Zevombat > Zevombat's Quotes

“Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“The safest course was actually the simplest-do nothing at all and hope everything turned out for the best. It wasn't a great plan, but it had the benefits of simplicity and a long tradition. ”
― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey

“For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.”
― Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

“Yes, and imagine a world where there were no hypothetical situations.”
― Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels

“Humpty had always sat on walls, it was his way.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Big Over Easy

“He spent his life immersed in books to the cost of everything else, even personal relationships. "Friends," he'd once said, "are probably great, but I have forty thousands friends of my own already, and each of them needs my attention.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died a Lot

“Pretty?' I said, swivelling in the driver's seat to face him, 'you want to ask me out because I'm pretty?' 'Is there a problem with asking you out because you're pretty?' 'I think you blew it,' said Tiger with a grin. 'You should be asking her out because she's smart, witty, mature beyond her years and every moment in her company makes you want to be a better person - pretty of face should be at the bottom of the list.' 'Oh, blast,' said Perkins despondently. 'It should, shouldn't it?”
― Jasper Fforde, The Song of the Quarkbeast

“We try to make art perfect because we never manage it in real life”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“Humans are the most gloriously bizarre creatures.”
― Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

“Well, each interpretation of an event, setting or character is unique to each of those who read it because they clothe the author's description with the memory of their own experiences. Every character they read is actually a complex amalgam of people they've met, read or seen before - far more real than it can ever be just from the text on the page. Because every reader's experiences are different, each book is unique for each reader.”
― Jasper Fforde

“Although helpful, a disembodied hand on the Bugatti’s steering wheel was a bit creepy, especially because this one was hairy and had No More Pies tattooed on the back.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eye of Zoltar

“If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“There is an old and very wise Native American saying: Every time you point a finger in scorn—there are three remaining fingers pointing right back at you.”
― Alyson Noel, Fated

“Utopias are boring. Distopias on the other hand, are interesting.”
― Robert Silverberg

“My temperament is not inclined toward more self-promotion than is absolutely necessary for my professional well-being.”
― Robert Silverberg

“There are true unseen forces, but not nearly so many as we believe, nor would they rule us so sternly if we did not admit them to our souls. We would not be assailed half so often by devils, had we not taken the trouble to invent so many of them.”
― Robert Silverberg, Lord of Darkness

“History could be as arbitrary as poetry, he told himself: what is history, other than a matter of choice, the picking and choosing of certain facts out of a multitude to elicit a meaningful pattern, which was not necessarily the true one? The act of selecting facts, by definition, inherently involved discarding facts as well, often the ones most inconvenient to the pattern that the historian was trying to reveal. Truth thus became an abstract concept: three different historians, working with the same set of data, might easily come up with three different "truths." Whereas myth digs deep into the fundamental reality of the spirit, into that infinite well that is the shared consciousness of the entire race, reaching the levels where truth is not an optional matter, but the inescapable foundation of all else. In that sense myth could be truer than history.”
― Robert Silverberg

“The physical distress was over, but something else still remained, some sort of free-floating disquiet, at first hard to comprehend, but which he came quickly to understand for what it was: the splendor of the tunnels had kindled in him at first a sense of admiration verging on awe, but that had gone moving swiftly onward through his soul to become a crushing, devastating sensation of personal inadequacy.”
― Robert Silverberg

“The main thing about aliens is that they are alien. They feel no responsibility for fulfilling any of your expectations. (Dark City Lights)”
― Robert Silverberg

“Earth fell,” said the Surgeon, “because the Will required us to atone for the sin our ancestors committed when they treated your ancestors like beasts. The quality of our poetry had nothing to do with it.”
― Robert Silverberg, Nightwings

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
― Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
― Robert Heinlein

“Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Belief gets in the way of learning.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Does history record any case in which the majority was right?”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Butterflies are not insects,' Captain John Sterling said soberly. 'They are self-propelled flowers.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

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