The Ersatz Elevator Quotes

Read about things that wouldn't keep you up all night long, weeping and tearing out your hair. ~ Lemony Snicket

Above all, don't lie to yourself." – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

"I don't want to die without any scars." – Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

"Not all those who wander are lost." – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

"It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not." – André Gide, Autumn Leaves

"If you're making mistakes it means you're out there doing something." – Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." – Paulo Coelho, Brida

"If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives."
– Lemony Snicket, The Ersatz Elevator

"The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." – Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

"I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do." – Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

"If you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all." – John Green, Paper Towns

"Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer." – Dan Brown, Digital Fortress

"Fear is an illusion..." - Dark Templar, Starcraft 2 ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The world was ersatz and actual, forged and faked, by ourselves and unseen others. Daring to attempt to absolutely sort fake from real was a folly that would call down tigers or hiccups to cure us of our recklessness. The effort was doomed, for it too much pointed past the intimate boundaries of our necessary fictions. ~ Jonathan Lethem

There are many other escapes from the empirical, external self, which might seem to be, but are not, contemplation. For instance, the experience of being seized and taken out of oneself by collective enthusiasm, in a totalitarian parade: the self-righteous upsurge of party loyalty that blots out conscience and absolves every criminal tendency in the name of Class, Nation, Party, Race or Sect.. Yet it is precisely these ersatz forms of enthusiasm that are "opium" for the people, deadening their awareness of their deepest and most personal needs, alienating them from their true selves, putting conscience and personality to sleep and turning free, reasonable men into passive instruments of the power politician. ~ Thomas Merton

Art, I suppose, is only for beginners, or else for those resolute dead-enders, who have made up their minds to be content with the ersatz of Suchness, with symbols rather than with what they signify, with the elegantly composed recipe in lieu of actual dinner. ~ Aldous Huxley

Kalaj was in top form.
"If I had a car I'd drive you home right this instant."
"I'll take him if he wants," said the young Moroccan cabdriver.
"How many times do I have to teach you," said Kalaj, reprimanding the abdriver who was more my age than Kalaj's. "Never say 'if he wants' with this kind of honeyed, ersatz tone in your voice. Instead, say, 'I'm taking you home. Let's go.'"
"Well," said the shy Moroccan, "should we go?"
Everyone laughed. ~ Andre Aciman

Dead human beings provided retrospective arguments for the rectitude of policy. Hitler and Stalin thus shared a certain politics of tyranny: they brought about catastrophes, blamed the enemy of their choice, and then used the death of millions to make the case that their policies were necessary or desirable. Each of them had a transformative utopia, a group to be blamed when its realization proved impossible, and then a policy of mass murder that could be proclaimed as a kind of ersatz victory. ~ Timothy Snyder

Hoddan began suddenly to see real possibilities. This was not a direct move toward the realization of his personal ambitions. But on the other hand, it wasn't a movement away from them. Hoddan suddenly remembered an oration he'd heard his grandfather give many, many times in the past.
"Straight thinkin'," the old man had said obstinately, "is a delusion. You think things out clear and simple, and you can see yourself ruined and your family starving any day! But real things ain't simple! They ain't clear! Any time you try to figure things out so they're simple and straightforward, you're goin' against nature and you're going to get 'em mixed up! So when something happens and you're in a straightforward, hopeless fix - why, you go along with nature! Make it as complicated as you can, and the people who want you in trouble will get hopeless confused and you can get out! ~ Murray Leinster

Of course this chattering diary is a facade, the literary equivalent of the everyday smiling face which hides the inward ravages of jealousy, remorse, fear and the consciousness of irretrievable moral failure. Yet such pretenses are not only consolations but may even be productive of a little ersatz courage. ~ Iris Murdoch

The Great Beast is the only object of idolatry , the only ersatz of God , the only imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is I myself. ~ Simone Weil

Though he was not as dastardly as Esmé or Count Olaf or the hook-handed man, Jerome was still an ersatz guardian, because a real guardian is supposed to provide a home, with a place to sleep and something to wear, and all Jerome had given them in the end was "Good luck." Jerome reached the end of the block and turned left, and the Baudelaires were once again alone in the world. ~ Lemony Snicket

It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the Black Sea. ~ Lemony Snicket

I stepped through the doors of the SA Café with a borrowed copy of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot in my hand, expecting to find more of the same, only to find Philip K. Dick sitting at a table, obsessing over Gnostic demiurges and ersatz realities, Robert A. Heinlein across from him, spouting libertarian aphorisms but paying for Dick's coffee. ~ Hal Duncan

For example, tolerance designates a real problem - when I criticize it, I am, as a rule, asked: "But how can you be in favor of intolerance towards foreigners, of misogyny, of homophobia?" Therein resides the catch: of course I am not against tolerance per se; what I oppose is the (contemporary and automatic) perception of racism as a problem of intolerance. Why are so many problems today perceived as problems of intolerance, rather than as problems of inequality, exploitation, or injustice? Why is the proposed remedy tolerance, rather than emancipation, political struggle, or even armed struggle? The source of this culturalization is defeat, the failure of directly political solutions such as the social-democratic welfare state or various socialist projects: "tolerance" has become their post-political ersatz. ~ Slavoj Zizek

The attempt to separate Lowland from Highland Scotland ignores the extent to which Lowland Scots are the descendants of Highlanders, and how many Lowland Scots, like Nan Shepherd, made the country's mountains the focus of their spiritual aspirations. 'Highlandism' is not simply the ersatz adoption of a stereotypical version of Scottish culture which is entirely unconnected with the reality of modern Scottish life: the Highlands are both the geographical and the historical backdrop with which 'Lowland' Scottish culture interacts. ~ Cairns Craig

The fantasy/reality confusion ... it's just marvelous in her work. I mean, there, it's practically like what we do, the fantasy working as a sort of metalogic, with which she can solve real, aesthetic problems in the most incredible ways
I was actually in a few of her productions last year, a sort of ersatz member of the company. But finally I just had to get out. Because when that fantasy seeps into the reality, she just becomes an incredibly ugly person. She feels she can distort anything that occurs for whatever purpose she wants. Whatever she feels, that's what is, as far as she's concerned. But then, I suppose ... ' Bron laughed at the ground, then looked up: they'd just left the Plaza
'that's the right we just fought a war to defend. But Audri, when someone abuses that right, it can make it pretty awful for the rest of us. ~ Samuel R. Delany

You can find dozens of examples of this kind of liberal-class virtue-quest if you try, but instead of listing them, let me go straight to the point: This is not politics. It's an imitation of politics. It feels political, yes: it's highly moralistic, it sets up an easy melodrama of good versus bad, it allows you to make all kinds of judgments about people you disagree with, but ultimately it's a diversion, a way of putting across a policy program while avoiding any sincere discussion of the policies in question. The virtue-quest is an exciting moral crusade that seems to be extremely important but at the conclusion of which you discover you've got little to show for it besides NAFTA, bank deregulation, and a prison spree.

This book is about Democrats, but of course Republicans do it too. The culture wars unfold in precisely the same way as the liberal virtue-quest: they are an exciting ersatz politics that seem to be really important but at the conclusion of which voters discover they've got little to show for it all besides more free-trade agreements, more bank deregulation, and a different prison spree. ~ Thomas Frank

Don't listen to Hassan i Sabbah," they will tell you. "He wants to take your body and all pleasures of the body away from you. Listen to us. We are serving The Garden of Delights Immortality Cosmic Consciousness The Best Ever In Drug Kicks. And love love love in slop buckets. How does that sound to you boys? Better than Hassan i Sabbah and his cold windy bodiless rock? Right?"

At the immediate risk of finding myself the most unpopular character of all fiction - and history is fiction - I must say this:

"Bring together state of news - Inquire onward from state to doer - Who monopolized Immortality? Who monopolized Cosmic Consciousness? Who monopolized Love Sex and Dream? Who monopolized Life Time and Fortune? Who took from you what is yours? Now they will give it all back? Did they ever give anything away for nothing? Did they ever give any more than they had to give? Did they not always take back what they gave when possible and it always was? Listen: Their Garden Of Delights is a terminal sewer - I have been at some pains to map this area of terminal sewage in the so called pornographic sections of Naked Lunch and Soft Machine - Their Immortality Cosmic Consciousness and Love is second-run grade-B shit - Their drugs are poison designed to beam in Orgasm Death and Nova Ovens - Stay out of the Garden of Delights - It is a man-eating trap that ends in green goo - Throw back their ersatz Immortality - It will fall apart before you can get out of The Big Sto ~ William S. Burroughs

Books make the best ersatz friendships. ~ Nenia Campbell

In seconds an 'up' elevator came rushing toward them. The doors opened, revealing a mostly-empty interior.
"Sometimes," he said, "you have to go up to go down."
Liv followed him in, marveling at the scene below them. She could see the full scope of Dragon Con from her bird's eye vantage, the floor a living mass of bodies. Tiny toy-sized people in cosplay moved in bright splotches of color ten stories down. And it wasn't just one section. The atrium level was equally packed, the hallways leading to ballrooms around the hotel teaming with people. With an unsettling rush, the elevator sprang upward, the figures shrinking into specks. Liv's stomach contracted and she pulled back from the glass. They were incredibly high. ~ Danika Stone

And then I have a secret. Did you know what will happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? The universe will become as big as my fist.
Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty space. I work in empty spaces. While waiting for your elevator to come up from the first to the third floor, I have already written an article! ~ Umberto Eco

No, you don't understand because it isn't happening to you, and no one can understand but me. I don't blame you. You've got your job to do, and your Ph.D. to get, and-oh, yes don't tell me, I know you're in this largely out of love of humanity, but you've got your life to live and we don't happen to belong on the same level. I passed your floor on the way up, nad now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again. So let's just say good-bye here and now. ~ Daniel Keyes

After the interview ended, Stone and I were ushered out. Alex had an interview with Ted Nugent to conduct. In the elevator, Stone scrutinized me. "When we try to assess threats," he said, "the kooks are almost always wearing snowsuits in 90-degree weather. ~ Jon Ronson

When I go to my health club, and it's in the basement, you have to take the elevator down. And this drives me crazy. Why can't there be a stairway? At least make it as easy to exercise as it is to not exercise. It's in society's interest for me to take the stairs. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

They were thirty feet away - much too far to reach the elevator - but Leo pulled out a screwdriver and chucked it like a throwing knife. An impossible shot. The screwdriver spun straight past Clytius and slammed into the UP button. ~ Rick Riordan

What we offer needs to be a clear and obvious fit for our customers. We need to help others envision exactly what they're buying - in concrete terms. ~ Steve Woodruff

Abby must have been the one who found the safe house, because Townsend didn't like it.
"The building across the street is under construction," he snarled as soon as we'd carried our bags inside.
"The elevator has key card access, and I've hacked into the surveillance cameras from every system on the block," Abby argued. "We have a three-hundred-sixty-degree visual."
"Excellent." Townsend dropped his bag. "Now the circle can see us from every angle."
"Don't mind Agent Townsend, girls," Abby told us. "He's a glass-half-empty kind of spy."
"Also known as the good kind," he countered.
Abby huffed. ~ Ally Carter

Choosing to have a child you can't take care of is like farting in an elevator. Sure you got it out, but not it's everyone else's problem. ~ Richard Jeni

The vending machine lacked the willpower of the Western elevator, and it dutifully spat out several chocolate bars and a packet of salt and vinegar chips. I gave you more money than that, thought William, and the vending machine gave him some more. ~ Kit Abbey

The elevator dinged again, letting them off on their floor. As they exited, Chase still pressed against Jamie's front, they heard the man on the elevator mumble, Damn kids. Smells like sex in here. ~ Jasinda Wilder

I don't know," I said, teasingly. "How do I know it's really you? I don't want to let a serial killer into the building. Tell me something only I would know, so I can be sure it's you."
I walked over to the buzzer, smiling as I poised my hand over the button to let him up as soon as he responded.
"The first time we kissed, we were in your bedroom at your mom's house and Better Than Ezra was playing on your iPod."
My smiled faded and my breath caught in my throat. It took all I had to push the button to let him into the building. I hung up the phone, as my heart started pounding in my chest. I felt bad hanging up, but he probably would have lost reception in the elevator anyway. Of all the things he could have said, he had to pick that one. ~ Monica Alexander

The carpet is too soft. Also the palm tree in the lobby is unbelievable. For a long time the Maitre looks at our faces, shuffling passports in his hands. "Such dark-ringed eyes, such dark-ringed eyes. I knew a merchant from Smyrna, who also had a false front tooth. Nowadays one has to be terribly careful: informers and scorpions are everywhere."

In the elevator we stand facing the mirror, but already at the first jerk we see silvery mildew in the place of our faces. ~ Zbigniew Herbert

The campus is an oasis, settled in an otherwise nondescript town in rural America. A place where the grain elevator and the railroad grew together. ~ Fritz Nordengren

It is the antagonism of the dogmatic world, and the apathy of the rest, that is the cause of the mental progress of the world's not keeping pace with the material progress.

Better still, the universal application of the material progress has been far in advance of the universal acceptance of mental achievement. The automobile, the gigantic ocean liner, the talking machine, the electric fan, the elevator, the telephone and the other marvelous achievements of man are being used by the greater portion of the people, whose mental status belongs to the wheelbarrow, the simple chair, the ox cart and the tallow candle.

Slight is the realization by the users and beneficiaries of science's modern methods, of the heroic struggles and battles that the great men and women of the past suffered to make possible these accomplishments.

Oh, how many suffered torture and death at the hands of the very people they were striving to benefit! ~ Joseph Lewis

Kerr found that a spinning black hole would not collapse into a pointlike star, as Schwarzschild assumed, but would collapse into a spinning ring. Anyone unfortunate enough to hit the ring would perish; but someone falling into the ring would not die, but would actually fall through. But instead of winding up on the other side of the ring, he or she would pass through the Einstein-Rosen Bridge and wind up in another universe. In other words, the spinning black hole is the rim of Alice's Looking Glass.

If he or she were to move around the spinning ring a second time, he or she would enter yet another universe. In fact, repeated entry into the spinning ring would put a person in different parallel universes, much like hitting the "up" button on an elevator. In principle, there could be an infinite number of universes, each stacked on top of each other. "Pass through this magic ring and-presto!-you're in a completely different universe where radius and mass are negative!" Kerr wrote.

There is an important catch, however. Black holes are examples of "nontransversable wormholes"; that is, passing through the event horizon is a one-way trip. Once you pass through the event horizon and the Kerr ring, you cannot go backward through the ring and out through the event horizon. ~ Michio Kaku

Face calm and composed, Kellan simply smiled. Taking that as an affirmative response, Tory twisted to face the elevator doors. Behind her back, Kellan flashed me a devilish smile, one that clearly said, Hell if I'm doing any of that. ~ S.C. Stephens

With him inside the elevator descended. ~ Philip K. Dick

It's so weird man, it's like the vagina is an elevator door that opens up into this dimension, and sometimes that elevator puts you out on to a bad fucking floor! ~ Duncan Trussell (The Joe Rogan Experience, Episode 179)

For me, speaking to anyone - on a stage, in an elevator - I am looking for impact and connection. The same goes for writing. ~ Henry Rollins

Psychosynthesis is interested in the whole building. We try to build an elevator which will allow a person access to every level of his personality. After all, a building with only a basement is very limited. We want to open up the terrace where you can sun-bathe or look at the stars. Our concern is the synthesis of all areas of the personality. That means psychosynthesis is holistic, global and inclusive. It is not against psychoanalysis or even behavior modification but it insists that the needs for meaning, for higher values, for a spiritual life, are as real as biological or social needs. We deny that there are any isolated human problems. ~ Roberto Assagioli