Nathan > Nathan's Quotes

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money,
Love like you’ll never get hurt.
You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watchin’.”
― Richard Leigh, Come from the Heart Sheet Music

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”
― Norman Vincent Peale

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

And He went away.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”
― François Rabelais

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus

“Do you know a cure for me?"

"Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water."

"Salt water?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.”
― Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“Life is problems. Living is solving problems.”
― Raymond E. Feist, Silverthorn

“Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them to atrophy and decay. We all know individuals who did not fulfill the promise they showed in childhood. Many of them became haunted by the image of what they might have become. Instead of blaming fate, I think we should accept ourselves as we are and try to fulfill whatever dreams are within our capability.

Second, we should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it. As individuals, we can make a difference, whether it is to probe the secrets of Nature, to clean up the environment and work for peace and social justice, or to nurture the inquisitive, vibrant spirit of the young by being a mentor and a guide.”
― Michio Kaku

“Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons

“Don't be ashamed to weep; 'tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.”
― Brian Jacques, Taggerung

“Wot Wot”
― Brian Jacques, The Long Patrol

“Talk is cheap. Show me the code.”
― Linus Torvalds

“Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.”
― Linus Torvalds

“Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.”
― Linus Torvalds

“Only wimps use tape backup. REAL men just upload their important stuff on ftp and let the rest of the world mirror it.”
― Linus Torvalds

“I am not a visionary. I'm an engineer. I'm happy with the people who are wandering around looking at the stars but I am looking at the ground and I want to fix the pothole before I fall in.”
― Linus Torvalds

“I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.”
― Linus Torvalds

“A lot of people believe in working long days and doing dou­ble, triple, or even quadruple shifts. I'm not one of them. Neither Transmeta nor Linux has ever gotten in the way of a good night's sleep. In fact, if you want to know the honest truth, I'm a firm believer in sleep. Some people think that's just being lazy, but I want to throw my pillow at them. I have a perfectly good excuse, and I'm standing by it: You may lose a few hours of your produc­tive daytime if you sleep, oh, say, ten hours a day, but those few hours when you are awake you're alert, and your brain functions on all six cylinders. Or four, or whatever.”
― Linus Torvalds, Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary

“A turkey is fed for a thousand days by a butcher; every day confirms to its staff of analysts that butchers love turkeys “with increased statistical confidence.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

“If you can't put your soul into something, give it up and leave that stuff to someone else.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life