The Martian Quotes

Irrigation, unscientifically conducted, would not give us such truly wonderful mathematical fitness [as we observe in the Martian canals] ... A mind of no mean order would seem to have presided over the system we see-a mind certainly of considerably more comprehensiveness than that which presides over the various department of our own public works. ~ Percival Lowell

I like the old-school Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons. I'm talking Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian! ~ Colin Kaepernick

To occasional heat waves - ice in the Martian soil occasionally melts and flows as a liquid. ~ Randall Munroe

Remember all those classic books you HAD to read in school? They sucked, right? Well, guess what? They are actually . . . classics. 'Brave New World', '1984', 'The Martian Chronicles' and even 'Animal Farm' are pretty cool it you're not told you HAVE to read them. If you discover them on your own or if you reread them without having a report due that sends you scurrying to buy CliffNotes or access Wikipedia, then you can actually relax and enjoy them.
- Chris Mancini ~ Graham Elwood

He had also jinxed my telescope so that every time I looked at Mars, Marvin the Martian popped up and threatened to destroy the Earth with an explosive space-modulator. ~ Jim C. Hines

Millions of students now, in all the schools of America, are reading science fiction and especially, thank God, 'The Martian Chronicles.' ~ Ray Bradbury

Mars is not Earth. It doesn't have a thick atmosphere to bend light and carry particles that reflect light around corners. It's damn near a vacuum here. Once the sun isn't visible, I'm in the dark. Phobos gives me some moonlight, but not enough to work with. Deimos is a little piece of crap that's no good to anyone. ~ Andy Weir

I have never seen a work of fiction so perfectly capture the out-of-nowhere shock of discovering that you've just bricked something important because you didn't pay enough attention to a loose wire. ~ Randall Munroe

the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere are expected to be showered by Siding Spring - perhaps briefly, perhaps more extensively. Shock waves may rock the atmosphere. ~ Anonymous

Chalmers stopped listening and let his gaze wander over the new city. They were going to call it Nicosia. It was the first town of any size to be built free-standing on the Martian surface; all the buildings were set inside what was in effect an immense clear tent, supported by a nearly invisible frame, and placed on the rise of Tharsis, west of Noctis Labyrinthus. This location gave it a tremendous view, with a distant western horizon punctuated by the broad peak of Pavonis Mons. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

Mars and my stupidity keep trying to kill me. ~ Andy Weir

His ship was powered, and the Martian war effort was powered, by a phenomenon known as UWTB, or the Universal Will to Become. UWTB is what makes universes out of nothingness - that makes nothingness insist on becoming somethingness. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I leafed through the phrase book. If a Martian read it, the Martian would probably decide to avoid Hungary. ~ Elif Batuman

For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, yet one the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow, and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer master, but an animal among animals; under the Martian heel. ~ H.G.Wells

I love superheroes and I love weird horror films ... I could definitely feel that there was a lack of movies like The Martian being made: smart genre movies that can appeal to adults. ~ Drew Goddard

I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel.With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away. ~ H.G.Wells

All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. We'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time ... -Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles ~ Ray Bradbury

Furthermore, because silicon packs on more protons than carbon, it's bulkier, like carbon with fifty extra pounds. Sometimes that's not a big deal. Silicon might substitute adequately for carbon in the Martian equivalent of fats or proteins. But carbon also contorts itself into ringed molecules we call sugars. Rings are states of high-tension- which means they store lots of energy-and silicon just isn't supple enough to bend into the right position to form rings. In a related problem, silicon atoms cannot squeeze their electrons into tight spaces for double bonds, which appear in virtually every complicated biochemical. ~ Sam Kean

Imagine that one day you are out for a walk in the woods. Suddenly you see a small spaceship on the path in front of you. A tiny Martian climbs out the spaceship and stands on the ground looking up at you…
What would you think? Never mind, it's not important. But have you ever given any thought to the fact that you are a Martian yourself?
It is obviously unlikely that you will ever stumble upon a creature from another planet. We do not even know that there is life on other planets. But you might stumble upon yourself one day. You might suddenly stop short and see yourself in a completely new light. On just such a walk in the woods.
I am an extraordinary being, you think. I am a mysterious creature.
You feel as if you are waking from an enchanted slumber. Who am I? you ask. You know that you are stumbling around on a planet in the universe. But what is the universe?
If you discover yourself in this manner you will have discovered something as mysterious as the Martian we just mentioned. You will not only have seen a being from outer space. You will feel deep down that you are yourself an extraordinary being. ~ Jostein Gaarder

I'm so close to Schiaparelli I can taste it. I guess it would taste like sand, mostly, but that's not the point. ~ Andy Weir

Who wants to see the Future, who ever does? A man can face the Past, but to think - the pillars crumbled, you say? And the sea empty, and the canals dry, and the maidens dead, and the flowers withered?" The Martian was silent, but then he looked ahead. "But there they are. I see them. Isn't that enough for me? They wait for me now, no matter what you say. ~ Ray Bradbury

What I wish is that people would look beyond the tribbles and see I've written some other books that I really would like people to notice. There's 'The Man Who Folded Himself,' there's 'The Martian Child,' which is about my son and the adoption. There's 'The War Against The Chtorr,' which is my magnum opus, my great epic story. ~ David Gerrold

When I was teaching English and trying to get kids passionate about reading, the most effective weapon I had was 'The Martian Chronicles.' ~ Jack McDevitt

Despite tantalizing suggestions of fossilized microbes in meteorites, puzzling and possibly biogenic methane gas in the martian atmosphere, and a long-standing controversy over the Viking lander experiments of nearly 40 years ago, there's still no Exhibit A that points unequivocally to biology in our own back yard. ~ Seth Shostak

To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writer's build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home. The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it. ~ David Gerrold

There are celestial sights more dazzling, spectacles that inspire more awe, but to the thoughtful observer who is privileged to see them well, there is nothing in the sky so profoundly impressive as the canals of Mars. Fine lines and little gossamer filaments only, cobwebbing the face of the Martian disk, but threads to draw one's mind after them across the millions of miles of intervening void. ~ Percival Lowell

On the other hand, this was a guy who advised students to get over their fear of approaching by walking up to random women and saying, "Hi, I'm Manny the Martian. What's your favorite flavor of bowling ball?" So I really didn't have to worry about looking foolish in front of him. He created fools. At ~ Neil Strauss

How did I end up in this situation? I'm the district sales manager of a napkin factor. Why is my daughter in space? ~ Andy Weir

As part of his long-winded bullshit, Baby fell into a genre trope that he had avoided in his first two novels.

He started inventing new words.

This was a common habit amongst Science Fiction writers. They couldn't help themselves. They were always inventing new words.

Perhaps the most famous example of a Science Fiction writer inventing a new word occurs in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Part of Heinlein's vision of horny decentralized alien sex involves the Martian word grok.

To grok something is to comprehend that something with effortless and infinite intuition. When you grok something, that something becomes a part of you and you become a part of that something without any troublesome Earthling attempts at knowing.

A good example of groking something is the way that members of the social construct of the White race had groked their own piglet pink.

They'd groked their skin color so much that it became invisible. It had become part of them and they had become part of it. That was groking.

People in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially those who worked in technology like Erik Willems, loved to talk about groking.

With time, their overusage stripped away the original meaning and grok became synonymous with simple knowledge of a thing.

In a weird way, people in the Bay Area who used the word grok did not grok the word grok.

Baby had always been popula ~ Jarett Kobek

I have friends who are black, white, purple, gay, straight, Martian, yellow, old, and young. I have friends who are animals and a few who I believe to be robots. All of them are people to me. In my mind, it's not about what you look like or what you do; it's about who you are inside. ~ Tracy Morgan

Hooray for bloated Martian defense budgets, ~ James S.A. Corey

Alex said. "This is Medina Station under occupation by a bunch of splinter Martian military expats. It's not Baltimore."
Amos' smile was as placid as always. "Everywhere's Baltimore. ~ James S.A. Corey

She'd grown up in Martian gravity . She had to mass a hundred kilos at one g, easy. ~ James S.A. Corey

Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I didn't think he was a very 'nice' person,' says Chichilnisky [about Jeff Bezos]. 'I liked him, but he was not warm. I'm not criticising him, not a bit. It was like he could be a Martian for all I knew. A well-meaning, nice Martian. ~ Richard L. Brandt

Garrett," said Stendahl, "do you know why I've done this to you? Because you burned Mr. Poe's books without really reading them. You took other people's advice that they needed burning. Otherwise you'd have realized what I was going to do to you when we came down here a moment ago. Ignorance is fatal, Mr. Garrett. ~ Ray Bradbury

Sir, talking with a Martian is like talking with an echo. You don't get argument but you don't get results. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Great Martian Potato Migration. Anyway, ~ Andy Weir

Well, you've got a full load of torpedoes and bullets, three Martian warships trailing you, one angry old lady in tea withdrawal, and a Martian Marine who could probably kill you with your own teeth. What do you do? ~ James S.A. Corey

Mars is telling us something. I'm not sure what it is because It's speaking martian. But it's telling us something ~ Steve Squyres

I think every teenager feels like a Martian in something, whether it's in their family, I think, or in their school. I think every teenager, every human being has a sense that they don't belong somewhere. ~ Gayle Forman

Talking with a Martian is something like talking with an echo. You don't get any argument but you don't get results either. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

And a Martian Marine who could probably kill you with your own teeth. ~ James S.A. Corey

I'm not anyone, I'm just myself; whatever I am, I am something, and now I'm something you can't help. ~ Ray Bradbury

[I] don't like to think like everybody else, don't like to try to think like everybody else, don't like to do nothing everybody else think I'm gone do, don't like to say nothing everybody else think I'm gone say. I'm a Martian. I like to be different. And what's more different than a Martian. ~ Lil' Wayne

Don't just discover . . . Encounter! ~ J.P. Osterman

Give a Martian woman a chance and death must take a back seat. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

Recently a piece of Martian rock has been recovered from Antarctica. NASA has discovered fossils of bacteria-like organisms on this rock, suggesting that life could have come on earth from outer space. ~ Girish Chandra

Death doesn't exist. It never did, it never will. But we've drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we've got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing. ~ Ray Bradbury

My family would be supportive if I said I wanted to be a Martian, wear only banana skins, make love to ashtrays, and eat tree bark. ~ Casey Affleck

Dad just stared at me like I'd started speaking Greek. Of course, Dad probably spoke Greek, so maybe it was more like I was talking Martian. ~ Rachel Hawkins

Being aware that he had but a short time to live and having neither Martian nor Kansan faith in immortality, he purposed to live each golden moment as eternity - without ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Don't fight hate with hate, fight hate with love. ~ Martian Luther King JR

If a Martian (who, we'll imagine, never dies except by accident) came to Earth and saw this peculiar race of creatures - these humans who live about seventy or eighty years, knowing that death is going to come - it would look to him like a terrible problem of psychology to live under those circumstances, knowing that life is only temporary. Well, we humans somehow figure out how to live despite this problem: we laugh, we joke, we live. ~ Richard Feynman