Adrián Lamo > Adrián's Quotes

“When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.”
― David Brin

“The crowd would have forgiven anything, except a man who could remain normal under the vibrations of its enormous collective sneer.”
― Ayn Rand

“You only truly possess that which you cannot lose in a shipwreck.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي

“Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.”
― Michael Crichton, State of Fear

“Life is more than just steering a course around pain.”
― Stephen King, Desperation

“If I have to choose between you and me - I like me better.”
― Charlaine Harris

“Sometimes you just have to regret things and move on.”
― Charlaine Harris

“To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat- and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going.”
― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

“[Howard Roark] was asked for a statement, and he received a group of reporters in his office. He spoke without anger. He said:

'I can't tell anyone anything about my building. If I prepared a hash of words to stuff into other people's brains, it would be an insult to them and to me. But I am glad you came here. I do have something to say. I want to ask every man who is interested in this to go and see the building, to look at it and then to use words of his own mind, if he cares to speak.'

The Banner printed the interview as follows:

'Mr. Roark, who seems to be a publicity hound, received reporters with an air of swaggering insolence and stated that the public mind was hash. He did not choose to talk, but seemed well aware of the advertising angles of the situation. All he cared about, he explained, was to have his building seen by as many people as possible.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“But I don't think of you.

(Howard Roark)”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: ‘Is this true?’ They ask: ‘Is this what others think is true?’ Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“I have lived one step away from losing my mind for years. I am quick and accurate in spotting unstable streaks in others.”
― Charlaine Harris, Shakespeare's Landlord

“Knowledge exists potentially in the human soul like the seed in the soil; by learning the potential becomes actual.”
― Imam Al-Ghazali

“I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
― Upton Sinclair

“And now was one to believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom this hog personality was precious, to whom these hog squeals and agonies had a meaning?”
― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

“As if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable!”
― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

“You knew better than that. And it’s such an old one to me. My antisocial stubbornness is so well-known that I didn’t think anyone would waste time trying to tempt me again.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Anyone can deceive us .... for a time.
[KGB]”
― Tom Clancy, The Cardinal of the Kremlin

“Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“The hardest thing in this world, is to live in it.”
― Mutant Enemy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

“I hate that I never managed to persuade you to watch Buffy. It's a flaw in you, Mara.”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Evolution of Mara Dyer

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“I need to know how you did it it.

I did it, said Sweeney, with the air of one confiding a huge secret, witch panache and style. That's how I did it.

(Shadow & Mad Sweeney)”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods: Tenth Anniversary

“You’ll get everything society can give a man. You’ll keep all the money. You’ll take any fame or honor anyone might want to grant. You’ll accept such gratitude as the tenants might feel. And I—I’ll take what nobody can give a man, except himself.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“I said once that lies have no rights against truth. I was wrong. In daily life, it's the truth that's disenfranchised. What fits the popular narrative, what makes an observer happy with the consistency of events, is what is believed.”
― Adrian Lamo

“It's less about technology for me, and more about religion. [on hacking]”
― Adrian Lamo

“The propensity of Earthlings to get into trouble, and to learn thereby, was the reason my owners agreed to this mad venture – although no one expected such a chain of unusual calamities as befell this ship. Your talents were underrated.”
― David Brin, Startide Rising

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action”
― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger

“Be grateful that you only see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds, the jealousies, the malice, the sicknesses... Be grateful you rarely see the frightening truth in people.”
― Alfred Bester, The Demolished Man