Quotes from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“We've already established whoever is writing us is an asshole.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“I don't care whether I really exist or don't, whether I'm real or fictional. What I want right now is to be the person who decides my own fate.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug," Cassaway said, dryly.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Who are you and what medications aren't you taking?" Finn said.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Sooner or later the Narrative will come for each of us.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“But define 'completely ridiculous shit,'" Duvall said. "Does space travel count? Contact with alien races? Does quantum physics count? Because I don't understand that crap at all. As far as I'm concerned, quantum physics could have been written by a hack.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“I thought I saw him once, but it turned out to be a yeti”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Jesus," Kerensky said, looking around. "You people. I have one of the most incredible experiences I'll ever have, talking with the one person who really gets me - who really understands me - and you're all down here thinking I'm performing some sort of time-travelling incestuous masturbation thing.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“You’ll notice that the Intrepid’s inertial dampeners don’t work as well in crisis situations, Dahl remembered Jenkins telling them. The ship could do hairpin turns and loop-de-loops any other time and you’d never notice. But whenever there’s a dramatic event, there goes your footing.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“For all we know, this”—he scrolled up on the phone screen to find a label—“this Wikipedia information database here is compiled by complete idiots.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Is it a shark made of ice?" Hanoen asked. "Or a shark that lives in ice?”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Is it good? It ain't Shakespeare, but then, Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus, so you tell me.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“My characters were...rebelling against something...My own bad writing. I wouldn't do for my characters what they needed for me to do - be courageous enough in my writing to make them interesting.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Ensign Davis thought, Screw this, I want to live, and swerved to avoid the land worms. But then he tripped and one of the land worms ate his face and he died anyway.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Other science fiction shows had science advisers and consultants," Hanson pointed out.

"It's science fiction, " Weinstein said. "The second part of that phrase matters too."

"But you're making it bad science fiction," Hester said. "And we have to live in it.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Whether you're an extra or the hero, this story is about to end. When it's done, whatever you want to be will be up to you and only you. It will happen away from the eyes of any audience and from the hand of any writer. You will be your own man.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Q’eeng had just attempted in the third dialect the traditional rightward schism greeting of “I offer you the bread of life,” but his phrasing and accent had transmuted the statement into “Let us violate cakes together.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Filled with existential ennui about your place in the universe? Get over yourself. Yes, you're an inconsequential worm in the grand scope of history. But you're an inconsequential worm who makes shit up for a living, which means that you don't have to lift heavy boxes or ask people if they want fries with that. Grow up and get back to work.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Well, that's science fiction television for you, though," Abnett said. "Someone's got to be the red shirt.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“I mean that you and I know that in this universe, God is a hack," he said. "He's a writer on an awful science fiction television show, and He can't plot His way out of a box. How do you have faith when you know that?”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“In one hand I have a restraining order, and in the other I have a Taser. Which would you like to meet first?”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Okay, that's intensely interesting," Duvall said. "So you're a priest of the Forshan religion? Which schism?"
"The leftward schism, and no, not a priest."
"Couldn't handle the celibacy?"
"Leftward priests aren't required to be celibate," Dahl said, "but considering I was the only human at the seminary, I had celibacy thrust upon me, if you will."
"Some people wouldn't let that stop them," Duvall said.
"You haven't seen a Forshan seminary student up close," Dahl said. "Also, I don't swing xeno.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“If knew you were going to drug me, kidnap me, and take me back to the dark ages with out my pants, I never would have slept with you.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“When I was twelve, my appendix burst, and as they were wheeling my ass into the operating room, I asked the doctor, “How will this affect my piano playing?” and he said, “Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to play the piano,” and I said, “Wow! I wasn’t able to before!” And then they gassed me.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Yes, death by away team. Very effective on this ship,” Jenkins said.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“Hide’ isn’t a word we like to use," Cassaway said. "‘Perform alternative tasks’ is the preferred term.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“I don't think food safety laws are going to protect you from a third carnitas burrito," Hanson said. "That's not about food safety. It's about pork fat overload.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“God is a hack,” he said. “He’s a writer on an awful science fiction television show, and He can’t plot His way out of a box. How do you have faith when you know that?”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“I don’t care whether I really exist or don’t, whether I’m real or fictional. What I want right now is to be the person who decides my own fate. That’s something I can work on. It’s what I’m working on now.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

“A fourth part of his brain was saying, This is the part where you run and scream a lot. He was listening to the fourth part.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas

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Popular quotes

“It's not so much that I like him as a person God, but as a boy he's very handsome.”
― Judy Blume, quote from Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
― Henry David Thoreau, quote from Walden

“A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other.  I have marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection.  So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us .”
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“Fighting and scars are part of a trader's overhead. But fighting is only useful when there's money at the end, and if I can get it without, so much the sweeter.”
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“Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace. They are fortunate beings. They do not need to apprehend the significance of things. They do not grow weary nor miss step, nor do they fall out of rank and sink by the wayside to be left contemplating the moving procession.
Ah! that moving procession that has left me by the road-side! Its fantastic colors are more brilliant and beautiful than the sun on the undulating waters. What matter if souls and bodies are failing beneath the feet of the ever-pressing multitude! It moves with the majestic rhythm of the spheres. Its discordant clashes sweep upward in one harmonious tone that blends with the music of other worlds--to complete God's orchestra.

It is greater than the stars--that moving procession of human energy; greater than the palpitating earth and the things growing thereon. Oh! I could weep at being left by the wayside; left with the grass and the clouds and a few dumb animals. True, I feel at home in the society of these symbols of life's immutability. In the procession I should feel the crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath. I could not hear the rhythm of the march.

Salve! ye dumb hearts. Let us be still and wait by the roadside.”
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