Bryan Boulette > Bryan's Quotes

“Put 'em on and be yourself, mister alienated loner steppenwolf bemused distant meta-izing technocrat rationalist fucking shithead.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

“Too much talking these days. Talk talk talk. This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“The important thing to understand about American history, wrote Mr. Ibis, in his leather-bound journal, is that it is fictional, a charcoal-sketched simplicity for the children, or the easily bored.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Hey," said Shadow. "Huginn or Muninn, or whoever you are."
The bird turned, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and it stared at him with bright eyes.
"Say 'Nevermore,'" said Shadow.
"Fuck you," said the raven.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Samuel became even more interested in politics than his father had been, served the Republican Party tirelessly as a king-maker, caused that party to nominate men who would whirl like dervishes, bawl fluent Babylonian, and order the militia to fire into crowds whenever a poor man seemed on the point of suggesting that he and a Rosewater were equal in the eyes of the law.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“Samuel thundered that no American factory hand was worth more than eighty cents a day. And yet he could be thankful for the opportunity to pay a hundred thousand dollars or more for a painting by an Italian three centuries dead. And he capped this insult by giving paintings to museums for the spiritual elevation of the poor. The museums were closed on Sundays.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. Remember that, Sansa, when you come to play the game.”

“What . . . what game?”

“The only game. The game of thrones.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“You needed a new pancreas. The one we bought for you frees you from a dangerous dependency.” “Thanks, but I was enjoying that dependency.”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“True knights protect the weak.”

He snorted. “There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can’t protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don’t ever believe any different.”

Sansa backed away from him. “You’re awful.”

“I’m honest. It’s the world that’s awful.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“« … why is the world so full of pain and injustice ? »
« Because of men like you. »
« There are no ‘men like me’. There’s only me. »”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“Besides, interesting things happen along borders—transitions—not in the middle where everything is the same.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“You will come with us. We are at home with situations of legal ambiguity. The treaties under which our arm of the Registry operates grant us a great deal of flexibility. And we create flexibility, in situations where it is required.”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.”
― Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair

“Has everyone gone mad?”

“Everyone was mad already, my lady,” Cadrach said with a strange, sorrowful smile. “It is merely that the times have brought it out in them.”
― Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair

“Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess. Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.”
― Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell

“I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“I'm a cynical idealist.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“It is not life that's complicated, it's the struggle to guide and control life.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“There are certain things which are human nature," he asserted with an owl-like look, "which always have been and always will be, which can't be changed."

Amory looked from the small man to the big man helplessly. "Listen to that! That's what makes me discouraged with progress. Listen to that! I can name offhand over one hundred natural phenomena that have been changed by the will of man--a hundred instincts in man that have been wiped out or are now held in check by civilization. What this man here just said has been for thousands of years the last refuge of the associated mutton-heads of the world. It negates the efforts of every scientist, statesman, moralist, reformer, doctor, and philosopher that ever gave his life to humanity's service. It's a flat impeachment of all that's worth while in human nature. Every person over twenty-five years old who makes that statement in cold blood ought to be deprived of the franchise.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“He'd been an angel once. He hadn't meant to Fall. He'd just hung around with the wrong people.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Ghosts are nothing if not capricious.”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.”
― Bertrand Russell

“We thought we were special, opening our perceptions, honing our empathy, spilling that cauldron of shared pain onto the dance floor of language and then trying to make a minuet out of all that chaotic hurt. It doesn’t matter a damn bit. We’re no avatars, no sons of god or man. We’re only us, scribbling our conceits alone, reading alone, and dying alone.”
― Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion

“The problem with growing up is that once you're grown up, the people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“They say night's beauties fade at dawn, and the children of wine are oft disowned in the morning light.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“One day he reads his friend's novel and discovers that Ishmael's account and his own memories of what happened are completely different. So he writes his own version of the story. Call me Queequeg the story begins, and he titles it A Whale. From the harpooner's point of view, Ishmael was a pedantic scholar who blew things out of proportion. Moby Dick wasn't to blame, he was a whale like any other. It was all a matter of an incompetent captain wanting to settle a personal score instead of filling barrels with oil. "What does it matter who tore his leg off?" writes Queequeg.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Club Dumas

“And which devil do you prefer? Dante's?"

"No. Much too terrifying. Too medieval for my taste."

"Mephistopheles?"

"Not him, either. He's too pleased with himself. Too much a trickster, like a crooked lawyer ... Anyway, I never trust people who smile a lot."

"What about the one in The Karamazovs?"

"Petty. A civil servant with dirty nails. I suppose the devil I prefer is Milton's fallen angel.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Club Dumas

“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. And when I want to know something, I look it up in books--their memory never fails”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Club Dumas