John Scalzi Quotes

Relations were never good (how comfortable can you really be with a race that sees you as a nutritious part of a complete breakfast).

It's a hell of a thing to say good-bye to your whole life.

You're an interesting person, Jack." Sullivan said. "I wish I could figure out what you were thinging when you punched Stern and turned on Isabel."
"Well, I think that's the thing." Holloway said. "I think it's clear that sometimes I just don't think."
"I think you do." Sullivan said. "It's just you think about you first. The not thinking part comes right after that.

My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid. I miss that sort of security, and that sort of connection with someone.

And so we learn how simple it is to change the history of the universe," Sorvalh said. "All you need is for every other thing to have gone so horribly wrong

Because every time I think of starships skipping across the galaxy, I imagine Albert Einstein in a policeman's uniform, writing up a ticket.

You'll notice that the Intrepid's inertial dampeners don't work as well in crisis situations, Dahl remembered Jenkins telling them. The ship could do hairpin turns and loop-de-loops any other time and you'd never notice. But whenever there's a dramatic event, there goes your footing.

Is it a shark made of ice?" Hanoen asked. "Or a shark that lives in ice?

Teenagers can be idiotic and stupid, but teenagers also model their behavior from the signals they get from adults.

He decided he'd rather die as a fundamentally decent human being than live as the sort of asshole who'd tear out someone's liver to get into an escape pod.

There's a saying: "May you live in interesting times." To begin, it's a curse. "Interesting" in this case uniformly means "Oh god, death is raining down upon us and we shall all perish wailing and possibly on fire.

Only Norway regularly sends colonists from Europe, and we all know of that country's ecological disasters.

The universe isn't going to be conquered by legions of geriatrics. No offense.

You can be happy anywhere, if you have the right point of view. And the ability to ignore the smell of an entire planet.

I am not Death. I am killing; I am the verb, I am the action, I am the performance.

It's better to be a dog in peace, than a man in war.

I do think people of good will can have different opinions but still be coming not from a place of malice.

On the sixth day, Jared and the rest of the 8th finally figured out what that sex thing was all about. On the seventh day, and as a direct consequence of the sixth day, they rested.

Yes, he's an equal opportunity asshole," Szilard said. "And he's aware of it, which he thinks means it's okay.

Roanoke was deep into spring - which was really pretty, even if it turned out that all the native blooms smelled like rotten meat dipped in sewer sauce (that description courtesy of Magdy, who could string together a phrase now and then).

What is it about being married you miss?' Alan asked.

'Well, I miss my wife, you know," I said. 'But I also miss the feeling of, I don't know, comfort. The sense you're where you're supposed to be, with someone you're supposed to be with. I sure as hell don't feel that out here. We go places that we have to fight for, with people who might be dead the next day or the day after that. No offense.'

'None taken,' Keyes said.

'There's no stable ground out here,' I said. 'There's nothing out here I feel really safe about. My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid. I miss that sort of security, and that sort of connection with someone. Part of what makes us human is what we mean to other people, and what people mean to us. I miss meaning something to someone, having that part of being human. That's what I miss about marriage.

Are we agreed that the goal here is survival, not a win?

By the time I'm 75 and I have a new hip, and my eyes are laser cleaned of cataracts, I wont think I'm a bionic man. I think that's just how technology works. The posthuman future of humanity will not announce itself; it will just creep up on us.

So all of it - local and archived data - went up with the lab building. Vann glanced over to me with an expression that I suspect meant these people were sloppy.

I don't discount that in the end, everything I do, say, write and am will amount to a whole lot of not much; I just don't think it's a relevant metric. The relevant metric is: Have I constructed a life that gives me happiness, allows me to give happiness, and allows for this life to have meaning within its admittedly limited context? If I am succeeding in this particular metric, I think I'm doing pretty well.

Star Wars is not entertainment. Star Wars is George Lucas masturbating to a picture of Joseph Campbell and conning billions of people into watching the money shot.

Wes is Wes," Alastair said. "One in every family. I love him, but I think of him as a sarcastic pet.

Virtue signaling' is a phrase the dim and bigoted use when they want to discount other people expressing the idea that it would be nice if we could all be essentially and fundamentally decent to each other.

I don't keep a Bucket List. I'm open to anything.

When I was twelve, my appendix burst, and as they were wheeling my ass into the operating room, I asked the doctor, "How will this affect my piano playing?" and he said, "Don't worry, you'll still be able to play the piano," and I said, "Wow! I wasn't able to before!" And then they gassed me.

I didn't choose the Nerd Life. The Nerd Life chose me. Awkwardly and without making eye contact.

Apparently you don't have to understand physics to protest.

Pope was aware there were other ways to get more diplomatic respect than bigger guns, of course. But while other diplomatic maneuvers sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, ultimately a big damn gun always commanded respect.

