Matthew > Matthew's Quotes

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

“Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

“The man who knows his limitations, has none.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“The future is there... looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become.”
― William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

“What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“I saw that my witticism was unperceived and quietly replaced it in the treasury of my mind.”
― Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds

“A wise old owl once lived in a wood, the more he heard the less he said, the less he said the more he heard, let's emulate that wise old bird.”
― Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds

“The bomb lives only as it is falling.”
― Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons

“When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.”
― Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds

“But just because something does not have an ending doesn't mean it doesn't have a conclusion.”
― Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons

“All you ever were was a little bit of the universe, thinking to itself. Very specific; this bit, here, right now.”
― Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail

“You can keep your willpower, Frog. I am going home to bake a cake.”
― Arnold Lobel, Frog and Toad Together

“I am now 33 years old, and it feels like much time has passed and is passing faster and faster every day. Day to day I have to make all sorts of choices about what is good and important and fun, and then I have to live with the forfeiture of all the other options those choices foreclose. And I'm starting to see how as time gains momentum my choices will narrow and their foreclosures multiply exponentially until I arrive at some point on some branch of all life's sumptuous branching complexity at which I am finally locked in and stuck on one path and time speeds me through stages of stasis and atrophy and decay until I go down for the third time, all struggle for naught, drowned by time. It is dreadful. But since it's my own choices that'll lock me in, it seems unavoidable--if I want to be any kind of grownup, I have to make choices and regret foreclosures and try to live with them.”
― David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

“Every day you step into my life, you make it brighter, and if you left the world, something in me would starve for you forever, as when some barrier rises to shade a plant, which still has light enough to grow some but will never again taste the unbroken sun.”
― Ada Palmer, Perhaps the Stars

“You don’t let them knock you out, you make them knock you out. You make them break their fucking hands knocking you out, you let them know that they’ve been in a fight, you give them something to remember you by every time they look in a mirror.”
― Don Winslow, The Power of the Dog

“The intentions of a tool are what it does. A hammer intends to strike, a vise intends to hold fast, a lever intends to lift. They are what it is made for. But sometimes a tool may have other uses that you don't know. Sometimes in doing what you intend, you also do what the knife intends, without knowing.”
― Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials - The Trilogy: The Golden Compass / The Subtle Knife / The Amber Spyglass

“Shame to die with one bullet left, though.”
― Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials

“no matter how we defend ourselves against the outside we're always licked by something from the inside. There's no defense against betrayal, and we all betray ourselves.”
― Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

“This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it.”
― Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

“There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot.

"Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts."

"Why can't we all move forward together?"

"Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow."

"Who leads?"

"The men who must...driven men, compelled men."

"Freak men."

"You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory."

"Thank you very much."

"My pleasure, sir."

"You've saved the day."

"Always a lovely day somewhere, sir," the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled, and collapsed.”
― Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

“There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot.
"Then find it yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.”
― Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

“Pylades: I’ll take care of you.
Orestes: It’s rotten work.
Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.”
― Anne Carson, Euripides

“Books reflect interests; interests inform personality and personality decides a course of action.”
― Andrew Caldecott, Rotherweird

“Am I playing with the dog or is the dog playing with me?” Of course, Montaigne wrote that of a cat, but I prefer dogs.”
― Andrew Caldecott, Rotherweird

“The bathroom door burst open, and Molly came trotting out. The left half of her body had been shaved almost down to the skin. The right half was as shaggy as before. John emerged after her, brushing a layer of dog hair off his clothes.

John said, "Well, that's done... It was Molly's idea. She wants to look like two different dogs when she's coming and going. She thinks it will make it easier for her to steal food... That's one complicated dog, Dave. Have you started on the bomb?”
― David Wong, John Dies at the End

“Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

“Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“I am more than a devil; I am a man. I can do the one thing which Satan himself cannot do— I can die.”
― Chesterton G. K. (Gilbert Keith), The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare