Standback > Standback's Quotes

“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Language is such an imprecise vehicle I sometimes wonder why we bother with it.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Publishing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.”
― Don Marquis

“I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.”
― Samuel Johnson

“If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Wide Window

“They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.”
― Eddie Izzard

“Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.”
― Lemony Snicket

“They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.”
― Eddie Izzard

“Do not look sad. We shall meet soon again." "Please, Aslan", said Lucy,"what do you call soon?"
"I call all times soon" said Aslan; and instantly he was vanished away.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“You've done so many things and read so many books. Do you still believe in happy endings?"
"Oh my Lord, yes." Bernadette's hands were pressed against each other like a book, like a prayer. "I guess I would. I've had about a hundred of them.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“I am the daughter of a psychologist. I know that the thing ostensibly being studied is rarely the thing being studied. (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, p. 99)”
― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“Some say that I have self-awareness but no soul, that I am nothing but a machine. This seems un-Platonic as well as unfriendly, but it cannot be discounted as a terrifying possibility. I cannot erase this option simply because I dislike it so much. That too would be un-Platonic.”
― Jo Walton, Necessity

“It turned out keeping reality bound by mathematical laws was a useful hack preventing the Devil from existing.”
― Scott Alexander

“Please?” asked the girl.

“I AM BUSY. I AM TRYING TO FIX CONTINENTAL DRIFT.”

“I…didn’t know it was broken.”

Uriel’s face became more animated, his speech faster.

“IT HAS BEEN BROKEN FOR FIVE WEEKS AND FIVE DAYS. I THINK IT BROKE WHEN I RELOADED NEW ZEALAND FROM A BACKUP COPY, BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHY. MY SYNCHRONIZATION WAS IMPECCABLE AND THE CHANGE PROPAGATED SIMULTANEOUSLY ACROSS ALL SEPHIROT. I THINK SOMEBODY BOILED A GOAT IN ITS MOTHER’S MILK. IT IS ALWAYS THAT. I KEEP TELLING PEOPLE NOT TO DO IT, BUT NOBODY LISTENS.”
― Scott Alexander, Unsong

“I thought there were moments to complain about your parents and moments to be grateful, and it was a shame to mix those moments up.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“The spoken word converts individual knowledge into mutual knowledge, and there is no way back once you've gone over that cliff. Saying nothing was more amendable, and over time I'd come to see that it was usually your best course of action.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“Sometimes you best avoid talking by being quiet, but sometimes you best avoid talking by talking.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“Have you come to help Me?"

The sensayer waited, uncertain whether the words were meant for her. "Help you how?" she asked.

The stone-still Speaker did not turn. "To understand the God Who made this portrait of Himself."

Carlyle looked to the altarpiece, the choirs of Heaven shimmering in their concentric circles of cracking paint and gold. "People made that, human beings searching for their own understanding."

"If God made Man and Man made this, it is still a Self-portrait.”
― Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders

“I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.”
― H.L. Mencken

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”
― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.
Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!"
"Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“For that is to be my purpose here, you see, to teach rhetoric to you children: I, who was never a teacher but who liked to converse with my friends and seek out the nature of things.”

“They have their own imagination of who you are, but you are not that,” Kebes said.

“Now that’s true,” Sokrates said. “And perhaps what I shall teach is not what they expect me to teach.”
― Jo Walton, The Just City