Peter > Peter's Quotes

“Don't Panic.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd!”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
― Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“But that was how it went sometimes, the English language, when you really needed it, crumbled to clay in your mouth. That’s when all the real things were said.”
― Marisha Pessl, Night Film

“My films are just stories, but that’s all we have, the stories we tell others and the stories we tell ourselves. When you talk to the elderly, men and women at the end of their lives, you see that’s what’s left behind as the body disintegrates. Our stories. Our children will decide whether or not to keep telling them.”
― Marisha Pessl, Night Film

“Mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love. It cuts to the core of our being and shows us what we are. Will you step back and cover your eyes? Or will you have the strength to walk to the precipice and look out? Do you want to know what is there or live in the dark delusion that this commercial world insists we remain sealed inside like blind caterpillars in an eternal cocoon? Will you curl up with your eyes closed and die? Or can you fight your way out of it and fly?”
― Marisha Pessl, Night Film

“Writing is learning to say nothing, more cleverly each day.”
― William Allingham

“Did it show the dark side of the heroes in The Hero City? Did it show the violence and the betrayal, the cruelty, the depravity, the bottomless evil in some of those “heroes’” hearts? No, of course not. Why would it? That was our reality and it’s what drove so many people to get snuggled in bed, blow out their candles, and take their last breath. Marty chose, instead, to show the other side, the one that gets people out of bed the next morning, makes them scratch and scrape and fight for their lives because someone is telling them that they’re going to be okay. There’s a word for that kind of lie. Hope.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet: A Television Script. Adapted by Michael Benthall and Ralph Nelson for presentation on the CBS Television Network by the Old Vic Company on February 24, 1959 at 9:30 EST.

“Honestly, though, does choice even come into it? Is it my fault that the good times fade to nothing while the bad ones burn forever bright? Memory aside, the negative just makes for a better story: the plane was delayed, an infection set in, outlaws arrived and reduced the schoolhouse to ashes. Happiness is harder to put into words. It’s also harder to source, much more mysterious than anger or sorrow, which come to me promptly, whenever I summon them, and remain long after I’ve begged them to leave.”
― David Sedaris, Calypso

“What, are you, crazy?' 'It's a possibility I haven't ruled out yet', said Zaphod quietly. 'I know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Not all or even most suffering is at the hands of fate; it befalls us at our invitation.”
― Dean Koontz, Intensity

“It is the purpose for which we exist. This reckless caring.”
― Dean Koontz, Intensity

“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.

Or you don't.”
― Stephen King, The Stand

“Bod said, 'I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want,' he said, and then he paused and he thought. 'I want everything.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book