Peter David Quotes

I woke up dead.
Not only dead...but in hell.
I had always been somewhat sketchy on what the afterlife - were there actually such a thing - would be like for a person such as I. From all accounts and all my imaginings, I figured it would be one of two things. Either I would be surrounded by great, burning masses that were endlessly immolating souls in torment... or else I would find myself trapped within my own mind as a helpless bystander, condemned to watching me live out my life over and over again and powerless to do anything to change any of it. When idle speculation prompted me to dwell on these two options, I would find myself drawn invariably to the former, since the later was just too hideous to contemplate.
...
I was almost afraid to open my eyes, because once I did, I would know one way or the other. Perhaps I could have just lain there forever. Perhaps I was supposed to. Perhaps that was my true condemnation: to simply reside in hell with my eyes closed afraid of opening them lest matters deteriorate even further than they already had. This, in turn, made me dwell on the fact that every time I had believed things couldn't get worse, they promptly had done so with almost gleeful enthusiasm . ~ Peter David

At conventions, one of the standard questions I get is, 'Are you writing any new novels?' To which I used to respond, in my smart-[alec] fashion, 'No, I've decided to write only old novels.' ~ Peter David

Remember what we wrote? 'And just as I cannot imagine how I survived the past without you ... I cannot imagine a future without you.' Remember? Well, I'm the future without her, buddy boy, and I can tell you right now that it's not something you're going to relish. ~ Peter David

To the brave crew and passengers of the Kobayshi Maru ... sucks to be you. ~ Peter David

Apropos, you're going to have to learn to sooner or later that you can't just let other people decide what the world around you should and shouldn't be. ~ Peter David

Right, wrong - those are words thrown around by those what is in power in order to sit on the backs of those what ain't. ~ Peter David

It was tragic enough for the average citizen to know that bloodsucking monsters known as tax collectors already existed; to be informed that there were other inhuman bloodsuckers stalking the night as well, desiring to sink their fangs elsewhere than bank accounts, might simply have been too much for people to bear. ~ Peter David

Noblest. Bravest. What rot. There was no bravery in buying oneself out of difficulty. ~ Peter David

All part of the service. ~ Peter David

I bet you were all only children, or felt isolated, or busy "training" and stuff. I bet none of you can lay claim to knowing what a normal teen life is supposed to be! Geez, you're so judgmental, I wanna puke! ~ Cissie King-Jones Peter David

As for jokes, I don't think it's necessarily that what I write is funny. ~ Peter David

Why (he wondered rhetorically) do people who have a position that's being attacked constantly state that they have a right to say it, as if the right itself-rather than the statement-has been challenged? ~ Peter David

If I have a bow and arrow, Commander, I don't shoot a padded shaft to my target's left in order to express my annoyance. I fire a steel-tipped arrow into his leg. ~ Peter David

Some time later, I sat in the wine cellar, staring at the walls while cradling a wineskin in my lap like a child, murmuring over and over as if lulling the child to sleep, 'I am shat upon. I am shat upon'. ~ Peter David

Thus it has always been: Only in death do worthless people have worth. ~ Peter David

Maybe science is just magic with delusions of lack of grandeur. ~ Peter David

The measure of a gen'leman is how he treats ladies. They can call themselves what they wants, but if what they says don't match up with how they behaves, well, what they do says far more of who they are than what they says they are does, if you gets my drift. ~ Peter David

Not that he wanted to say that. It would make it sound as if he wanted to blame her..
Women were very complicated creatures. He suddenly realised he was running through his head a list of everything he considered preferable to women. It was a long and most impressive imaginary document. ~ Peter David

There are some for whom the good of mankind is their primary concern, and others who basically put their own considerations before everyone else. I was among the latter. ~ Peter David

Why Mr. Dickens, in his biography of that particular moment, preferred to focus on the adventures of the orphan parish child, Oliver Twist, remains a matter of speculation and mystery to all subsequent scribes of those long-departed times: of a London nearly two centuries gone, back when it was a pox-infested, grimy, depressing, fog-bound, class-favoring, sprawling, noxious, odorous, and overall distasteful place in which to live and breathe and sicken and die - as opposed to modern times, wherein the pox has been largely attended to; so that's progress of a sort. ~ Peter David

