Nick > Nick's Quotes

“It was rumored she held grudges till they died of old age, then had them stuffed and mounted.”
― David Weber, Field of Dishonor

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

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

“All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he'd cut in Night City, and still he'd see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void...”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“She's a woman, you're a dude. You're not supposed to understand her. That's not what she's after.... She doesn't want you to understand her. She knows that's impossible. She just wants you to understand yourself. Everything else is negotiable.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“Ronald Reagan has a stack of three-by-five cards in his lap. He skids up a new one: "What advice do you, as the youngest American fighting man ever to win both the Navy Cross and the Silver Star, have for any young marines on their way to Guadalcanal?"

Shaftoe doesn't have to think very long. The memories are still as fresh as last night's eleventh nighmare: ten plucky Nips in Suicide Charge!

"Just kill the one with the sword first."

"Ah," Reagan says, raising his waxed and penciled eyebrows, and cocking his pompadour in Shaftoe's direction. "Smarrrt--you target them because they're the officers, right?"

"No, fuckhead!" Shaftoe yells. "You kill 'em because they've got fucking swords! You ever had anyone running at you waving a fucking sword?”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“I don't even want you to nod, that's how much you annoy me. Just freeze and shut up.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“The franchise and the virus work on the same principle, what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder ― its DNA ― Xerox it, and embed it in the fertile line of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“Hiro watches the large, radioactive, spear-throwing killer drug lord ride his motorcycle into Chinatown. Which is the same as riding it into China, as far as chasing him down is concerned.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“Enoch...why are you here?
Why has my spirit been incarnated into a physical bodi in this world generally? Or specifically, why am I here in a Swedish forest, standing on the wreck of a mysterious German rocket plane while a homosexual German sobs over the cremated remains of his Italian lover?”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“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

“The sight of the bare katana inspires everyone to a practically Nipponese level of politeness”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.”
― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

“You backbiting, poisonous, treacherous, deceitful, wicked, clever girl. If this works I'll buy you a pony.”
― Jim Butcher, Summer Knight

“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”
― Jim Butcher, Grave Peril

“So. You get handed a holy sword by an archangel, told to go fight the forces of evil, and you somehow remain an atheist. Is that what you're saying?”
― Jim Butcher, Death Masks

“A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two… succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference.”
― Jim Butcher, Vignette

“I have nightmares about hell, where all I do is add up numbers and try to have conversations with people like you.”
― Jim Butcher, Vignette

“The man once wrote: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Tolkien had that one mostly right.

I stepped forward, let the door bang closed, and snarled, "Fuck subtle.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“I let out a battle cry. Sure, a lot of people might have mistaken it for a sudden yelp of unmanly fear, but trust me. It was a battle cry.”
― Jim Butcher, My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

“Ignorance is more than bliss, it's freaking orgasmic ecstacy!”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“That’s the problem with you nearly immortal types,” I said. “You couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus.”
― Jim Butcher, Small Favor

“Holy shit," I breathed. "Hellhounds."
"Harry," Michael said sternly. "You know I hate it when you swear."
"You're right. Sorry. Holy shit," I breathed, "heckhounds.”
― Jim Butcher, Grave Peril

“Being here? With you? I've met my subconscious, and he's not that sick.”
― Jim Butcher, Ghost Story

“Jump into an open grave? What kind of idiot are you?" Butters replied. "I might as well put on a red shirt and volunteer for the away team. There's snow and ice and slippery mud down there. That's like asking for an ironically broken neck.”
― Jim Butcher, Ghost Story

“You're dead, son. Cheer is contraindicated.”
― Jim Butcher, Ghost Story

“The story so far:
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

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time