Jamison Border > Jamison's Quotes

“Fred said, “Man, I think he’s gonna make a fuckin’ suit of human skin, using the best parts from each of us.”
“Holy crap,” said John. “He’ll be gorgeous.”
― David Wong, John Dies at the End

“You want sympathy, you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“Something coming back from the dead was almost always bad news. Movies taught me that. For every one Jesus you get a million zombies.”
― David Wong, John Dies at the End

“Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you’re the one who shot him.

He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs-you know the type. And you’re chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face.

On the follow-through of the last swing, though, the handle of the ax snaps in a spray of splinters. You now have a broken ax. So, after a long night of looking for a place to dump the man and his head, you take a trip into town with your ax. You go to the hardware store, explaining away the dark reddish stains on the broken handle as barbecue sauce. You walk out with a brand-new handle for your ax.

The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your garage until the spring when, on one rainy morning, you find in your kitchen a creature that appears to be a foot-long slug with a bulging egg sac on its tail. Its jaws bite one of your forks in half with what seems like very little effort. You grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow, however, the ax strikes a metal leg of the overturned kitchen table and chips out a notch right in the middle of the blade.

Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store. They sell you a brand-new head for your ax. As soon as you get home, you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded earlier. He’s also got a new head, stitched on with what looks like plastic weed-trimmer line, and it’s wearing that unique expression of “you’re the man who killed me last winter” resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life.

You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that beheaded me!”

IS HE RIGHT?”
― David Wong, John Dies at the End

“How are you supposed to feel if you are forced to do what you would have done anyway?”
― Dennis E. Taylor, We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

“People's capacity for turning dogmatic stupidity into political movements never ceased to amaze me. We've knocked off 99.9% of the human race and somehow the crazies still manage to survive. It just defies the odds.”
― Dennis E. Taylor, We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”
― Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

“All the time you're saying to yourself, 'I could do that, but I won't,' — which is just another way of saying that you can't.”
― Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

“So I have just one wish for you – the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.”
― Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

“I couldn't claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys--but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly!”
― Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

“Pompous fools drive me up the wall. Ordinary fools are alright; you can talk to them and try to help them out. But pompous fools – guys who are fools and covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus – THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn’t a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!”
― Richard P. Feynman

“Steve sighed, wishing for a cigarette. “The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” “Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?” “No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying.”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“His life was not confined and the delight he took in this observation could not be explained by its suggestion of escape.”
― John Cheever, The Swimmer

“I find that stubbornness often beats intelligence eventually. Stubbornness will beat anything eventually. That’s the whole point of stubbornness.”
― Scott Meyer, Spell or High Water

“For a smart person to argue with a dumb person, they have to dumb down their logic on the fly, while the dumb person thinks in dumb logic naturally, giving them an advantage.”
― Scott Meyer, Spell or High Water

“He had spent a lot of time thinking about himself, and had come to the conclusion that he was definitely not self-absorbed.”
― Scott Meyer, Off to Be the Wizard

“But you’re not anymore, are you? Now you’re management! A suppurating bourgeois fistula of oppression!” “Bourgeois fistula! Bourgeois fistula!” the rest of the dolphins chimed in unison. “Not going to lie, I appreciate your way with words,” I said. “Don’t condescend to us, you ambulatory collection of skin tags,” Who Gives a Shit said. “If you’re just going to continue your uncle’s repressive labor policies, you can fuck off right into the sun.” “Sun fucking! Sun fucking!”
― John Scalzi, Starter Villain

“Hi, Charlie,” the dolphin said. “I’m Who Gives a Shit, and these are my associates Don’t Care, Fuck You, Fuck Off, Burn It Down, and Eat the Rich.”
― John Scalzi, Starter Villain