We're all of us dying ... from the moment we're born ~ Peter David

I guess it really had been brave . . . because it was so bugger-all stupid, and if there was one thing I'd come to realize, ti was that bravery and bugger-all stupidity went hand in hand. ~ Peter David

In retrospect, I would have to recommend against epiphanies. They are difficult on an emotional level, and they also sometimes move you to foolish and inopportune acts, which was what happened in my case. ~ Peter David

he was literally holding his face together. ~ Peter David

Truth usually makes no sense. If your desire is for everything to make perfect sense, then you should take refuge in fiction. In fiction, all threads tie together in a neat bow and everything moves smoothly from one point to the next to the next. In real life, though ... nothing makes sense. Bad things happen to good people. The pious die young while the wicked live until old age. War, famine, pestilence, death all occur randomly and senselessly and leave us more often than not scratching our heads and hurling the question 'why?' into a void that provides no answers. ~ Peter David

Unfortunately, the world does not always act in a manner consistent with one's plans for it. ~ Peter David

The battered and pathetic thing that represented any claim to conscience I might have had turned away from me in disgust. Oddly, I couldn't blame it. I was disgusted myself. Disgusted at my weakness and my lack of resolution, at my refusal to see justice through in the name of the woman who had borne me. ~ Peter David

No. It happened. But if it simplifies your life to disbelieve it, then do so. ~ Peter David

It seemed to me that, no matter what endeavor I was involved in, I was to be something of a sham. ~ Peter David

I'm not supposed to be here, Xy. ~ Peter David

Good enough, never is. ~ Peter David

And then he raised the welder to his face and flicked the switch. ~ Peter David

Running from horrors doesn't help. The only way to deal with them is to meet them head-on. ~ Peter David

When your heart's been cut out, how's it going to feel knowing that you're the one who wielded the knife? ~ Peter David

Faith is an admirable trait. It's good to have faith in another person. But when faith is used as a substitute for reality, then it becomes a crutch for refusing to deal with that reality. ~ Peter David

All people are, at heart, egocentric. We exist at the center of our own little universes. We believe that we are living out our lives as best we can, and that we have our own sphere of influence which exists of both friends and enemies. They in turn have their own friends and enemies with whom they interact. That is a given. But we, each of us, tend to put ourselves ahead of others because we believe that we are significant. We must attend to our own needs, desires, wants, and aspirations, because each of us is our own greatest priority. No one else cares for us as much as we do, no one else can exist in our skin. We think we're important. It is where our sense of self-worth comes up, where our egos reside, where "we" are. And we believe that each of our lives means something. ~ Peter David

He smelled meat burning and realized that it was him. ~ Peter David

To explore strange new worlds ... and assimilate them.
To seek out new life forms ... and new civilizations ... and assimilate them.
To boldly go where no Borg has gone before ... and assimilate them. ~ Peter David

There are no such things as happy endings. Never. They're totally manufactured by fiction writers who choose to end the story on a high point. ~ Peter David

YOU SEE THEM SOMETIMES.
They're just out of the corner of your eye, when you're not expecting them, and sometimes if you close your eyes very, very tightly, and open them quickly, there will be a quick flash of them behind your eyelids before they dissipate.
They are the echoes of deja vu, they are the regrets that are fleeting, they are that which you didn't know you missed ...
They are everywhere and nowhere. ~ Peter David

I resisted the temptation to turn around and stick out my tongue in derision at Beliquose. After all, there was no telling when or if we should meet again, and I certainly did not need him saying, 'Ah yes, Poe, the fellow whose trespasses i could have forgiven in their entirety ... except for the tongue thing. Yes, for that, you must surely die. ~ Peter David

I am Roland of Gilead. And you . . . you are nothing. ~ Robin Furth, Peter David

The biggest evildoers in the world, the ones who do what's not right, are the ones who have all the power, and that's what makes it right. It's right not 'cause you say so, or I say, or even if the Lord on high says so. It's right 'cause them what's got the money and the power, they say it's right, and that makes it right even if it's dead wrong. Dead wrong. ~ Peter David

What did Kavinsky say about it?" Chris asks me.
"Nothing yet. He's still at lacrosse practice."
My phone immediately starts to buzz, and the three of us look at each other, wide-eyed. Margot picks it up and looks at it. "It's Peter!" She hot-potatoes the phone to me. "Let's give them some privacy," she says, nudging Chris. Chris shrugs her off.
I ignore both of them and answer the phone. "Hello." My voice comes out thin as a reed.
Peter starts talking fast. "Okay, I've seen the video, and the first thing I'm going to say to you is don't freak out." He's breathing hard; it sounds like he's running.
"Don't freak out? How can I not? This is terrible. Do you know what they're all saying about me in the comments? That I'm a slut. They think we're having sex in that video, Peter."
"Never read the comments, Covey! That's the first rule of--"
"If you say 'Fight Club' to me right now, I will hang up on you."
"Sorry. Okay, I know it sucks but--"
"It doesn't 'suck.' It's a literal nightmare. My most private moment, for everybody to see. I'm completely humiliated. The things people are saying--" My voice breaks. Kitty and Margot and Chris are all looking at me with sad eyes, which makes me feel even sadder.
"Don't cry, Lara Jean. Please don't cry. I promise you I'm going to fix this. I'm going to get whoever runs Anonybitch to take it down."
"How? We don't even know who they are! And besides, I bet our whole school's seen it by now. ~ Jenny Han

Poetry for me has been a long pilgrimage, a journey and a growing relationship with the unknown. ~ David Whyte

She suspected that she was quite like Helena Kraft in that she was capable and ambitious and wanted to get a pat on the back from her superiors. That was not necessarily always a good thing though. With that tendency, if you operate in an unhealthy culture you risk becoming just as unhealthy yourself and - who knows, perhaps it is the will to please that leads people to crime just as often as evil or greed. ~ David Lagercrantz

I hate being so nostalgic about the Sixties. ~ David Bailey

Just as blue is delicate and mysterious, yellow clear and unsubtle, and red sanguine and passionate, so he felt ulfire to be wild and painful, and jale dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous. ~ David Lindsay

Iran is also engaged in the fight against ISIL for reasons of its own that include a desire not to see a reasonably friendly government in Baghdad falling. But it also includes its desire not to have ISIL's ideology spread in the region where it lives ~ David Ignatius

Spies could be invaluable in peacetime, once the fighting actually started, their value dropped steeply. When the swords were out, it was the information your own scouts provided that mattered, not reports from unknown people whose veracity you couldn't prove. ~ David Weber

While the behavior of the Russian government, Putin and Putin punks are abhorrent, nothing will be changed by boycotting the Sochi Winter Games. In fact, those who are appalled by the treatment of LGBT Russian citizens will lose an incredible opportunity for the world to show their disgust. ~ David Mixner

There's no substitute for a regular, smart trainning. No shortcuts, no secrets. Practice well and often, and you'll get there. ~ David Belle

Life as a forester became exciting once again. Every day in the forest was a day of discovery. This led me to unusual ways of managing the forest. When you know that trees experience pain and have memories and that tree parents live together with their children, then you can no longer just chop them down and disrupt their lives with large machines. Machines have been banned from the forest for a couple of decades now, and if a few individual trees need to be harvested from time to time, the work is done with care by foresters using horses instead. A healthier - perhaps you could even say happier - forest is considerably more productive, and that means it is also more profitable. ~ Peter Wohlleben

If stocks double but the dollar loses half its value, who beyond Wall Street are the winners and losers? ~ David Malpass

Evolution is largely a temporal phenomenon, Merrill. The environment changes, and populations in that environment change in turn, or they languish. Individual organisms don't evolve; populations do. Nature doesn't give a damn about individuals. The only role we play in evolution is surviving long enough to give birth to offspring who are slightly different from us. Some of our offspring will prosper in a changing environment, and some of them will not. As for us individuals, once we've reproduced, nature has no more use for us. We perish along with our ill-adapted young. Death has always been an essential factor in species survival.

Now consider the human race. We are a partial exception to the rule. Unlike other species, we have developed culture. Instead of adapting to a changing environment biologically, we can sometimes adapt to it culturally. If an Ice Age comes along, we don't need to grow fur on our bodies if we invent the fur coat. Culture allows us to adapt to almost any environment, including the harshest, like space. In fact, our cultural adaptation is so robust that it all but obviates the need to evolve biologically.

We are so good at adapting to changing conditions with our knowledge and technology that we may deceive ourselves into believing that we are above nature. But only a fools believes that. Nature always has the last word. A star in our neighborhood could go supernova and wipe out all life in our solar system, and no amount of cult ~ David Marusek

Unbelievers resist truth because it brings to the surface their God-instilled knowledge of right and wrong, which they've buried in order to pursue their ungodly behavior without the annoyance of conscience (Romans 1:18-21). That's ~ David Jeremiah

Would ride into fire. For Odysseus that whip was pride. ~ David Gemmell

Issues. The dreaded word. It seemed so innocuous. Issues. Everyone had issues. ~ David Baldacci

The best remedy for a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet. ~ David Livingstone

Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology. The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral sciences and "Know thyself" their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate, and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant form of tyranny. ~ Peter F. Drucker

It is only through us that God lives. When we abandon him, he dies. ~ David Eagleman

The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Opinions are 10 a penny. In the spin-driven, PR-controlled world of the 21st century, hard facts are rare indeed. ~ David Hewson

I felt a darkness growing within me that was too numb for sorrow and too cold for rage. ~ Gregory David Roberts

I always think that art is one of the most wonderful exciting curious ways to learn. I have no worries or apologies about art being used as a teaching medium. ~ Peter Greenaway

For me, it's just a normal artistic endeavour to explore the dark side. Certainly, I'm not alone in it. Artists generally don't like to accept the version of reality that society and culture hand them. They want to know what's really going on. So you're always looking in the ceilings, under the floorboards and behind the walls, trying to find the mechanisms, the structures, and the truth. I find that often leads you into some dark places. ~ David Cronenberg

Shit rolls downhill. Bureaucracy rolls faster. ~ David Wellington

The kind of life you live, your disposition, your very nature, will be determined by your thoughts, of which your acts are but the outward expression. Thought is the seed of action. ~ David O. McKay

At university, I used to write silly little sketches and monologues, but never fiction. ~ David Nicholls

We too can love with the will even when we do not have loving emotions or feelings. We make this distinction toward ourselves quite easily, so we should be able to do it toward others too when necessary. ~ Peter Kreeft

I'll often rush out from Dark Shadows, having made a 5.30PM appointment, working for a couple of hours. ~ Thayer David

Successful trial lawyers are like heat-seeking missiles carrying payloads of information prejudicial to their opponent's case, constantly looking for the chance to unload their cargo, right up until the final moments of trial. ~ David Berg

The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,
the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,
at least apparently,
but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know. ~ Henry David Thoreau

he's braw and pulchritudinous, ~ David Sedaris

I was shocked to my marrow the very first time I heard the Church is saying a man can marry a man. What? It is from that shock, that surprise, how is that possible? Is it a kind of experiment or something? They are sick or tired of normal heterosexual relationships? How could that be? ~ Peter Akinola

The first isn't necessarily the last, but it will always be the first, and that's special. Firsts are special."
"You're not first," Peter says. "But you're the most special to me, because you're the girl I love, Lara Jean."
Love. He said "love." I feel dizzy. I am a girl who is loved, by a boy, and not just her sisters and father and dog. A boy with beautiful eyebrows and a sleight of hand. ~ Jenny Han

Moreover, in the experimental sciences, the scientific fraternity must test a new theory to destruction, if possible. ~ Peter D. Mitchell

war is the result of total irrationality combined with conflict of interest. ~ Peter F. Hamilton