One of the great unwritten chapters of retail intelligence programming featured a "personal shopper" program that all-too-accurately modeled the shoppers' desires and outputted purchase ideas based on what shoppers really wanted as opposed to what they wanted known that they wanted. This resulted in one overcompensatingly masculine test user receiving suggestions for an anal plug and a tribute art book for classic homoerotic artist Tom of Finland, while a female test user in the throes of a nasty divorce received suggestions for a small handgun, a portable bandsaw, and several gallons of an industrial solvent used to reduce organic matter to an easily drainable slurry. After history's first recorded instance of a focus group riot, the personal shopper program was extensively rewritten.

And it had worked; he had looked like a fool when he attempted to call out the general. What I and the general had underestimated were the number of other assembly members who would willingly continue to follow a fool.

Part of me was once someone you loved - she sent. I think that part of me wants to be loved by you again, and wants me to love you as well. I can't be her. I can just be me. But I think you could love me if you wanted to. I want you to. Come to me when you can. I'll be here.

Deception, as practically manifested, succeeds because of two things. First, the object of deception is convincingly deceptive in its design; i.e., it looks/feels/acts like the real thing. Second, and equally important, the subject of deception must be predisposed to believing that the object of deception is indeed the real thing. These two criteria work in an inverse relationship with each other; a sufficiently deceptive object can convince a skeptical subject, while a subject who sincerely wants to believe will be able to overlook even gross flaws in the object onto which he or she confers belief.

The problem with aging is not that it's one damn thing after another - it's every damn thing, all at once, all the time.

In one hand I have a restraining order, and in the other I have a Taser. Which would you like to meet first?

Engrave this in your brain: EVERY WRITER GETS REJECTED. You will be no different.

How many people volunteer for an army and then claim conscientious objector status?

Trust your weapon, it is almost certainly smarter than you are. Remember this and you may yet live.

When it came time to make the audiobook, Audible did an ingenious thing: they asked both Wil Wheaton and Amber Benson to record entire versions of the book. As the author, I'm impressed with Audible's commitment to my narrative
and I'm geeking out that both Wil and Amber are reading my book. This is fantastic.

You don't win by getting through all your life not having done anything.

Q'eeng had just attempted in the third dialect the traditional rightward schism greeting of "I offer you the bread of life," but his phrasing and accent had transmuted the statement into "Let us violate cakes together.

Occam's razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone's ass was usually the correct one.

Although, honestly, watching authors fistfight is like watching geese play Jeopardy. There's a lot of honking and squawking but no one ever gets to what they're supposed to be doing.

How did you get here, anyway?" "It's classified." "I'm close enough to stab you with a fork.

Fear is a scavenger who feeds on the future; on what may be and what is possible, extending down the line of our lives.

I've met a lot of people in the diplomatic corps who were in love with the sound of their own voice, but this guy. He and his voice should just get a room.

That's what I'd ask you to do: Hope for peace. Because I know that I would love to be able to lay down my weapon and get to being a colonist. Just like you are. Just like I want to be.

It's not whether she tells everyone," Huma said. "It's whether they believe her." "It's the truth." "Oh, my daughter," Huma said, and smiled. "Don't tell me you don't know how little that actually means.

You're insane!"

"Call me HAL and make me sing 'Daisy, Daisy'.

You're saying I am not a credible eyewitness," Lowen repeated. "Because I was part of that diplomatic mission, Mr. Vinicius. In fact, not only was I there, I also conducted the autopsy that established that Liu Cong's death was murder, and also helped identify how it was the murder was accomplished. When you say that the eyewitness reports are not credible, you're talking about me, specifically and directly. If what you're saying actually reflects the opinion of the Ministry of External Relations, then we have a problem. A very large problem.

With sentences, shorter is better than longer:

We buy time where we may." "You bought yourself time," Oi agreed. "I don't think it's of very good quality.

Do not mourn me, friends
I fall as a shooting star
Into the next life

The failure mode of clever is "asshole.

People don't mind having the mystical aspect of a church being poorly defined as long as you make the rules of the church clear.

If memory serves, the last time we met there were also exploding starships," I said, to Wilson. "That's odd," Lowen said. "The last time I saw Harry, there were exploding starships, too." "It's coincidental," Wilson said, looking at Lowen and then at me.

When I was 10, I was hit by a car, which turned my right tibia into a jigsaw puzzle.

If someone is telling you to live in interesting times, they are basically telling you they want you to die horribly, and to suffer terribly before you do. Seriously, they are not your friend. This is a tip I am giving you for free.

Because it worked really well for some people," I said. "Let's not lie, Hart. It worked really well for us. For humans. And more specifically for the Colonial Union. A system of government, stable for centuries, predicated on killing the shit out of everyone else and taking their land. That's practically the modus operandi of every successful human civilization to date. No wonder some of us wanted to return to it, even at the risk of destroying the Colonial Union itself. Because if we got back, we'd be meaner than ever before.

Never anger a sci-fi writer. These people destroy entire planets over lunch. Imagine what they'll do to you.

Damn real live people, getting in the way of peaceful ideals.

This is my rife. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rife is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I have master my life. My rife, without me, is useless. Without my rife, I am useless. I must fire my rife true. I must shoot before he shoots me. And I will. - Marine Rife Creed

Maybe after the first dozen times it happened, the Universal Union should have started engineering for space defenestration. NICK

Breakfast was amazing, and I say that having been married to a woman who could make a breakfast spread that would have made Gandhi stop a fast.

