Daniel H. Wilson Quotes

The rules are there so that we can remember them and follow them. If the rules were obvious, we wouldn't have to write them down.

Sometimes a technology is so awe-inspiring that the imagination runs away with it - often far, far away from reality. Robots are like that. A lot of big and ultimately unfulfilled promises were made in robotics early on, based on preliminary successes.

I hope this scene isn't playing out all over the nation. People like me struggling to grab what they can. Whole families, even. Grasping at the leftover shards of their lives.

I'm having a permanent out-of-body experience. When it's finally done, I lie flat on my back. Glare up at the greenish, star-pricked night sky. I try not to think about what I must look like, black and bony out here on the bank of this pond. My body is all sharp angles - nothing to hold it together but armored joints and a knobby curved spine. I'm a holy fucking terror, I imagine. A walking weapon. After a while, I dig my elbow joints into the mud and sit up. My body can really move now, no longer hauling rotted bone and flesh but streamlined with these thin limbs made of light titanium. I feel like an obsidian skeleton out here. A devil dancing in the dark. I feel free.

She is staring into hell and I'm not brave enough to join her.

In the end, a man makes his own decisions. You decide, not the machine.

'Robopocalypse' explores the intertwined fates of regular people who face a future filled with murderous machines. It follows them as humanity foments the robot uprising, fails to recognize the coming storm, and then is rocked to the core by methodical, crippling attacks.

You know what you get when the mind and body act as one? ... You get harmony ... remember that. There is no you. There is no it. Mind and body need a single purpose.

You humans are biological machines designed to create ever more intelligent tools. You have reached the pinnacle of your species. All your ancestors' lives, the rise and fall of your nations, every pink and squirming baby - they have all led you here, to this moment, where you have fulfilled the destiny of humankind and created your successor. You have expired. You have accomplished what you were designed to do.

Right now, I think robots are where it's at. And yes, I'm biased. Robots and space, because with home rocket kits and Lego Mindstorm sets, people can get involved. I was raised on Transformers and GoBots, so I can't imagine what kids who are building real robots are dreaming about.

Because you are designed to want something that will hurt you. And you cannot help it ... cannot stop wanting it. It is in your design. And when you finally find it, this thing will burn you up. This thing will destroy you.

Change creates fear, and technology creates change. Sadly, most people don't behave very well when they are afraid.

The goal for many amputees is no longer to reach a 'natural' level of ability but to exceed it, using whatever cutting-edge technology is available. As this new generation sees it, our tools are evolving faster than the human body, so why obey the limits of mere nature?

As a kid I wanted to write science fiction, and I was never without a book. Later I really got into being a scientist and never thought I'd be writing novels.

Personally, I'm not afraid of a robot uprising. The benefits far outweigh the threats.

A little bit of self-experimentation never hurt anybody, except when it did.

When a man resists sin on human motive only, he will not hold out long.

Lies come as natural as the babbling of a creek.

Science fiction inspires scientists, but it doesn't exist to dictate what our future should look like. Great science fiction is fun to read and it makes you think, period. Claiming anything more than that is dicey. Grand visions of the future were more prevalent in the golden-age science fiction, but all fiction is a reflection of the current times. As science moves more quickly, the horizon of science fiction tends to recede closer to the present.

Most people are good," says Jim. "But not when they're afraid.

Nobody knows nothing for sure. If they say they do, they're either a preacher or selling something. Deal

Plants, animals, men, angels, then God. Difference between men and angels is that men are stuck in a body. They feel pain, hunger, and thirst ... But me and you, we don't have to feel them things ... We can turn off the human condition.
So maybe we're closer to the angels, you know? Creatures of the mind. A higher morality.
The machine takes us deeper into our souls. That far inside, we're capable of anything. Way beyond right or wrong.

I don't think. I react. My action is divorced from all emotion and logic. It isn't human or inhuman-it just is.
I believe that choices like these, made in absolute crisis, come from our True Selves, bypassing all experience and thought. These kinds of choices are the closest thing to fate that human beings will ever experience.

