Maarten Schafer Quotes

We live in a reputation economy. People are judged based on their online visible choices, behaviours, accomplishments and mistakes. Every comment you leave, person you connect to, photo you upload, or review you get, contributes to the permanent record of your online reputation. ~ Maarten Schafer

Quite some years ago, I started travelling the planet. I thought this would learn me something about the world we live in. I was wrong ... It learned me something about myself. It changed me. And nothing will ever again be black-and-white again. ~ Maarten Schafer

I travel the world. I Take nothing but pictures, kill nothing but time and leave nothing but footprints. ~ Maarten Schafer

It was as if the sensory overload that is American life had somehow led to sensory deprivation, a gilded weariness, where everything is permitted and nothing appreciated. ~ J. Maarten Troost

I didn't die, and that's the point. Doesn't matter how close you come if you walk away whole. ~ Courtney Schafer

Fortunately, due to a terrible misunderstanding, I soon found myself working as a consultant to the World Bank. I am not exactly sure what it was that led the World Bank to believe I had any expertise in infrastructure finance. I had never even balanced a checkbook. I hadn't even tried. There is not much reason to balance a checkbook when your checking account rarely tops the three-figure mark. And so, to the Third World countries who had the misfortune of working with me on their infrastructure projects, I wish to apologize. ~ J. Maarten Troost

We carry within us all the mystical power we need to transform our world. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

I would like to reach non-gamers. It's always great when guys come up to me who are gamers and represent my usual audience, but they'll say, 'You know, Psychonauts is the only game I can actually get my girlfriend to play with me.' ~ Tim Schafer

Purpose, joy and inner peace are the only status symbols worth having. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

It is pointless to embark on any journey if you do not believe yourself worthy of the destination. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

Each day dawns with the promise of a personal miracle. Find some magic today. Even just a little bit can go a very long way. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

I've always been a proponent of the idea that technology doesn't matter to game design. The example I always like to point out is 'Tetris,' one of the greatest games ever made. ~ Tim Schafer

I guess I didn't have a lot of friends, so that's what made videogames so important. They played back. I could do them myself. Solitaire can't surprise you; there's no AI. But videogames play back with you. ~ Tim Schafer

Don't get me wrong. Sacramento is a lovely place, particularly for those with a fondness for methamphetamines. For the meth-addled, Sacramento had conveniently placed a Greyhound bus station just yards from the statehouse where Austria's finest was sworn in as governor of the great state of California. ~ J. Maarten Troost

I say it's better to take a chance on the possibility of kindness than endure the certainty of cruelty. ~ Courtney Schafer

Look for a wave shaped like an A.

An A.

Hmm.

I saw Zs and H's and Vs. I saw the Hindi alphabet and the Thai alphabet. I saw Arabic script. I saw no As.

Finally I gave up, and chose the next wave that would have me, which turned out to be a poor move.

There is a moment, shortly after one accepts the imminence of one's demise, when it occurs that you could be elsewhere: that if you simply left the house a little later, or lingered over a Mai Tai, you would not be here now confronting your mortality. This moment occurred just as I encountered a very large (from my perspective), rare and surprising wave. A wave that was pitching and howling, and it really had no business being where it was - underneath me.

The demon wave picked me up, and after that I have only a a vague recollection of spinning limbs, a weaponized surf board, and chaotic white water, churning together over a reef.

I decided surfing was not for me. I generally no longer engage in adrenaline rush activities that carry with them a strong likely hood of life-altering injury. (p. 138)
~ J. Maarten Troost

I had, of course, witnessed hundreds of people in a casino before, mindlessly dropping coins into slot machines. They don't play for money in America. It's true. The big payout is incidental to most gamblers. It's the numbness they're after. Not so in China. No one had that look of glazed stupor often found in American casinos. ~ J. Maarten Troost

When I'm playing 'Rock Band,' I'm like, 'Man, someday, later on in life when I'm a famous rock star ... ' Which gets a little harder to convince myself of as I reach middle age, but it still happens a lot. ~ Tim Schafer

POEM – MY AMAZING
TRAVELS
[My composition in my book Travel Memoirs with Pictures]


My very first trip I still cannot believe
Was planned and executed with such great ease.
My father, an Inspector of Schools, was such a strict man,
He gave in to my wishes when I told him of the plan.

I got my first long vacation while working as a banker
One of my co-workers wanted a travelling partner.
She visited my father and discussed the matter
Arrangements were made without any flutter.

We travelled to New York, Toronto, London, and Germany,
In each of those places, there was somebody,
To guide and protect us and to take us wonderful places,
It was a dream come true at our young ages.

We even visited Holland, which was across the Border.
To drive across from Germany was quite in order.
Memories of great times continue to linger,
I thank God for an understanding father.

That trip in 1968 was the beginning of much more,
I visited many countries afterward I am still in awe.
Barbados, Tobago, St. Maarten, and Buffalo,
Cirencester in the United Kingdom, Miami, and Orlando.

I was accompanied by my husband on many trips.
Sisters, nieces, children, grandchildren, and friends, travelled with me a bit.
Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, New York, and Hialeah,
Curacao, Caracas, Margarita, Virginia, and Anguilla.

We sailed ~ Brenda Mohammed

I always think the recipe for success for a game or any sort of a fantasy experience is to think of a character that hasn't really been explored before, who is unique and has special abilities that not everybody has, and plop them into whatever is the most interesting situation to plop them into. ~ Tim Schafer

For every character, I think about who they are, their story, what they are, and who they were before their game started. What was their life like? Where did they grow up? What were their parents like? ~ Tim Schafer

When it comes to naming things, vanity and flattery are dull motivations best suited for deciding on a child's middle name. Much more interesting are the descriptive names that suggest a story or happening of interest. ~ J. Maarten Troost

If you're a lumberjack, you know what to do. You see trees, and you still have a job! If you're a writer, you see a blank page. You don't know if you still have a job. You might have great ideas - you may have no ideas. ~ Tim Schafer

Failing to meet your true destiny is a tragic act of free will. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

It was, to reiterate, to stress, to accentuate the point, to leave no doubt, hot. ~ J. Maarten Troost

Empaths and Lightworkers did not arrive on this planet to lead a cheerful carnival parade into a perfect New Earth paradise. There is much work to be done before anyone will ever enter that promised land. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

I enjoy everything. I actually do listen to everything. In high school, I listened to a lot of metal and punk rock. ~ Tim Schafer

Like many air travelers, I am aware that airplanes fly aided by capricious fairies and invisible strings. ~ J. Maarten Troost

Sure, I was married..."once."
Which is why, even to this very day, "never again" continues to be my favorite number. ~ Scott Schafer

Happiness already exists in your life. All you need to do is tune into it. And you can start doing that right now. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

Today all sounds belong to a continuous field of possibilities lying within the comprehensive dominion of music. Behold the new orchestra: the sonic universe! And the musicians: anyone and anything that sounds! ~ R. Murray Schafer

I've always seen this overlap between medieval warfare and heavy metal. You see heavy metal singers and they'll have like a brace around their arm and they'll be singing about Orcs. So let's just make a world where that all happens. That all gets put together, the heavy metal, and the rock, and the battling, actually does happen. Let's not flirt around with this let's just do it. ~ Tim Schafer

I love studying folklore and legends. The stories that people passed down for a thousand years without any sort of marketing support are obviously saying something appealing about the basic human condition. ~ Tim Schafer

Adventure games are all about details - if you happen to take this one object and use it with this other object, in a really weird place, at a weird time. If you happen to write a really funny dialogue line for that, even if it didn't solve the puzzle, people will appreciate that. ~ Tim Schafer

The gift of sobriety is clarity and a sense of connection - and travel only enhances that. ~ J. Maarten Troost

I don't like wizard stories all that much. Stories about witches are better, because witches are morally ambiguous and traditionally disempowered. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

Every challenge of the human self expands the divinity of the higher self. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

The longer we spent on Tarawa the more Sylvia and I came to realize that to live on Tarawa is to experience a visceral form of bipolar disorder. There is the ecstatic high, when you find yourself swept away in a lagoonside maneaba rumbling to the frenzied singing and dancing of hundreds of rapturous islanders. And there are the crushing lows, when you succumb to a listless depression, brought about by the unyielding heat, sporadic sickness, pitiless isolation, food shortages, and the realization that so much of what ails Tarawa, the overpopulation and all its attendant health and social problems, need not be as bad as it is. ~ J. Maarten Troost

It is a remarkably easy thing to do, pointing out the faults of others and suggesting remedies or courses of action in an argumentative and pedantic sort of way, and I am still amazed that there are many people in the American media who are paid very big money to do this. ~ J. Maarten Troost

I was simply restless, quite likely because of a dissatisfaction with the recent trajectory of my life, and if there is a better, more compelling reason for dropping everything and moving to the end of the world, I know not what it is. ~ J. Maarten Troost

Many of us dream of a better, safer, more caring world, without recognizing that it all begins with creating and maintaining a deeper love in our own home. The seeds of world peace should be planted in our own backyard. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

One sincere truth from a stranger is more likely to move your life forward...than anything your friends and family may tell you to spare your feelings. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

For all those moments in your life when you absolutely think you can't...think again. ~ Scott Schafer

There's a reason that there are oodles of young Aussies, Germans, Japanese, even Chinese backpackers traipsing around the world. They are unencumbered by debilitating student loans. No such luck for the American Theater Arts major with $120,000 in loans. ~ J. Maarten Troost

Empathy involves the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the momentary psychological state of another person. ~ Roy Schafer

We want playing our games to entertain people on many different levels. Deeper down, I want to make a connection with the player, and it's the way, to me, of saying to the person playing the game that they're not alone in the world. ~ Tim Schafer

I'm a dad now, so now I just don't care what I look like. Once you've created life, you just don't care what anyone thinks. ~ Tim Schafer

There was a 'magic rock' my mom would lift up, and under the rock was a bunch of bugs. Roly-poly bugs and worms. Somehow I thought that it was a magical world of insects, and I wanted to go there. It was the same impulse as 'Pikmin' - I wanted to go into that world. ~ Tim Schafer

You will never find me in trouble. You will find me in the library. If you can remember where that is. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

Everything you do in every moment matters. A single thought can change your world. ~ Anthon St. Maarten