David > David's Quotes

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
― Bertrand Russell

“We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think.”
― Rod Serling

“People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“And the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the nieces, the nephews, that lived in those walls, the gibbering pack of tree apes that said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Life feels like a game of Snakes and Ladders, but without any ladders.”
― David Moody, Them or Us

“Reducing human beings to the faint after-image of some omnipotent deity, or trying to give human life meaning by postponing real fulfilment to some post-mortem paradise ... can actually threaten to rob real life of its meaningfulness.”
― British Humanist Association

“A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.”
― The Economist

“Surviving is one thing," he said quietly, his voice suddenly calmer, "but you've got to have a reason to do it. There's no point in living if you don't have anything worth living for.”
― David Moody, Autumn

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
― Steven Weinberg

“The quiet this evening is unsettling. I hadn’t realised how loud life was until it all stopped.”
― David Moody, The Cost of Living

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Albert Einstein

“I never get enough of the adrenaline rush of hearing good music played live and played loud like this. Hearing these songs again snatches me out of the day-to-day and helps me forget all the things I usually waste my time worrying about. As long as the music's playing I don't have to do anything except listen, relax, and enjoy myself.”
― David Moody, Hater

“Why was I condemned to live in a democracy where every fool’s vote is equal to a sensible man’s? If all the energy that is put into diddling mugs for their votes could be turned on to useful work, what a nation we could be!”
― John Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes

“I always advise people never to give advice.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“As a securely dominant species you could afford to lose touch with reality, and amuse yourselves with abstractions,”
― John Wyndham, The Midwich Cuckoos

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.”
― William Gibson

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

“JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
― Elena Gorokhova, A Mountain of Crumbs

“The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”
― Bertrand Russell

“One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”
― Bertrand Russell

“You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.”
― Alain de Botton

“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
― Denis Diderot

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
― George Orwell, 1984