John Pollard > John's Quotes

“I've always believed there are moments in our lives which can be defined as a transition between the before and after, between the cause and the effect.”
― Benjamin X. Wretlind, Castles

“There are moments in my life that stick to my memory. I suppose it's the same for everyone—snippets of life pasted in a scrapbook for you to look over every once in a while. You look back sometimes and relive an event, a smell or a sight. You catalog these things in your head and never really look at the whole. I think you miss something grand when you don't step back and examine everything together.”
― Benjamin X. Wretlind, Castles

“That's the way it is with bullies, Grandma told me once. You give them an inch and they'll run you through with a knife.”
― Benjamin X. Wretlind

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”
― Ray Bradbury

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“From the town on the edge of obscurity with a post office and general store to the city with the mega malls and towering skyscrapers that scream of American Genericality, there is use for a dead cheerleader, a werewolf carrying business cards and a vampire fishing off a rickety pier.”
― Benjamin X. Wretlind, Regarding Dead Things on the Side of the Road: Collected Stories

“There was no longer a wellspring of tears or a firestorm of rage. The surge of feeling that enveloped Nathan James the last few weeks like a disastrous hurricane had now ebbed and dissipated, leaving only a dull numbness, a grey blanket of cold, emotional isolation. It was a good feeling to have when you wanted to exact revenge.”
― Benjamin X. Wretlind, The Retribution of Nathan James

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Living with the belief that you’re a walking piece of shit is hell. The smarter the person is, the more hellish it is. The only way out of this hell is physical death. In any case, it seems so to many people. This is the real reason for the nuclear war that destroyed our civilization.”
― Andrew Orange, The Interchange

“I came to the conclusion that the world is not ruled by power and money, as many people believe. These are just tools. The world is ruled by ideas and emotions.”
― Andrew Orange, The Outside Intervention

“But why do people need other planets?”
“All living things strive for maximum expansion in space.”
“This is the level of thinking of bacteria!” Dick exclaimed passionately. “People should behave like intelligent beings. This world is given to us as a testing ground. Even if you are right, if we finally fail the exam and self-destruct, then so be it. Even if there is a planet with ideal conditions for people, we have no right to capture it. Because everything will happen again. If we have destroyed one world, we will destroy the other. Or, at best, we will exchange one prison for another. Our salvation is in love, in cooperation, in reasonable self-restraint, and not in thoughtless expansion in space.”
― Andrew Orange, The Secrets of Mars