Mike > Mike's Quotes

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“The single simplest reason why human space flight is necessary is this, stated as plainly as possible: keeping all your breeding pairs in one place is a retarded way to run a species.”
― Warren Ellis

“Here in Britain, of course, it's Thank Fuck We Got Those Weird Jesus Bastards On The Boat Day”
― Warren Ellis

“I reject passive consumption. I reject the premise. I will have no passive consumers. Casanova will not stop and explain itself to you. It will not allow you to flip through it while you're dropping a deuce and waiting for Batman to show up.”
― Matt Fraction

“Having shot Stilt Man in the taint with a bazooka -- I'’ve come to realize every character is somebody’s favorite character.”
― Matt Fraction

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”
― Bill Watterson

“You know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon...everything's different.”
― Bill Watterson

“Ms. Wormwood: Calvin, can you tell us what Lewis and Clark did?
Calvin: No, but I can recite the secret superhero origin of each member of Captain Napalm's Thermonuclear League of Liberty.
Ms. Wormwood: See me after class, Calvin.
Calvin: [retrospectively] I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.”
― Bill Watterson

“Metaphor is one of a group of problem-solving medicines known as figures of speech which are normally used to treat literal thinking and other diseases.”
― Grant Morrison, The Filth

“Imagine the earth’s population of six billion people reduced to just one hundred representatives. Statistically, that makes 30 white, 70 non-white. It means 6 people own 59% of the wealth and they all live in North America. 80 are in substandard housing. One has an education. One owns a computer. Don’t blame me if it all sounds crazy.”
― grant morrison

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”
― Mark Twain

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”
― Mark Twain

“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?”
― Mark Twain

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
― Laurence J. Peter, The Peter Principle

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“You've learned that every good lie is threaded with truth and every accepted truth leaks lies.”
― Dennis Lehane

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Fuck concepts. Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.”
― George Saunders

“You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

“Make love, not war. Unless you’re Loki, in which case: do what you want.”
― Tom Hiddleston

“′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.”
― Mark Twain

“Announcing your plans is a good way to hear god laugh”
― David milch

“Tradition:' one of those words conservative people use as a shortcut to thinking.”
― Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan, Vol. 4: The New Scum

“Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
― Elmore Leonard

“Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?”
― David Mamet, Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business

“With great power comes great responsibility.”
― Stan Lee