J.E. Mac > J.E.'s Quotes

“No wonder you're depressed. You haven't fully accepted the use of controlled violence for the good of the community.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“Because the longer you go on the worse it gets. And now, instead of preventing me from having effective dreams, you're going to start having them yourself. I don't like making the rest of the world live in my dreams, but I certainly don't want to live in yours.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“Are you . . . a policeman?"
"No. They'll be along shortly, I expect. Public suicide's a felony."
". . . I'm sorry.”
― James Tiptree Jr.

“This is how a man looks when he's deciding that the risk of death is better than the risk of change.”
― Stephen King, Cell

“Your mother must have been disappointed when the abortion only killed your conscience.”
― Hiroshi Sakurazaka, All You Need Is Kill

“But if I have to deal with another stupid elf and their mystic crap I swear I'm going to shoot them all in their stupid inbred hick faces and burn their trailer park down.”
― Larry Correia, Monster Hunter International

“Think of cocaine. In its natural form, as coca leaves, it's appealing, but not to an extent that it usually becomes a problem. But refine it, purify it, and you get a compound that hits your pleasure receptors with an unnatural intensity. That's when it becomes addictive.

Beauty has undergone a similar process, thanks to advertisers.Evolution gave us a circuit that responds to good looks--call it the pleasure receptor for our visual cortex--and in our natural environment, it was useful to have. But take a person with one-in-a-million skin and bone structure, add professional makeup and retouching, and you're no longer looking at beauty in its natural form. You've got pharmaceutical grade beauty, the cocaine of good looks.”
― Ted Chiang

“You've delegated the ability to make up your mind.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“Three days ago we not only ruled the earth, we had survivor's guilt about all the other species we'd wiped out on our climb to the nirvana of round-the-clock cable news and microwave popcorn. Now we're the Flashlight People.”
― Stephen King, Cell

“This is how it goes when Homeland Security's been canceled due to lack of sanity.”
― Stephen King

“Good evening, Amycus," said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party. "And you've brought Alecto too....Charming..."
The woman gave an angry little titter. "Think your little jokes'll help you on your deathbed then?" she jeered.
"Jokes? No, no, these are manners," replied Dumbledore.”
― JK Rowling

“What did you do about the dreams?"
"Oh...went on dreaming.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“I've always found my wife a bit dazzling, in the purest sense of the word: to lose clear vision, especially from looking at bright light. It was enough to be near her and hear her talk, it didn't always matter what she was saying. It should have, but it didn't.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“Why do I do anything?' she says. 'I'm educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct any fantasy. Explain away any goal. I'm so smart I can negate any dream.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching -- they are your family. ”
― Jim Butcher

“Are you always a smartass?'

Nope. Sometimes I'm asleep.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“A Dick and Jane story written in blood and battered bone.

See Spot.

See Spot run.

See Spot run from a gaping chest wound.

Run Spot run.

See Detective smear Spot into a baggy for DNA testing.”
― J.E. Mac, Damaged Good

“They'll Have to shoot me first to take my Gun.”
― Roy Rogers

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles 'pon it instead," I said solemnly, "and frosting of white.”
― Jim Butcher, Small Favor

“She put the words back in the envelope, because fuck doing that again.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“He went to rub his eyes and missed.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“This all seemed quaint and amusing, but as the book moved through to the modern day, nothing changed. People still fell to the influence of persuasion techniques, especially when they broadcast information about themselves that allowed identification of their personality type--their true name, basically--and the attack vectors for these techniques were primarily aural and visual. But no one thought of this as magic. It was just falling for a good line or being distracted or clever marketing. Even the words were the same. People still got fascinated and charmed, spellbound and amazed, they forgot themselves, and were carried away. They just didn't think there was anything magical about that anymore.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“This isn't an accident; this happens because to people at the top, the scariest thing is how many people there are below. They need to watch us. They need to monitor what we're thinking. It's the only thing between them and a guillotine.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“He kissed her, because fuck it, he was probably about to die.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“The newspapers said nobody made it out alive."
"Surely you didn't trust them.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“She had been in situations like this, where people said, Convince me, and in none of those had they actually wanted to be convinced. She could lay down a perfect argument and they just invented new bullshit on the spot to justify why the answer was still no. When people said, Convince me, she knew it didn’t mean they had an open mind. It meant they had power and wanted to enjoy it a minute.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“I just read them for fun."
"Dictionaries?"
"Yes."
"That doesn't sound like fun. That sounds awful."
"Awful used to mean 'full of awe.' The same meaning as awesome. I learned that from a dictionary."
He blinked.
"See?" She said. "Fun.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon