Matthew > Matthew's Quotes

“One should never mistake pattern … for meaning.”
― Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata

“Perdition awaits at the end of a road constructed entirely from good intentions, the devil emerges from the details and hell abides in the small print.”
― Iain M. Banks, Transition

“Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed," he said. "And I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same, and one of the reasons people become angry when they argue is that they realize just that, as they trot out their excuses."

"Excuses, eh?" Well, if this ain't cynicism, what is?" Erens snorted.

"Yes, excuses," he said, with what Erens thought might just have been a trace of bitterness. "I strongly suspect the things people believe in are usually just what they instinctively feel is right; the excuses, the justifications, the things you're supposed to argue about, come later. They're the least important part of the belief. That's why you can destroy them, win an argument, prove the other person wrong, and still they believe what they did in the first place." He looked at Erens. "You've attacked the wrong thing.”
― Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons

“Empathize with stupidity and you’re halfway to thinking like an idiot.”
― Iain M. Banks

“All you ever were was a little bit of the universe, thinking to itself. Very specific; this bit, here, right now.”
― Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail

“A guilty system recognizes no innocents.”
― Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games

“If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play

“Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?"
Mort thought for a moment.
"No," he said eventually, "what?"
There was silence.
Then Albert straightened up and said, "Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right.”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort

“In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.”
― Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

“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

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“A thousand years ago five minutes were
Equal to forty ounces of fine sand.
Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and
Infinite aftertime: above your head
They close like giant wings, and you are dead.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing. We take it for granted so simply that in a sense, by the very act of brutish routine acceptance, we undo the work of the ages, the history of the gradual elaboration of poetical description and construction, from the treeman to Browning, from the caveman to Keats. What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read? I wish you to gasp not only at what you read but at the miracle of its being readable.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“That's the thing about human life--there is no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed.”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibilty, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man with low intelligence.”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“Why am I always looking at life through a window?”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“Who's to say that my light is better than your darkness? Who's to say death is better than your darkness? Who am I to say?”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“you're never more alive than when you're almost dead.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end...”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

“How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.”
― Alexandre Dumas

“No utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End

“Now I understand,” said the last man.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End

“Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias—boredom.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End