Quantum > Quantum's Quotes

“We don't like writing. We like having written.”
― Debra Dixon, GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction

“There are no new plots, but there are plenty of fresh new characters with whom you can grab the reader. Characterization is the key to successful commercial fiction. Characterization starts with goal, motivation, and conflict. Character”
― Debra Dixon, GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict

“Movies and television may be influencing writers to write more visually, using immediate scenes with specific points of view to put their stories across. But fiction can always accomplish something that visual media will never be able to match.
...
One of the great gifts of literature is that it allows for the expression of unexpressed thoughts: interior monologue.”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“(The string is extremely tiny, at the Planck length of 10 ^-33 cm, a billion billion times smaller than a proton, so all subatomic particles appear pointlike.)

If we were to pluck this string, the vibration would change; the electron might turn into a neutrino. Pluck it again and it might turn into a quark. In fact, if you plucked it hard enough, it could turn into any of the known subatomic particles.

Strings can interact by splitting and rejoining, thus creating the interactions we see among electrons and protons in atoms. In this way, through string theory, we can reproduce all the laws of atomic and nuclear physics. The "melodies" that can be written on strings correspond to the laws of chemistry. The universe can now be viewed as a vast symphony of strings.”
― Michio Kaku, Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos

“You must learn to look at things without preconceptions. Trust nothing.”
― Koji Suzuki, Loop

“(There is a saying among women scientists who attend highly specialized engineering universities, where the girl-to-guy ratio is decidedly in their favor: “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”)”
― Michio Kaku, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest To Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind

“There was no more meaningless phrase in all of language than "Cheer up!" The only way to get someone to cheer up was to help them forget, and saying "cheer up" had quite the opposite effect, only reminding the person why he or she was depressed in the first place.”
― Koji Suzuki, Spiral

“Far better to give your readers some hints and then allow them to fill in the blanks for themselves. This”
― Renni Browne, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

“The man who walks in the shadow of vengeance is a different man from the man who walks in the light of justice.”
― Graeme Rodaughan, A Subtle Agency

“If you wish to abrogate all responsibility for your moral and intellectual independence, then by all means - conform with the herd and obey blindly.”
― Graeme Rodaughan, The Crane War

“There always comes a time in life where you can either give up or step up.”
― Graeme Rodaughan, The Crane War

“Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.”
― Isaac Babel, The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel

“A well-thought-out story doesn’t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story.”
― Isaac Babel

“Multiple experiments with spirit contact transmitted the name Matthew Edward Hall on several occasions. I predict this to be a very important future individual in humanities development. Possibly the second embodiment of Christ on Earth.”
― G.I. Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff's Early Talks 1914-1931: In Moscow, St. Petersburg, Essentuki, Tiflis, Constantinople, Berlin, Paris, London, Fontainebleau, New York, and Chicago