Brent > Brent's Quotes

“The Captain’s boat inspections were always pretty slapdash, because they mainly just involved him looking at the ropes and planks and barnacles and then nodding to show that he approved of whatever they happened to be doing.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with the Romantics

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“I'll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.”
― O. Henry

“I like coffee exceedingly...”
― H.P. Lovecraft

“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“It was a brave old world.”
― Mark A. Rayner, The Fridgularity

“Everybody clapped enthusiastically and Dr. Marx popped up from behind the podium, where he had been hiding all along. He was the hairiest man the pirates had ever seen. Several of the crew were actually worried for a moment that the Seaweed That Walked Like a Man had returned from one of their previous adventures to ambush them. His nose was hairy. His forehead was hairy. Even his hands were hairy. And his beard was a great bushy black number, which looked like he had sellotaped a bunch of cats to the bottom of his face and then frightened them with a loud noise.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists

“By the way, you haven’t seen an alien around here, have you? About six foot eight with a face like a cross between a boar and an upturned crab. Probably carrying a spear and a bag full of severed heads.’ Parker shrugged. ‘I dunno. It gets busy here.’ ‘He’s got quite an unusual laugh.’ ‘Oh, that bloke? He’s down the bottom of the ramp. You know him, then?”
― Toby Frost, Space Captain Smith

“100% of the people who give 110% do not understand math.”
― Demetri Martin, This is a Book

“Boric, feeling dizzy and light-headed, shambled toward Randor’s corpse, which was still making an impressive effort to pump blood to Randor’s head. His head unfortunately lay some three feet away — an insurmountable distance for even the most robust circulatory system.”
― Robert Kroese, Disenchanted

“In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
― Albert Einstein

“The job market, however, proved distressingly uncooperative. All of the local barista positions had been filled by more enterprising philosophy majors, and Arthur lacked the skills to do much beyond make a cup of coffee.”
― J. Zachary Pike, Death and Taxes

“I should say we’d reach England by Tuesday or thereabouts, with a decent wind behind us. It would be a lot quicker than that if we could just sail straight there, but I was looking at the nautical charts, and there’s a dirty great sea serpent right in the middle of the ocean! It has a horrible gaping maw and one of those scaly tails that looks like it could snap a boat clean in two. So I thought it best to sail around that.’

FitzRoy frowned. ‘I think they just draw those on maps to add a bit of decoration. It doesn’t actually mean there’s a sea serpent there.’

The galley went rather quiet. A few of the pirate crew stared intently out of the portholes, embarrassed at their Captain’s mistake. But to everyone’s relief, instead of running somebody through, the Pirate Captain just narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

That explains a lot,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s also why we’ve never glimpsed that giant compass in the corner of the Atlantic. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
― Plato

“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

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Suicide is the #1 killer of a person who is in a boat and happens to be passing under a bridge at the wrong time.”
― Demetri Martin, This Is a Book

“Dead kings were honored in the Six Kingdoms only insofar as they had the good sense to stop walking around above ground.”
― Robert Kroese, Disenchanted

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski

“The Contract had an air of esoteric mysticism when it covered topics related to the universe’s deepest secrets, yet it was gratuitously specific regarding the wrath of Thotash and the penalty for default. Huge swaths of the unholy text were dedicated to the terrors and woes that would fall upon those who failed to meet the Terms, including pestilences of the skin, debilitating afflictions of vital organs, nameless horrors from forgotten dimensions, and the “rain of teeth,” though whose teeth was uncertain. Article VIII, section 3, subsection B was particularly unsettling, assuming one had sufficient familiarity with anatomy to grasp it fully”
― J. Zachary Pike, The Cabal of Thotash

“I’m sure that creating the cosmos was a great deal of work, but it happened before I got here. I didn’t ask for it to be created, I wasn’t consulted on the specifics, and I don’t intend to pay for it.”
― Robert Kroese, Distopia

“For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“And as he drove on, the rainclouds dragged down the sky after him, for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists

“She still had all of her marbles, though every one of them was a bit odd and rolled asymmetrically. She”
― Ellen Klages, In the House of the Seven Librarians

“The Captain was wearing his best blousey shirt, his beard was gleaming in the early morning light and he’d polished all his gold teeth. As he strode manfully towards the shore, the only thing that could have make him look even more heroic that he already did would have been the theme to Flash Gordon playing in the background, but it was a hundred and seventy years too early for that.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure With Napoleon

“I am the Walrus, but not the one you're probably thinking of. I am the other Walrus, the one who is less the Walrus in the sense of legendary music and more the Walrus in the sense of his tendency to to lie around in places for too long.”
― Demetri Martin, This is a Book