MJ > MJ's Quotes

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
― Jane Austen, Jane Austen's Letters

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
― James D. Nicoll

“Imagine that you were on the threshold of this fairytale, sometime billions of years ago when everything was created. And you were able to choose whether you wanted to be born to a life on this planet at some point. You wouldn’t know when you were going to be born, nor how long you’d live for, but at any event it wouldn’t be more than a few years. All you’d know was that, if you chose to come into the world at some point, you’d also have to leave it again one day and go away from everything. This might cause you a good deal of grief, as lots of people think that life in the great fairytale is so wonderful that the mere thought of it ending can bring tears to their eyes. Things can be so nice here that it’s terribly painful to think that at some point the days will run out. What would you have chosen, if there had been some higher power that had gave you the choice? Perhaps we can imagine some sort of cosmic fairy in this great, strange fairytale. What you have chosen to live a life on earth at some point, whether short or long, in a hundred thousand or a hundred million years? Or would you have refused to join in the game because you didn’t like the rules? (...) I asked myself the same question maybe times during the past few weeks. Would I have elected to live a life on earth in the firm knowledge that I’d suddenly be torn away from it, and perhaps in the middle of intoxicating happiness? (...) Well, I wasn’t sure what I would have chosen. (...) If I’d chosen never to the foot inside the great fairytale, I’d never have known what I’ve lost. Do you see what I’m getting at? Sometimes it’s worse for us human beings to lose something dear to us than never to have had it at all.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Orange Girl

“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we're frightened, the hair on our skin stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we've ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. [...]

I'm made up of the memories of my parents and my grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“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

“Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it 'opening your eyes again.' But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no rest, just endless... endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless deeps of space! You have this thing you call... boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song — it went 'Twinkle twinkle little star....' What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds, and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Always face what you fear. Have just enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it’s not your fault, it’s your responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two mirrors. Never cackle. Do what you must do. Never lie, but you don’t always have to be honest. Never wish. Especially don’t wish upon a star, which is astronomically stupid. Open your eyes, and then open your eyes again.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Witches were a bit like cats. They didn’t much like one another’s company, but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“I'm trying to have a moment o' existential dreed here, right? Crivens, it's a puir lookout if a man canna feel the chilly winds o' fate lashing aroound his netheres wi'out folks telling him he's deid, eh?”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“It's always surprising to be reminded that while you're watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they're watching and thinking about you, right back at you.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“AAaargwannawannaaaagongongonaargggaaaaBLOON!" which is the traditional sound of a very small child learning that with balloons, as with life itself, it is important to know when not to let go of the string. The whole point of balloons is to teach small children this.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Where I come from, Annagramma, they have the Sheepdog Trials. Shepherds travel there from all over to show off their dogs. And there're silver crooks and belts with silver buckles and prizes of all kinds, Annagramma, but do you know what the big prize is? No, you wouldn't. Oh, there are judges, but they don't count, not for the big prize. There is - there was a little old lady who was always at the front of the crowd, leaning on the hurdles with her pipe in her mouth with the two finest sheepdogs ever pupped sitting at her feet. Their names were Thunder and Lightning, and they moved so fast, they set the air on fire and their coats outshone the sun, but she never, ever put them in the Trials. She knew more about sheep than even sheep know. And what every young shepherd wanted, really wanted, wasn't some silly cup or belt but to see her take pipe out of her mouth as he left the arena and quietly say 'That'll do,' because that meant he was a real shepherd and all the other shepherds knew it, too. And if you'd told him he had to challenge her, he'd cuss at you and stamp his foot and tell you he'd sooner spit the sun dark. How could he ever win? She was shepherding. It was the whole of her life. What you took away from her you'd take away from yourself. You don't understand that, do you? But it's the heart and the soul and center of it! The soul... and... center!”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“«Brilla, brilla, estrellita…». ¡Cuánto poder! ¡Qué poder tan asombroso! Podéis tomar mil millones de billones de toneladas de materia en llamas, una caldera de potencia inimaginable, ¡y convertirla en una cancioncilla infantil! ¡Construís pequeños mundos, pequeñas historias, pequeños caparazones alrededor de vuestras mentes y con ello mantenéis a raya al infinito y podéis levantaros por la mañana sin chillar!”
― Terry Pratchett, Un sombrero de cielo

“Vosotros los humanos sois expertos en pasar cosas por alto. Estáis casi ciegos y casi sordos. Miráis a un árbol y veis… un árbol sin más, una hierba rígida. No veis su historia, no sentís el bombeo de la savia, no oís a cada insecto de la corteza, no sentís la química de las hojas, no distinguís sus cien tonos de verde, los minúsculos movimientos con los que sigue al sol, el sutil crecimiento de la madera…”
― Terry Pratchett, Un sombrero de cielo

“¿Para qué te marchas? Para poder volver. Para poder ver el lugar del que provienes con nuevos ojos y más colores. Y la gente también te ve distinta a ti. Volver al lugar donde empezaste no es lo mismo que no haberte ido nunca.”
― Terry Pratchett, Un sombrero de cielo

“never ask the tight-rope walker how he keeps his balance. if he stops to think about it, he falls off”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“we are history! everything we've ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“in a cottage deep in the forest lived the wicked old witch...it was a cottage out of the nastier kind of fairy tale”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Ah, those two. In a fight, they’re lethal. Around each other, they melt.”
― Richelle Mead, The Golden Lily

“One day I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.”
― William Hartnell, Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes, Collection Two: 1965-1966

“Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“Sometimes, Lady Constance, you really are the woman of my dreams.” “Thank you for finally realizing it,”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“Saturday was general cleaning day in accordance with the rules laid down by the Foundress. Every nun, professed or lay, scrubbed down her cell, took her linen to the laundry room, made up her narrow bed with fresh sheets and changed her underwear for the second time in a week.”
― Veronica Black, Sister Joan Mysteries #1-5: A Vow of Silence / A Vow of Chastity / A Vow of Sanctity / A Vow of Obedience / A Vow of Penance