Stewart Stafford Quotes

Certainty is the calm before the storm.

If you play devil's advocate with political correctness, you'll get the horns - deliberate misinterpretation leading to you being fully demonized.

Confidence is when you believe in yourself and your abilities, arrogance is when you think you are better than others and act accordingly. You could say that arrogance is false confidence and that the person displaying it is overcompensating for their inner inadequacies.

If your written words become literal nails to crucify you with, then you have done your job well. You provoked a reaction, whether it is positive or negative is irrelevant. Writing that evokes no reaction is a body without a soul.

The brain is like a muscle; books are the diet and writing is the workout.

Assuming things is the equivalent of sleepwalking blindfolded on a cliff edge fully expecting a safety net to be there to break the fall should you topple over the precipice. In one moment, a leap of logic becomes a fall from grace.

I read a report that said 88% of adults trust their doctors - well, 100% of dead people don't!

A traitor only becomes one if their plot is discovered. The imposition of guilt means nothing to those who feign loyalty. More skilled conspirators wield treason as a clinical tool of regime change and political expediency. Then, with their own hand writing history, such traitors may wear the clothes of patriots.

When I first started following writers on social media, I imagined a deluge of profound quotes, writing tips and insights into the plight of wordsmiths. There was some of that. Mostly though, my timeline was taken up with their obsession with coffee: 'I want coffee/I'm having coffee/I've had coffee.' Then came photos of their favourite coffee mug/pot/shop/barista. So, if you've enjoyed a recently-published book, give credit to writers: the vampiric aficionados of the coffee cherry.

Truth is the crossroads of perspective.

Any time you see a cat, the day automatically becomes 10% better.

Ah, sleep, clothe me in thy velvet cloak.

Boasting about wealth is an open invitation to others to divest you of it.

Truth is an ideal we aspire to. Fact is an agreement on the general consensus of what truth is. Honesty is a personal truth shared.

If you must trip, at least try to fall into good company.

The day you stop getting excited about Christmas is the day you become officially old.

Every creative act, however small, enriches our species and the world around us. To find and nurture talent, is to be truly wealthy.

Jealousy, that diseased crow pecking at your heart.

In times of oppression, bury the quality of mercy deep inside, so that your oppressor's brutality can never damage it or you. Once free, bring this hidden shard of humanity back into your heart again and live the life denied to you.

Selfishness is easy to find. Selflessness is a much rarer beast.

People experience art as a transformative or even transcendent experience when it really only reflects back and awakens parts of them that are already there.

People will come to test and divide us, but, as long as we keep compassion in our hearts for others, they won't win.

Think logically, and you have a chance to solve a problem. Reacting emotionally to it prolongs and worsens your dilemma.

Love is a journey and a destination - long and excruciating on the way, unexpected and ecstatic if found.

There is nothing as pitiful as a politician who is deficient in relaying untruths.

Do not weep for those who have found Death's embrace early, for they weep for us that linger on in this mortal world of pain.

A mistake is an experience, choice or concept it is necessary for us to have or make in order to evolve beyond it. Errors can be the launchpad of great ideas.

Quoting someone and rewriting their words makes it a quote from you and not them any longer. To change the meaning of someone's words without permission is offensive enough, to then contact the quoted person and try to justify it to them is even worse. It's verbatim or bust!

You don't need 20/20 vision to see that 2020 is a giant caca burrito getting forced down our throats.

When kindness is your compass, you will find guidance to the right path in this life and the next.

Ghosts are the manifestation of the longing of loss.

Criminal profiling is the writing process in reverse. Writers create characters and project their actions forwards into a timeline. Profilers are left with the aftermath of an offender's behaviour and must extrapolate backwards to establish their characteristics.

Is there any sight more exquisite than a field of canary yellow rapeseed on a day of blinding sunlight? The colour appears to transcend structure and live and dance and breathe. Nature reveals its primordial palette and invites insects to pollinate and Man to dare to dream of creating something so vibrant, shockingly intense and timeless. It is the golden ignition of the divine spark of creativity writ large.

Separate text from context and all that remains is a con.

You don't get great art by playing it safe.

From the Moon's surface, the Earth is but a tiny, blue teardrop in the inky blackness of space.

You need to make a decision - are you are an imitator or an innovator?

Spies are, by nature and necessity, pathological liars who strive to make their endgames justify their meanness.

If an artist can occupy the void of artistry while simultaneously parodying its iconography, they can have their metaphorical cake and cannibalise its crumbs too.

Those we underestimate in life can often serve as guides to our lack of vision.

Institutional nepotism might be tolerated in prosperous times. Setbacks can become crises, however, when there is incompetence in key positions at crucial moments.

Empires fall and drag their brands of civilization down with them.

If someone threatens you for telling a joke, that's all the more reason to tell it. Humour is the perfect antidote to fanaticism.

In the ashes of bitter tragedy, lie the seeds of astonishing rebirth.

Closure is when raw memory blurs to become the folklore of life.

The trouble with being a rock of sense is that, eventually, you lose the sense and become the rock.

Faith is blind belief. Atheism is blind disbelief. No one has all the information needed to take up such fixed positions.

An assumption of flawlessness is the swiftest shortcut to disaster there is.

When the hysteria of a witch-hunt is granted supremacy over the logic, values and spirit of the law, justice can only become a warped, alien concept in that society.

Anarchy can only ever be a temporary state. As with other creatures on this planet, it is human nature to crave the security of creating hierarchical structures. Our major religions are based on the same concept. Even the Antichrist has an antithetical hierarchy in Hell.

Ruffian magpies and crows squabbled shrilly in the swaying tree by my window. Then, unbeknownst to me, a tiny starling with its astral plumage came closer still and made its resonant point with greater subtlety.

A life well-lived is not measured by material possessions or the size of the funeral turnout. The quantity and depth of laugh lines on the face of the person lying in repose in their coffin reveals a life's true worth.

Whether it is rational or empirical, your approach to life must always be empathetic. Emotional intelligence is acquired when knowledge and empathy are combined and applied to situations regularly in everyday life.

Across a golden Autumn tapestry appear the spirits of our ancient selves demanding recognition and reward for one haunted night. Sated, they retreat from winter's onslaught and retire to subconscious hibernation for another twelvemonth.

A great story can change the world.

Dickensian poverty tends to occur after Christmas in January. For it is then, with pockets empty, diary decimated and larder bare, that the general populace sinks into a collective pauper's hibernation until Valentine's Day.

Interstellar travel is like a flight to Australia on acid.

Stalkers have an obsessive over-identification with their unwilling target but also a latent envy of their talents and/or beauty, If they can't possess the person totally, they will destroy the victim's qualities that they can never have.

Great acting is as much about the choices a performer makes as it is about their ability.

Feigned interest is worse than brutal honesty.

Perfection is an illusion. Yet perfectionists demand it from others while being far from flawless themselves. The margin of error of the human condition is often our greatest area of excellence and discovery.

Success is the bridge between insanity and credibility.

Applying logic to potentially illogical behaviour is to construct a house on shifting foundations. The structure will inevitably collapse.

Sickness is a benign rehearsal for death. With luck, some other understudy will go on in your stead before your final bow becomes inevitable.

Reunions are the first day of school all over again. Time casts away familiarity and replaces it with warm confusion. Seeing how the years have frayed the friends of our youth reminds us that we too have irrevocably changed and can never return to a state of innocence again.

Why did Irish people vote to introduce gay marriage? Because we know what discrimination feels like and if we can take the boot of oppression off someone else's throat, we'll do it every time.

Great leaders lead by example, not by making an example of others.

Nature, with its paradoxical twin firmaments of breathtaking beauty and extreme cruelty, never explains itself and cares even less for our admiration and acceptance.