The Fflict recognized five genders: male, female, zhial, yal, and neuter. Aul was zhial, and ze liked zis pronouns accurately stated. I would too, in zis position.

There aren't a lot of humans who speak more than one dialect of Forshan. I know all four of the major ones.'

'Impressive,' Duvall Said.

'I'm good with my tongue,' Dahl said.

'Now who's being forward?' Duvall asked.

I hate that I've become one of those old men who visits a cemetery to be with his dead wife. When I was (much) younger I used to ask Kathy what the point would be. A pile of rotting meat and bones that used to be a person isn't a person anymore; it's just a pile of rotting meat and bones. The person is gone - off to heaven or hell or wherever or nowhere. You might as well visit a side of beef. When you get older you realize this is still the case. You just don't care. It's what you have.

Look," he said. "We'd like you to return the salary." "Oh, is that all?" I said. "Heck. That's easy. The answer is no." "What?" "No." "No?" "What part of that two-letter word don't you understand, Brad?" I asked. "Was it the vowel that threw you, or the consonant ?

A library is not information; it is a means of preserving information. In every case, before memory or information can be stored, someone must decide what must be stored. Someone must choose. Someone must curate.

You see tools and parts and my arm shoved inside a small spacecraft, and you really have to ask what I'm doing?

In politics as in high school, who you are is to a large extent defined by who you sit with at lunch, and there was no doubt about it, the Earth was sitting at the loser table. It was not, Bob Pope thought, the true destiny of the Earth in our universe to be counted among the diplomatic equivalent of the acne-ridden and the furtively masturbating.

If you want me to treat your ideas with more respect, get some better ideas.

Making peace is often a simple thing, but simple isn't the same thing as easy.

Well, I'm sorry you might possibly be out a bit of money, Jack," Isabel said. "Jesus, Isabel," Holloway said. He opened the door. "A bit of money? Try at least a couple billion credits. That's billion, with a b. Saying that's a bit of money is like saying a forest fire is a nice way to roast some marshmallows.

I'm not sure I like their plan for converting us to their religion, seeing as it involves dying and all.

Lenson Ornill took in Grayland II's words, their intent and meaning, what they boded for the church as he understood it, his faith as he had developed it, and the genesis of his engagement with both, trapped in that small cabin, struggling to breathe, all those many long years ago. And then, quite without meaning to, he uttered the words to encapsulate what he was feeling about each, in this one epochal moment.

"Well, fuck," he said.

We have a problem," he said. "Is this another 'I think we have a potential energy flow' kind of problem?" Coloma asked. "No, this is a 'Holy shit, we're all definitely going to die a horrible death in the cold endless dark of space' kind of problem," Basquez said. "We'll be right down," Coloma said.

Destiny gets compressed, you know, into just that small fraction of a second you have right in front of you at any one time. And there's nothing romantic about keeping your head down to avoid getting shot, or trying to save a friend who's been injured, or coming face to face with a creature who is as smart and mean and as terrified of dying as you are, and who wants to make sure that if someone is left on the ground there, it's you and not it.

Humor is rare in science fiction ... there's so little of it that it automatically reminds you of other heroes with that acerbic humor when you find it.

In all of the history of professional sports, the Cubs are the ultimate symbol of complete failure.

God damn it," Thomas said as he sat down at the table, carrying a tray so piled with food that it was a miracle he could even lift it. "Aren't we all just too good-looking for words.

Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to 'get off my property.' News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.

Oh for God's sake how divine can I be? My feet hurt, I have gas and I need to pee.

Is it good? It ain't Shakespeare, but then, Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus, so you tell me.

Sometimes in life you're going to win and sometimes you're going to lose. But just because you lose doesn't mean the other guy needs to win.

As a reader, I have a very short attention span and a low tolerance for boredom, and I find that comes in handy with my writing. If I get bored writing something, I pity the people who will then try to read it.

Still, I'd like to know how you came up with that line of reasoning." "You can thank a rabbi," Javna said. "And a hot dog.

We're in the wrong universe for fair.

He didn't exactly have the "programmer" look to him, if you know what I mean. He'd be the programmer's boss. The one they hated. The one who made them work on holidays.

Who are you and what medications aren't you taking? Finn said.

...because she wasn't some fucking fictional character destined to do whatever some goddamn hack wanted her to do.

Sooner or later the Narrative will come for each of us.

You can't afford anthropomorphic biases when some of the aliens most like us would rather make human hamburgers than peace.

Conservatives: Self-hating moral relativists, unless you can convince me that an intellectual class that publicly praises family values but privately engages in sodomy, coke and trophy wives is more aptly described in some other way.

I don't have a problem with treason," I said. "I can stop anytime." I

A newspaper publisher. In the late 1800s the United States and Spain were warming up for a war over Cuba, and Hearst sent an illustrator to Cuba to make pictures of the event. When the illustrator got there, he sent a telegram to Hearst saying that as far as he could see, there was no war coming and that he was going home. Hearst sent back that he should stay and said, 'You furnish the pictures, and I will furnish the war.' And he did.