Mark > Mark's Quotes

“And it’s a fine wake I’ll be wanting, with the best of everything, and beautiful women shedding tears and their clothes in their distress, and brave men lamenting and telling fine tales of me in my great days.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“Vanilla, as a spice, is expensive, complex and fulfilling, and those who live that life are worthy of respect.”
― Lee Harrington, Playing Well With Others

“Sol! Take your daughter, your only daughter Rachel, whom you love, and go to the world called Hyperion and offer her there as a burnt offering at one of the places of which I shall tell you.”
― Dan Simmons, Hyperion

“AIDS II was a human plague disease back long before the Hegira,” said Johnny. “It disabled the immune system. This … virus … works the same with an AI.”
― Dan Simmons, Hyperion

“as a dozen pinpoints of fierce light expanded into ripples and shock waves of plasma explosions far out in space. “I wish we had the technology to fight God on an equal basis,” he said in low, tight tones. “To beard him in his den. To fight back for all of the injustices heaped on humanity. To allow him to alter his smug arrogance or be blown to hell.” Father”
― Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion

“given all the other changes he’s gone through, why the hell shouldn’t he become a cigarette smoker while he’s at it? Maybe next week he’ll be shooting heroin. For something disgusting and lethal, cigarettes are amazingly enjoyable.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“Das Messer sitzt mir an der Kehle. The knife is at my throat; I am face-to-face with doom.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“Narcissists do show a lack of concern for others, but they are equally insensitive to their own true needs. Often their behavior is self-destructive. Moreover, when we speak of narcissists’ “self” love, we need to make a distinction. Narcissism denotes an investment in one’s image as opposed to one’s self. Narcissists love their image, not their real self. They have a poor sense of self; they are not self-directed. Instead, their activities are directed toward the enhancement of their image, often at the expense of the self.”
― Alexander Lowen, Narcissism: Denial of the True Self

“How they must have thought their efforts and adventures over, only to have to pick up their burdens again. How often, I realized now as an adult in my standard thirties, how often that is the case in all of our lives.”
― Dan Simmons, The Rise of Endymion

“Forty percent of today’s population suffers from chronic nasal obstruction, and around half of us are habitual mouthbreathers, with females and children suffering the most. The causes are many:”
― James Nestor, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

“The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder. The world also seems to be heading to hell in a handcart—our civic life has gone insane, a pandemic has paralyzed society, and the planet is getting hotter and hotter—but”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“It’s because our time and attention are so limited, and therefore valuable, that social media companies are incentivized to grab as much of them as they can, by any means necessary—which is why they show users material guaranteed to drive them into a rage, instead of the more boring and accurate stuff.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“to make time for everything, so that tough choices won’t be required. Or we procrastinate, which is another means of maintaining the feeling of omnipotent control over life—because you needn’t risk the upsetting experience of failing at an intimidating project, obviously, if you never even start it.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“Convenience culture seduces us into imagining that we might find room for everything important by eliminating only life’s tedious tasks. But it’s a lie. You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“The traditional meaning of consent means agreeing to something someone else wants: “I consent to X.” In this meaning, you “give consent” or “get consent”. I’d like to expand the definition and think of consent as being an agreement that two or more people come up with together. You don’t give consent, you arrive at consent—together.”
― Betty Martin, The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent