Blair Conrad > Blair's Quotes

“If the cartoon were completely accurate, though, life would be a cacophany of spoinks.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“He looks sad. Or maybe that's just how he looks when he isn't doing something else with his face.”
― Audrey Niffenegger

“It holds my essential stuff, including a book—for true contentment, one must carry a book at all times, and great books so rarely fit, my friends, into one's pocket[…]”
― Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs

“There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”
― Bertrand Russell

“War does not determine who is right — only who is left.”
― Anonymous

“Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it....”
― George Bernard Shaw, Music in London

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“A lady doctor in the foreground, black horn-rims and white lab coat, suddenly cried, “You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves! Do you realize what you're doing to the reality concepts we're trying to instill in these people? How do you expect them to differentiate between illusion and reality when you do something like this?””
― Donald E. Westlake, The Hot Rock

“In time, in time they tell me, I'll not feel so bad. I don't want time to heal me. There's a reason I'm like this.
I want time to set me ugly and knotted with loss of you, marking me. I won't smooth you away.
I can't say goodbye.”
― China Miéville, The Scar

“My dad hates umbrellas, said Deeba, swinging her own. When it rains he always says the same thing. 'I do not believe the presence of moisture in the air is sufficient reason to overturn society's usual sensible taboo against wielding spiked clubs at eye level.”
― China Miéville, Un Lun Dun

“Well, sometimes," Dane said, "Just because someone uses something wrong doesn't mean it's useless.”
― China Miéville

“People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots... in fact I think they have to be... a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement.”
― Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road

“If you love books enough, books will love you back.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

“I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“While we read a novel, we are insane—bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices... Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“I believe,' said Marcus Furius, 'that an order of male virgins who never see the light of day would be ideal for the operation of a computing machine such as this.”
― M.T. Anderson

“Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.”
― China Miéville, The Scar

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
― Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

“Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“The great thing about knowing stuff is that anyone can do it.”
― Ken Jennings, Greek Mythology

“[…] What's wrong with her?"
"Chronic competence, I should guess. She's been so successful in life that she has unrealistic expectations of others.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“You can love someone so much...But you can never love people as much as you can miss them.”
― John Green

“An adult mind that is brimming with chunks is a powerful engine of reason, but it comes with a cost: a failure to communicate with other minds that have not mastered the same chunks.”
― Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century