Kevin > Kevin's Quotes

“The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.”
― Lester Bangs

“If the wind no longer calls to you, it is time to see if you have forgotten your name.”
― Michael A. Stackpole, Star Wars: I, Jedi

“Life itself was hard enough without monosynaptic sociopaths preying on folks.”
― Michael A. Stackpole, Star Wars: I, Jedi

“If you can't recognize the man in the mirror, it is time to step back and see when you stopped being yourself.”
― Michael A. Stackpole, Star Wars: I, Jedi

“Do you want help?"
"No."
"Do you need help?”
― Michael A. Stackpole, Star Wars: I, Jedi

“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.”
― Dhammapada, The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha

“We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes.”
― Richard Dawkins, A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love – Essays from Renowned Scientist Richard Dawkins on Evolution and the Examined Life

“You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.”
― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“The reason why I do not know anything about myself, the reason why Siddhartha has remained alien and unknown to myself is due to one thing, to one single thing--I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself. I was seeking Atman, I was seeking Brahman, I was determined to dismember myself and tear away its layers of husk in order to find in its unknown innermost recess the kernel at the heart of those layers, the Atman, life, the divine principle, the ultimate. But in so doing, I was losing myself.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“All life is sacred. Even life that comes in forms that we don't understand." - Obi-Wan Kenobi”
― John Jackson Miller, Kenobi

“What I could really use is an older man. A mentor. One who could tell me how things fit together.

He would have asked me to do chores that I felt were meaningless. I would have been impatient and protested, but done them nonetheless. And eventually, after several months of hard labour, I would have realised that there was a deeper meaning behind it all, and that the master had a cunning plan all the time.”
― Erlend Loe, Naïve. Super

“Why do so many people start their messages with, "It's me"? Of course it is you. We all know that. But who the hell ARE you?”
― Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“Your calendar is made up of twelve munse, your clock is divided by twelve, but your math and currency is based on ten? That’s the most backward thing I have ever heard.”
― Donald Swan

“Well, social media algorithms are a 24/7 humiliation machine. That is how a population is primed for authoritarian rule. And that's just one example; we're essentially teaching machines how to hack human insecurity.”
― Jason Pargin, I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom

“...Once I was disconnected from it and looking back, it was clear that everything we were doing was insane. It was the first time I realized there was something truly dangerous about this, the devices, the algorithms. It's like it reduced us to our limbic systems, turned us into mindless zealots in warring tribes.... And what I couldn't get over is that this technology was supposed to broaden everybody's horizons, you can communicate with people all over the world now, at any time. But for me, the world got smaller. I neglected everything else in my life-my family, my business, my health, everything else just went away in the name of arguing with these total strangers about the lives of other total strangers. I felt like living my life through screens had trapped me in this dark little cell, my own black box of doom....”
― Jason Pargin, I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom