A.G. Riddle > Quotes

“Here’s a tip. The good guys ask you to get in the truck. The bad guys put a black bag over your head and throw you in the truck. I’m asking.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“A healthy person has a hundred wishes, but a sick person has only one.”
― A.G. Riddle, Pandemic

“Science lacks something very important that religion provides: a moral code. Survival of the fittest is a scientific fact, but it is a cruel ethic; the way of beasts, not a civilized society. Laws can only take us so far, and they must be based upon something—a shared moral code that rises from something. As that moral foundation recedes, so will society’s values.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“A mind that dwells in the past builds a prison it cannot escape. Control your mind, or it will control you, and you will never break through the walls it builds.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Plague

“It’s always the same war. Only the names of the dead change. It’s always about one thing: which group of rich men get to divvy up the spoils. They call it ‘The Great War’—clever marketing.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“When you figure out that you're fighting some other man's war, walk away.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“We attack whatever is different, anything we don’t understand, anything that might change our world, our environment, reduce our chances of survival. Racism, class warfare, sexism, east versus west, north and south, capitalism and communism, democracy and dictatorships, Islam and Christianity, Israel and Palestine, they’re all different faces of the same war: the war for a homogeneous human race, an end to our differences.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“That’s what life is about: finding something you can do that no one else can, and working your hardest at it. It’s about finding someone you love like no one else, someone who loves you like no one else does.”
― A.G. Riddle, Departure

“Great leaders are forged from the fire of hard decisions,”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“Who wants to try and fail, when you can drink and laugh with no consequences?”
― A.G. Riddle, Departure

“The worst thing you can do for a child is give him everything he wants. Humans should grow up a little hungry, struggle a little, be made to strive for something. That’s what builds character. Struggle reveals who we really are. That journey shows us what we want from this world.”
― A.G. Riddle, Departure

“You must see the darkness to appreciate the light.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis World

“Ma’am, your husband was killed in an unfortunate Cadbury Creme Egg incident.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“Religion is our desperate attempt to understand our world. And our past. We live in darkness, surrounded by mysteries. Where did we come from? What is our purpose? What will happen to us after we die? Religion also gives us something more: a code of conduct, a blueprint of right and wrong, a guide to human decency. Just like any other tool, it can be misused.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren’t.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“The journey is the destination. Finding the answers for yourself, achieving understanding, is part of your journey. There are no shortcuts along the path.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Plague

“And when he was, when he finally found love after a life without, he died, happy. And the woman, all she ever wanted was to know that she could change the world, and if she could change the heart of the darkest man, then there was hope for the entire human race.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“I wonder what the world would be like if we could all glimpse our future before every major decision. Maybe that’s what stories are for: so we can learn from people living similar lives, with similar troubles.”
― A.G. Riddle, Departure

“It’s amazing how clear your dreams are when you’re a kid and how complicated life gets after that. How a single ambition turns into a hundred desires and details—most of which are about what you want and who you want to be.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Plague

“In our pursuit for the ultimate knowledge, the technologies we created eventually enslaved us, taking the last of our humanity before we even knew it was slipping away.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis World

“So you don’t want to believe?” “With science, what I want is irrelevant. Proof of a hypothesis is all that matters.”
― A.G. Riddle, Pandemic

“We so often seek what we’re deprived of in childhood. Sheltered children become reckless. Starving children become ambitious.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“Disasters are an opportunity for the worst of humanity. And the best.”
― A.G. Riddle, Pandemic

“Life is uncertain; in the end we control only a single thing: our own thoughts. He”
― A.G. Riddle, Pandemic

“It was history repeating itself. The same players, playing out a different game, with the same end, on a different stage.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Plague

“The human race is the biggest mass murderer of all time. Think about it: we’re hard-coded to survive. Even our ancient ancestors were driven by this impulse, driven enough to recognize the Neanderthals and Hobbits as dangerous enemies. They may have slaughtered dozens of human subspecies. And that legacy shamefully lives on. We attack whatever is different, anything we don’t understand, anything that might change our world, our environment, reduce our chances of survival. Racism, class warfare, sexism, east versus west, north and south, capitalism and communism, democracy and dictatorships, Islam and Christianity, Israel and Palestine, they’re all different faces of the same war: the war for a homogeneous human race, an end to our differences. It’s a war we started a long time ago, a war we’ve been fighting ever since. A war that operates in every human mind below the subconscious level, like a computer program, constantly running in the background, guiding us to some eventuality.” Kate didn’t know what to say, couldn’t see how it could involve her trial and her children. “You expect me to believe those two children are involved in an ancient cosmic struggle for the human race?”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“I think that says a lot about a person: how they handle being second best. Do they work on themselves? Or attack the person ahead of them?”
― A.G. Riddle, Winter World

“Life is hard—for everyone—but it’s hell on earth if you’re foolish or weak.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Gene

“To me, this is what great books are about, revealing our own lives in a way only stories can; we see ourselves in the characters, our own struggles and shortcomings, in a way that’s nonthreatening and nonjudgmental. We learn from the characters; we take those lessons and inspiration back to the real world. I believe that a good book leaves its readers better than they were before.”
― A.G. Riddle, Departure

“Life is a test we take every day. You must focus. You must be there for them when they need you.”
― A.G. Riddle, The Atlantis Plague