I guess everyone gets more attractive as your eyesight decreases with age. That's something to look forward to until you can't see anymore.

SPOILER ALERT: We all die in the end.

Marriage is the Rubik's Cube of the 21st Century - something young people are fascinated with but have no idea how to do.

What's the difference between fact and opinion? Fact is the centre of the wheel and opinions are the myriad spokes emanating out from it.

Education is the way out of the poverty trap. It shouldn't be the poverty trap itself and make those trying to better themselves incur massive student debt.

Never enter the home of another with dust on your shoes and selfish expectations in your heart.

Most people think of Stephen King as a horror author, but his best work usually comes with a side order of nostalgic Americana.

Theology is a study of the series of disagreements that are the world's religions. Atheism fundamentally disagrees with these disagreements that preceded it.

The possible is just the impossible that we've come to accept,

Arguing is the Olympics of talking

Beware the self-righteous man, for he will destroy the world many times over before he sees his folly.

Time spent reading a book, even a bad one, is never wasted.

Whenever I read the term 'belief system', somewhere between my eyes and my brain, it becomes 'coping mechanism.

Truly successful writers blend the personal and the profound to enlighten and entertain readers while simultaneously banking something for posterity. Remuneration is a wonderful afterthought.

If I decide to get a tattoo, it'll be a map of where I live on my chest in case I ever get amnesia.

Stafford's Hypothesis on The Transference of Existence:
Even if you self-isolated, stood still, and held your breath after traveling into the past, you would still be a pebble diverting the flow of time in some way. The very transference of existence via wormholes, not interaction with past actors or events, creates paradoxes.

Time Transference has three stages:

1. The distance traversed between the origin or starting point of the wormhole and the rip in the Chronosphere (space-time continuum).
2. The transference of biological material through the rip in the Chronosphere without damage to or mutation of the genetic code of the chrono-commuter.
3. Arrival at the endpoint of the time transference - the reconstruction of the chrono-commuter's genetic material and the sealing of the rip in the Chronosphere.

Human knowledge is but a ripple on the water's surface. To go deeper, we must accept the fact that we don't know everything

Don't listen to advice. Give yourself the freedom to make your own errors, it's the only way you'll learn.

The glorious freedom of writing is a beautiful thing that must never be stifled by censorship.

Rebellion is the first step on the path to originality.

The people of Earth cannot progress in isolation from each other. The family unit, community spirit, and society as a whole are fragmenting at alarming rates as we sit inert behind our devices and social media. Fear of cultural appropriation inhibits the inspiration necessary for others to create new things. We must build on the towering achievements of all those who have gone before us. Then, by pooling our resources, regardless of race, colour, creed, gender, sexuality, or physical ability, we ensure that our legacy is a rich inheritance for all those yet to be born.

Writing is the spectrum through which the chaos of life can be seen, studied and understood.

The best way to get an idea across to the public, however outlandish, is to have the courage to present it to them in the first place. It's easy to get sidetracked by overthinking something or trying to second-guess the general populace because of doubts and fears. They will be the ultimate authority on what they like and don't like in the end.

For even in the pit of darkness, the beacon of humanity can always shine through.

All vampires are brothers in the brotherhood of night!

Never confuse precision with simplicity - the best people make highly-complex things seem easy through natural ability.

People will always surprise you if you give them a chance.

Imagination is one of the strongest tools we've got. Keep yours sharp by using it often.

Life doesn't end, you just run out of road.

Whether it's personal foibles or a bureaucrat's ego, the stubborn defence of stupidity is unforgivable.

Geniuses die with people demanding more from them instead of showing gratitude for the incredible gifts they have shared. They contribute what they choose to, change the world and go on to the next one.

I love the casual sexism of these paranormal investigation shows. Whenever there's an alleged aggressive/scary/demonic entity, these "psychics" always pause a beat and say: "I sense a male presence!