Fred > Fred's Quotes

“The other day, I tried to remember what was the word for ‘dragonfly’ and couldn’t.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“I see that as usual I’ve gone on too long and that I’m running out of room, but I do hope that you are happy and well, and it’s all a little less lonely out there than you may have feared. If there’s anything I can do for you back here, or if I can help you in any way, please know that I will.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“That’s the first law of magic, Specs. Misdirection. Never forget it.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld

“I was worried that my exuberant drug use had damaged my brain and my nervous system and maybe even my soul in some irreparable and perhaps not readily apparent way.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Always remember, the person we’re really working for is the person who’s restoring the piece a hundred years from now. He’s the one we want to impress.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Different cultures and all that, but it’s true what they say about the Japanese being undemonstrative.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“The problem (as I’d learned, repeatedly) was that thirty-six hours in, with your body in full revolt, and the remainder of your un-opiated life stretching out bleakly ahead of you like a prison corridor, you needed some fairly compelling reason to keep moving forward into darkness, rather than falling straight back into the gorgeous feather mattress you’d so foolishly abandoned.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“It had been a conscious decision to pull free. It had taken everything I had to do it, like an animal gnawing a limb off to escape a trap. And somehow I had done it;”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“I see you are philosopher by nature.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“We make our own gods for our own purposes. And we love them, and that’s the whole point.”
― David Shoemaker, The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling

“Who was it that said that coincidence was just God’s way of remaining anonymous?”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Ask for two, and they give you the third free.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Last One Left

“You lie well, and I appreciate the effort it takes. It’s not so easy, as any commissar knows.”
― Stephen Hunter, Sniper's Honor

“You’re a genius,” she said. “Hardly,” he said. “I just show up and pay attention.”
― Stephen Hunter, Sniper's Honor

“It appears that there is now a drive on to make the world safe for morons[,]”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“Family is, after all—however irritating—family.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“A smart man learns from experience; a wise man learns from the experience of others.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“One is the notion that knowledge is worth acquiring, all knowledge, and that a solid grounding in mathematics provides one with the essential language of many of the most important forms of knowledge. The third theme is that, while it is desirable to live peaceably, there are things worth fighting for and values worth dying for—and that it is far better for a man to die than to live under circumstances that call for such sacrifice. The fourth theme is that individual human freedoms are of basic value, without which mankind is less than human.63”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“I suggest that it never helps anyone to tell a mother that her baby is ugly.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“a logical man must behave in a crisis as if his calculated risk were indeed a certainty …”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“the right to be naked and not to be ruled by Mrs. Grundy deserves financial support from anyone who believes in freedom.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“My brother, Major General Lawrence Heinlein, once told me that there are only two promotions in life that mean a damn: from buck private to corporal, and from colonel to general officer. I made corporal decades ago … but now at long last I know what he meant about the other. Thank you.17”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“Treat people magnanimously if you can,” he said, “It’ll make you feel better. Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed. Do the decent thing if you can, but for its own sake.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“But the rest of our lives will happen in the future, Randy, so we might as well get with the program now.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“Well, I am not fully convinced that I really need this,” Randy says. “We all need to decide that question for ourselves,” says Avi.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“The problem with those honorable men,” Avi says, “is that they expect everyone else to be honorable in the same way.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“War gives men good ignoring skills.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon