Douglas Adams

"Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a blank piece of paper until your forehead bleeds."
— Douglas Adams

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."
— Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)

"I just saved your fucking life, Mom. . . . You could at least offer me an Oreo."
— Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)

"The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
— William Gibson

"The deadliest bullshit is odorless, and transparent."
— William Gibson

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Once a month, some women act like men act all the time."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

Letter to Joseph Twichell, 9/13/1898"
— Mark Twain

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
— Mark Twain

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
— Mark Twain

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
— Mark Twain

"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it."
— Mark Twain

"Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead."
— Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)

"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
— Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)

"Show some fucking adaptability!"
— Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Those who forget their past are condemned to repeat the same mistakes."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"'Yes, Boss?'
'Dorcas, the last twenty or thirty years I've been a worthless, no-good parasite.'
She yawned again. 'Everybody knows that.'
'Nevermind the flattery. There comes a time in every man's life when he has to stop being sensible--a time to stand up and be counted--strike a blow for liberty--smite the wicked.'
'Ummm...'
'So quit yawning, the time has come.'
She glanced down. 'Maybe I had better get dressed.'"
— Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land)

"The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"My old man says when it's time to be counted, the important thing is to be man enough to stand up."
— Robert A. Heinlein (Between Planets)

"I am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"'...Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?'
Jace said, "Unfortunately, Lady of the Haven, my one true love remains myself."
..."At least," she said, "you don't have to worry about rejection, Jace Wayland."
"Not necessarily. I turn myself down occasionally, just to keep it interesting.""
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"'Can I help you with something?'
Clary turned instant traitor against her gender. "Those girls on the otherside of the car are staring at you."
Jace assumed an air of mellow gratification. 'Of course they are,'he said, 'I am stunningly attractive.'"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"If you were half as funny as you think you are, you'd be twice as funny as you are now."
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"Don't sulk. For someone with all the grace and coordination of a pregnant wildebeest, you did great."
— Cassandra Clare

"I'll just have them change the entry in the demonology textbook from 'almost extinct' to 'not extinct enough for Alec. He prefers his monsters really, really extinct.' Will that make you happy?"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes)

"Nell," the Constable continued, indicating through his tone of voice that the lesson was concluding, "the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward."
— Neal Stephenson (The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer)

"Two tires fly. Two Wail.
A bamboo grove, all chopped down
From it, warring songs."
— Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn to the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
— Frank Herbert (Dune)

"Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting."
— Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (Demon in My View)

"People, generally, suck."
— Christopher Moore

"There's some heinous fuckery goin' on mon."
— Christopher Moore (Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings)

"Don't be ridiculous, Charlie, people love the parents who beat their kids in department stores. It's the ones who just let their kids wreak havoc that everybody hates."
— Christopher Moore (A Dirty Job)

"Let me say right here, if I haven't made it clear, that I have seen as many pale, naked old-man parts in the last twenty-four hours to bruise my delicate psyche for a lifetime, so don't be surprised if you someday find me wandering the moors at midnight, a crazed look in my eye, babbling about albino Tater Tots nesting in Brillo pads and being pursued by sagging man ass, because that shit can happen when you've been traumatized."
— Christopher Moore (You Suck: A Love Story)

"I know that even now, having watched enough television, you probably won't even refer to them as lepers so as to spare their feelings. You probably call them 'parts-dropping-off challenged' or something."
— Christopher Moore (Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal)

"A good story is a good story no matter who wrote it."
— Anne McCaffrey

"Does the walker choose the path or the path choose the walker?"
— Garth Nix (Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr)

"...But it gradually seemed to me that I'd made myself believe something that wasn't true. I'd made myself believe that I was fine and happy and fulfilled on my own without the love of anyone else. Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit... And I thought: am I really going to spend the rest of my life without feeling that again? I thought: I want to go to China. It's full of treasures and strangeness and mysteries and joy."
— Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass)

"Writer's block…a lot of howling nonsense would be avoided if, in every sentence containing the word WRITER, that word was taken out and the word PLUMBER substituted; and the result examined for the sense it makes. Do plumbers get plumber's block? What would you think of a plumber who used that as an excuse not to do any work that day?

The fact is that writing is hard work, and sometimes you don't want to do it, and you can't think of what to write next, and you're fed up with the whole damn business. Do you think plumbers don't feel like that about their work from time to time? Of course there will be days when the stuff is not flowing freely. What you do then is MAKE IT UP. I like the reply of the composer Shostakovich to a student who complained that he couldn't find a theme for his second movement. “Never mind the theme! Just write the movement!” he said.

Writer's block is a condition that affects amateurs and people who aren't serious about writing. So is the opposite, namely inspiration, which amateurs are also very fond of. Putting it another way: a professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they're not inspired as when they are. "
— Philip Pullman

"When he'd sworn at her and been sworn at in return, they became great friends."
— Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass)

"The difference between stupid and intelligent people – and this is true whether or not they are well-educated – is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. "
— Neal Stephenson (The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer)