Bernt Ivar > Bernt's Quotes

“Try everything once, except folk dancing and incest.”
― Sir Thomas Beecham

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“He had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his method of “Zen” navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Why are they going to disappear him?'
I don't know.'
It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."

"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
― William James

“I will assume for the present---until next year---that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.”
― William James

“stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“If he was indeed mad, his delusions were beautifully organized.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“But he knew well enough that any man in the right circumstances could be dehumanised by panic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“He was prepared, he thought, for any wonder. The only thing he had never expected was the utterly commonplace.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“His nostrils were permanently flared, as though he sniffed invisible winds of art and commerce.”
― William Gibson, Count Zero

“Very well, you possess free will; but now you must use your free will to enslave yourself to God and to us.”
― Robert Sheckley, Dimension of Miracles

“There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“The crowd, having been promised nothing, felt cheated, having received nothing.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“Once upon a time on Tralfamadore there were creatures who weren’t anything like machines. They weren’t dependable. They weren’t efficient. They weren’t predictable. They weren’t durable. And these poor creatures were obsessed by the idea that everything that existed had to have a purpose, and that some purposes were higher than others. These creatures spent most of their time trying to find out what their purpose was. And every time they found out what seemed to be a purpose of themselves, the purpose seemed so low that the creatures were filled with disgust and shame. And, rather than serve such a low purpose, the creatures would make a machine to serve it. This left the creatures free to serve higher purposes. But whenever they found a higher purpose, the purpose still wasn’t high enough. So machines were made to serve higher purposes, too. And the machines did everything so expertly that they were finally given the job of finding out what the highest purpose of the creatures could be. The machines reported in all honesty that the creatures couldn’t really be said to have any purpose at all. The creatures thereupon began slaying each other, because they hated purposeless things above all else. And they discovered that they weren’t even very good at slaying. So they turned that job over to the machines, too. And the machines finished up the job in less time than it takes to say, “Tralfamadore.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“a man is not his body, for he receives his body accidentally. He is not his skills, for those are frequently born of necessity. He is not his talents, which are produced by heredity and by early environmental factors. He is not the sicknesses to which he may be predisposed, and he is not the environment that shapes him. A man contains all these things, but he is greater than their total.”
― Robert Sheckley, Immortality Inc.

“Action isn’t my forte. I’m an expert on contemplation and mild regret.”
― Robert Sheckley, Immortality, Inc.