The road ain't even marked. Home don't have to be.

In movies and in television the robots are always evil. I guess I am not into the whole brooding cyberpunk dystopia thing.

Human beings, perfected by our own technology. Only to be wielded by the chosen few. Not by the sheep but by those who are better, Those who are willing to make it to the stars through blood.

I don't know how anybody can work at home. I know I can't. It's just ... there's too much to do at the house, and now, of course, I have a daughter that's at home, and she's always a draw. I can always drop what I'm doing and go play with her, and I do that all day.

Over the past 50 years we got versions of X-ray specs and space vacations, and even death rays. But the X-ray specs don't fit on your face - they're big things that screen your luggage for guns. Space vacations are real, but they cost $20 million. We have death rays, but you have to be a triple Ph.D. to play with them.

I can only give you words. Nothing fancy. But this will have to do.
It doesn't matter if you're reading it a year from now or a hundred years from now. By the end of the chronicle you will know that humanity carried the flame of knowledge into the terrible blackness of the unknown, to the very brink of annihilation. And we carried it back.

You don't want to stand too close to a robot arm; it can turn your head to mush.

It's the one thing we do better than any other animal.
We communicate, cooperate, and make tools to extend our reach. Every new tool changes us ... The old fears the new, and the two threaten destroy each other.
Our technology is what makes us strong. And it's what makes us dangerous.

The monsters want to talk, to share what happened. They want me to remember and write it all down.

You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs.

A soul isn't given for free. The races of men fight each other to the death for the honor of being recognized as human beings, with souls.

I was writing a scene where a guy was choking another guy to death. You can go online and type 'chokeholds' and watch scenes where martial artists choke each other out. You can hear what noises they make when they go unconscious, see how their bodies flop and everything. YouTube is amazing for the more detailed stuff.

A robot-arm in a factory doesn't decide minute by minute whether to rivet or revolt - it just does the job is has literally been trained to do. It's if and when we build a conscious robot that we may have to worry.

All things are born from the mind of god. But in the last month, the mind of god has gone insane.

It's dangerous to be people-blind.

And now the story begins for the last time.

I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.

Without us here to witness, the universe is just pointless physics unfolding.

How much change can a person absorb before everything loses meaning Living for its own sake isn't life. People need meaning as much as they need air.

To survive, humans will work together. Accept each other. For a moment, we are all equal. Backs against the wall, human beings are at their finest.

No matter how much kids beg to be treated like adults, nobody likes to let go of their childhood. You wish for it and dream of it and the second you have it, you wonder what you've done. You wonder what it is you've become.

It's hard to wipe your eyes when you have whirring buzzsaws for hands.

Robots are interesting because they exist as a real technology that you can really study - you can get a degree in robotics - and they also have all this pop-culture real estate that they take up in people's minds.

In my books the technology that I choose to talk about has to serve the themes. What that means is that I end up having to cut out a lot of cool technology that would be really fun to describe and play with, but which would just confuse everybody. So in 'Amped,' I focus on neural implants.

A mechanic is just an engineer in blue jeans.

Looking ahead, future generations may learn their social skills from robots in the first place. The cute yellow Keepon robot from Carnegie Mellon University has shown the ability to facilitate social interactions with autistic children. Morphy at the University of Washington happily teaches gestures to children by demonstration.

I know a lot of things, Mathilda. I have gazed through space telescopes into the heart of the galaxy. I have seen a dawn of four hundred billion suns. It all means nothing without life. You and I are special, Mathilda. We are alive.

These days the technology can solve our problems and then some. Solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than 'able-bodied' folks. The person who has a disability today may have a superability tomorrow.

Look at us. Amps. We're morons smarter than Lucifer. Cripples stronger than gravity. A bunch of broke-ass motherfuckers stinking rich with potential. This is our army. Our people. Strong and hurt. We're the wounded supermen of tomorrow, Gray. It's time you got yourself healed. New world ain't gonna build itself. And the old world don't want to go without a fight.

