The Automatic Detective Quotes

“I lied, therefore I thought.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“Damn, some days I wished I'd been made a toaster.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“It was one of the marks of sentience, the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy and still indulge in fantasy. In other words: I lied, therefore I thought.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“Crime was a dirty public secret in Empire. No one talked about it, and if you listened to the Learned Council, you'd think Empire was a shining utopia of order and decency. True, there were plenty of districts where a citizen could live in complete safety, where police were omnipresent, reliable, and completely effective, where no one ever got mugged or slapped around, or murdered. Then there was the rest of the city.. In a town where technology was supposed to be the answer to all society's ills, there were plenty of ills to go around.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“A bot had to find his own way, and I'd figured out that functioning for function's sake was pointless." - Mack Megaton”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“Jung's upper lip twitched, revealing a single, white fang. Only once had I seen him lose his temper, after someone at work had thought it funny to hide Jung's copy of Pride and Prejudice. He'd taken it well enough at first, but the prankster hadn't ended the gag soon enough and found himself facing a frothing, chest-beating, primal beast. No one got hurt, but that might not have been true if I hadn't been there to hold Jung back. After that, no one got between an eight-hundred-pound gorilla and Jane Austen.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“Self-preservation was a basic directive, but there wasn’t a robot functioning that prioritized it at the top of the list. Like biologicals all robots were seeking a purpose. Autos and drones were lucky enough to have that built into them. A bot had to find his own way and I’d figured out that functioning for function’s sake was pointless. The real question was finding a directive worth getting scrapped for.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“Humans had a bad history of changing their minds about things. Civilization tended to run around in circles, which explained why mankind hadn't accomplished much in its few thousand years of history. Sure, you had a Renaissance here and an Industrial Revolution there, but these were the exceptions, not the rule.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“First rule of the battlefield: assumptions kill. While I was being dismissed as a harmless nuisance, I figured I should take advantage of his underestimation.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective

“I calculated the possible responses. 52 percent probable: She'd nod knowingly, tap her pen against her pad, and make some vaguely disapproving noise. 46 percent: She'd nod knowingly, tap her pen against her pad, and make some vaguely approving noise. 2 percent: She'd nod knowingly, tap her pen against her pad, and howl like a coyote. I attributed that last possibility to a bug in my calculations.”
― A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective