Jesse Chandler > Jesse's Quotes

“The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“Now I understand,” said the last man.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End

“It’s the ignorant who find a cause and cling to it, for within that is the illusion of significance.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
― Isaac Asimov

“But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“Don't worry. I am like most people. I can keep my eyes and still see nothing.”
― Steven Erikson, Dust of Dreams

“The biggest lies we save for ourselves.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns

“The lesson of history is that no one learns.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“Why do I hate spiders? Gods, who doesn't? What a stupid question.”
― Steven Erikson, The Crippled God

“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help.”
― Bill Watterson

“Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

“Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains

“The heart of wisdom is tolerance.”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“There passes a time of happiness in your life, which I will not describe to you. It is unimportant. Perhaps you think it wrong that I dwell so much on the horrors, the pain, but pain is what shapes us, after all. We are creatures born of heat and pressure and grinding, ceaseless movement. To be still is to be… not alive. But”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“No tyrant could thrive where every subject said no. The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Why, without a sense of humour, you are blind to so much in the world. To human nature. To the absurdity of so much that we say and do.”
― Steven Erikson, Reaper's Gale

“With ever greater frequency they annihilate themselves, for success breeds contempt for those very qualities that purchased it.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains

“Now, invite me in, before I lose my temperature.’

‘Temper, you mean.’

‘No, temperature. It’s getting chilly.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“People don’t change to suit their god; they change their god to suit them.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Why hasn't anyone killed him yet?”
“Dumb luck,” Wit said. “In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“I don't talk to myself because I'm crazy."
"No?"
"I do it because I'm awesome.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth - scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, the comics, and many books - might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity, and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“She smiled again. "Do you like cat?" she said.
"Yes," said Richard. "I quite like cats."
Anaesthesia looked relieved. "Thigh?" she asked, "or breast?”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“I have always felt that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent, and empty threats the last sanctuary of the terminally inept.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere