J. Edward > J.'s Quotes

“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“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

“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

“The House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel was what they called it when they were speaking Chinese. Venerable because of his goatee, white as the dogwood blossom, a badge of unimpeachable credibility in Confucian eyes. Inscrutable because he had gone to his grave without divulging the Secret of the Eleven Herbs and Spices.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

“Princess Nell had to reconstruct them, learning the language, which was extremely pithy and made heavy use of parentheses.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age

“Too many dots," Miller said. "Not enough lines.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“There's a right thing to do," Holden said.
"You don't have a right thing, friend," Miller said. "You've got a whole plateful of maybe a little less wrong.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“Violence is what people do when they run out of good ideas.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate

“Violence is what people do when they run out of good ideas. It's attractive because it's simple, it's direct, it's almost always available as an option. When you can't think of a good rebuttal for your opponent's argument, you can always punch them in the face.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon’s Gate

“What kind of half-assed apocalypse are they running down there?” Amos said. “Give ’em a break. It’s their first.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“You can tell you’ve found a really interesting question when nobody wants you to answer it.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“Liquor doesn’t make you feel better. Just makes you not so worried about feeling bad.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“Theological anthropology is a lot simpler when humans are the only ones with souls.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate

“It’s a simple complex system. That’s the technical name for it. Because it’s simple, it’s prone to cascades, and because it’s complex, you can’t predict what’s going to fail. Or how. It’s computationally impossible.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban's War

“What did you do?” Fred asked. “There was a button,” Holden said. “I pushed it.” “Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn’t it?”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“It killed humans, therefore it was a weapon. But radiation killed humans, and a medical X-ray machine wasn’t intended as a weapon. Holden was starting to feel like they were all monkeys playing with a microwave. Push a button, a light comes on inside, so it’s a light. Push a different button and stick your hand inside, it burns you, so it’s a weapon. Learn to open and close the door, it’s a place to hide things. Never grasping what it actually did, and maybe not even having the framework necessary to figure it out. No monkey ever reheated a frozen burrito.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate

“They’d made a plan, and so far everything was more or less going the way they’d hoped. The thought left Holden increasingly terrified.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate

“There’s a dignity in consequences.”
― James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn

“The best scientific minds of the system were staring at the data with their jaws slack, and the reason no one was panicking yet was that no one could agree on what they should panic about.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban's War

“A bicycle?” Amos leaned on the breakfast bar. “Sure. They don’t need fuel, they don’t get sick. Most of the repairs, you can handle on your own. You’re looking for post-apocalyptic transportation, bikes are the way to go.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“Do not underestimate his capacity to fuck things up.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“Alien superweapons were used,” Alex said, walking into the room, sleep-sweaty hair standing out from his skull in every direction. “The laws of physics were altered, mistakes were made.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“I can’t fight pirates without coffee.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban's War

“Dare to be as great as the people who love you mistakenly think you are.”
― James S.A. Corey

“Anyone can kill a planet from orbit,” Holden replied. “You don’t even need bombs. Just push anvils out the airlock. That thing out there could kill… Shit. Anything.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“Show a human a closed door, and no matter how many open doors she finds, she'll be haunted by what might be behind it.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon’s Gate

“Things changed, and they didn’t change back. But sometimes they got better.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“Probably the most common last words that day were going to be Huh, that’s weird. That or Oh shit.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“And ... and what is civilisation if it isn’t people talking to each other over a goddamned beer?”
― James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn

“The pleasantries were just ritual, but ritual was important. In Amos’ experience the more dangerous any two people were, the more carefully polite their social interactions tended to be. The loud, blustering ones were trying to get the other guy to back down. They wanted to stay out of a fight. The quiet ones were figuring out how to win it.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games