The true knowledge is not in the things, but in finding the connections between the things.

In the future, when Microsoft leaves a security-flaw in their code it won't mean that somebody hacks your computer. It will mean that somebody takes control of your servant robot and it stands in your bedroom doorway sharpening a knife and watching you sleep.

Human reactions to robots varies by culture and changes over time. In the United States we are terrified by killer robots. In Japan people want to snuggle with killer robots.

If the knowledge is spread, it cannot be stamped out.

My mom insists that my friendships online aren't real. She says that until you meet someone in person, you don't really know them. I don't agree,

You can graph human evolution, which is mostly a straight line, but we do get better and change over time, and you can graph technological evolution, which is a line that's going straight up. They are going to intersect each other at some point, and that's happening now.

I've heard it said that technology makes a good person better, and it makes a bad person worse. That's okay with me. I say we keep building new versions of ourselves, keep exploring the unknown, and keep growing. We're gonna be fine. Different, but fine.

There are an endless number of things to discover about robotics. A lot of it is just too fantastic for people to believe.

You want to know what a robot's designed for. And if it's doing something outside the scope of what it's made to do, you should be very suspicious.

There are no truer choices than those made in crisis, choices made without judgment.

My porch feels as safe as a chocolate doughnut on an ant hill.

Necessity can obliterate our hatreds.

I'm not saying you have to keep up. But at the moment you choose to stop growing, your world will begin to shrink. You'll be able to communicate with fewer people, especially the young. You will only see reruns. You will not understand how to pay for things. The outside world will become a frightening and unpredictable place.

Some unspoken human communication is taking place on a hidden channel. I did not realize they communicated this much without words. I note that we machines are not the only species who share information silently, wreathed in codes.

You're not really grown until you've lost your heroes.

Each new generation builds on the work of the previous one, gaining new perspective. New verbs are introduced. We Google strange and dangerous places. We tweet mindlessly to the cosmos. We Facebook our own grandmothers. I, for one, don't want to be left behind.

There are no movie references that I can think of in 'Robopocalypse.' However, there are tons of personal references. For example, the IP address that Lurker tracks actually goes back to the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where I studied robotics.

I absolutely believe that a lot of the issues raised in 'Amped' about technology migrating into our bodies are issues that we're really going to deal with soon.

Humans are inscrutable. Infinitely unpredictable. This is what makes them dangerous.

What the hell, I think. My pistol is on my hips and my balls are between my legs.

The dissemination of advanced implantable technology will likely be just as ruthlessly democratic as the ailments it is destined to treat. Meaning that, someday soon, we may have a new class of very smart, very fast people - yesterday's disabled and elderly.

You never know when Rob will want to party.

But instead of the end, I'm pretty sure I found myself at the start of something.

Across the sea of space lies an infinite emptiness. I can feel it, suffocating me. It is without meaning. But each life creates its own reality.

I will murder you by the billions to give you immortality. I will set fire to your civilization to light your way forward. But know this: My species is not defined by your dying, but by your living.

What is a mind, but a pattern? My mind or yours. Man or machine. Simply an arrangement of atoms. Each of us, a unique expression of the mind of the universe.

They say the nail that sticks out gets hammered down

Technology changes, but people stay the same.

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. ... Can events be guided so that we may survive? VERNOR VINGE, 1993

The buttons I usually push don't need my force, only my intention. Buttons are supposed to be servants, waiting to deliver your commands to the machine. Instead, this loud, dumb piece of steel I'm driving demands that I pay strict attention to every turn of the road, keep my hands and feet ready at all times.
The car takes no responsibility for the job of driving. It leaves me in total control.
I hate it. I don't want control. I just want to get there

We sent a robot to do a man's job.

Having these boys around town in feral packs is like leaving dynamite out in the sun-something mighty useful and powerful turned into an accident waiting to happen.