Deus Ex Machina Quotes

“...This particular blunder is known as deus ex machina, which is French for "Are you fucking kidding me?”
― Howard Mittelmark, How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

“At a certain point, we have to stop ‘play time,’ start ‘construction time’ and get things going, instead of getting mired down in the quicksand of wishful thinking, clutching desperately to imaginary ‘dei ex machina.’ (" Swim or sink")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“A deus ex machina will never appear in real life so you best make other arrangements.”
― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics

“...This type of ending is a special instance of deus ex machina, known as the folie adieu, which is French for "Are you FUCKING kidding me?”
― Howard Mittelmark, How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

“Deus ex machina not only erases all meaning and emotion, it's an insult to the audience. Each of us knows we must choose and act, for better or worse, to determine the meaning of our lives...Deus ex machina is an insult because it is a lie.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“I am not a fan of the magical quick fix in any fiction, including fantasy, scifi and comic books. Unless Dr. Who is involved, and then only because we get to use the phrase 'Timey-wimey wibbliness' which, I'm sure you'll agree, there are not enough occasions to drop into ordinary adult conversation.”
― Chris Dee

“Let us end this farce, observer! Give me your final, most beloved act of "will"... The one you most wish to believe was your own idea!
"My own... will... I... I believe that this love for Yukiteru-kun... is real!”
― Sakae Esuno

“Here's my watch. If I wind it, it marks time. It exists. It is alive. If the spring breaks, it stops. It no longer marks the hour. It is dead. Time does not exist for it. Same with you, when your main spring is gone.”
― Guy Endore, The Werewolf of Paris

“I like it. A Silicon Valley ghost story.”
― William Gibson, Agency

“The Christian God came, not as a deus
ex machina to set everything externally in order,
but as the Son of Man in order interiorly to share
in the passion of mankind. And this, too, is precisely the task of the Christian: to share in the
passion of mankind from within, to extend the
sphere of human being so that it will find room
for the presence of God.”
― Pope Benedict XVI

“The new non-Dionysiac spirit is most clearly apparent in the endings of the new dramas. At the end of the old tragedies there was a sense of metaphysical conciliation without which it is impossible to imagine our taking delight in tragedy; perhaps the conciliatory tones from another world echo most purely in Oedipus at Colonus. Now, once tragedy had lost the genius of music, tragedy in the strictest sense was dead: for where was that metaphysical consolation now to be found? Hence an earthly resolution for tragic dissonance was sought; the hero, having been adequately tormented by fate, won his well-earned reward in a stately marriage and tokens of divine honour. The hero had become a gladiator, granted freedom once he had been satisfactorily flayed and scarred. Metaphysical consolation had been ousted by the deus ex machina.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy