“Dirk Moeller didn’t know if he could fart his way into a major diplomatic incident. But he was ready to find out.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“You have to eliminate the low-hanging targets first, on the off chance you were dealing with morons.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Even then, retailers learned early that shoppers prefer their shopping suggestions not be too truthful. One of the great unwritten chapters of retail intelligence programming featured a “personal shopper” program that all-too-accurately modeled the shoppers’ desires and outputted purchase ideas based on what shoppers really wanted as opposed to what they wanted known that they wanted. This resulted in one overcompensatingly masculine test user receiving suggestions for an anal plug and a tribute art book for classic homoerotic artist Tom of Finland, while a female test user in the throes of a nasty divorce received suggestions for a small handgun, a portable bandsaw, and several gallons of an industrial solvent used to reduce organic matter to an easily drainable slurry.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“One of the great unwritten chapters of retail intelligence programming featured a “personal shopper” program that all-too-accurately modeled the shoppers’ desires and outputted purchase ideas based on what shoppers really wanted as opposed to what they wanted known that they wanted. This resulted in one overcompensatingly masculine test user receiving suggestions for an anal plug and a tribute art book for classic homoerotic artist Tom of Finland, while a female test user in the throes of a nasty divorce received suggestions for a small handgun, a portable bandsaw, and several gallons of an industrial solvent used to reduce organic matter to an easily drainable slurry. After history’s first recorded instance of a focus group riot, the personal shopper program was extensively rewritten.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Oh for God's sake how divine can I be? My feet hurt, I have gas and I need to pee.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“I have to tell him that the sheep we’re looking for is a woman who runs a pet store,” Creek said. “I think telling him his younger brother’s been resurrected as a computer program might be a little much for one day.” Archie”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“You’re all so busy tending to your own personal tree that you don’t look around to see that the forest is on fire.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I need to play Russian roulette with our planet’s future with the bullet you’ve so thoughtfully provided. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t see you out.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“In politics as in high school, who you are is to a large extent defined by who you sit with at lunch, and there was no doubt about it, the Earth was sitting at the loser table. It was not, Bob Pope thought, the true destiny of the Earth in our universe to be counted among the diplomatic equivalent of the acne-ridden and the furtively masturbating.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Nice is nice,” Hayter-Ross said. “But being a bitch gets results.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“You're insane!"
"Call me HAL and make me sing 'Daisy, Daisy'.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Moeller also immediately discounted insults about competence, as the incompetent never question their competence about anything.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Pope was aware there were other ways to get more diplomatic respect than bigger guns, of course. But while other diplomatic maneuvers sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, ultimately a big damn gun always commanded respect.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Well, let’s start with the big one,” Creek said. “You’re your own nation.” Robin considered that for a moment. “For your sake, that had better not be a comment about the size of my ass,” she said. The”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“If there’s one thing that distinguishes the human species, it is a pathological need to stay connected. The fact your people will interrupt sex to answer your communicators is a scandal across the entire Common Confederation.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Still, I’d like to know how you came up with that line of reasoning.” “You can thank a rabbi,” Javna said. “And a hot dog.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Well, isn’t that just like religion for you, Archie,” he said. “One day it’s a nice way to spend your weekends and the next you’re in the middle of a righteous theological clusterfuck.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Deception, as practically manifested, succeeds because of two things. First, the object of deception is convincingly deceptive in its design; i.e., it looks/feels/acts like the real thing. Second, and equally important, the subject of deception must be predisposed to believing that the object of deception is indeed the real thing. These two criteria work in an inverse relationship with each other; a sufficiently deceptive object can convince a skeptical subject, while a subject who sincerely wants to believe will be able to overlook even gross flaws in the object onto which he or she confers belief.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“But imagine you’re a tapeworm, and then suddenly you’re Goethe. It’s like that.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Did you know the guy?” Lopez asked. “Who was he?” “Harry Creek,” Creek said. “I knew him.” “Where is he now?” Lopez asked. “He became a shepherd,” Creek said. Gracie laughed. “You’re not serious,” he said. “Actually, I am,” Creek said. “And is he any good at it?” Gracie asked. “I don’t know,” Creek said, and glanced over at Robin. “You’d have to ask the sheep.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“The solution was stupidly simple, which is why no one bothered with it.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Then I saw Juli. She was two tables away from me, facing my direction. Only she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at Jon, her eyes all sparkly and laughing.
My heart lurched. What was she laughing about? What were they talking about? How could she sit there and look so... beautiful?
I felt myself spinning out of control. It was weird. Like I couldn't even steer my own body. I'd always thought Jon was pretty cool, but right then I wanted to go over and throw him across the room.”
― Wendelin Van Draanen, quote from Flipped
“Love did nothing but break down defenses, and I could not afford that.”
― Kiera Cass, quote from The Heir
“Nothing had changed. Their lives had been expended in the cheerless labor, their wills broken, their intelligences numbed. Now they were in the earth to which they had given their lives; and slowly, year by year, the earth would take them. Slowly the damp and rot woudl infest the pine boxes which held their bodies, and slowly it would touch their flesh and finally it would consume the last vestiges of their substances. And they would become a meaningless part of that stubborn earth to which they had long ago given themselves.”
― John Williams, quote from Stoner
“Richard knew, of course, that his was thought to be an unlucky title; only twice before had a Richard ruled England, and both met violent ends.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from The Sunne in Splendour
“You cannot control what you love--you watch it driving recklessly towards the broken bridge, the torn-up track, the horror of seventy years ahead.”
― Graham Greene, quote from The Power and the Glory
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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