Quotes from The Android's Dream

“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

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Popular quotes

“What’s a Mennonite?” Vance asked. “Amish with blenders.”
― Christopher Moore, quote from The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

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― Brenna Yovanoff, quote from The Replacement

“Hell’s waking up every goddamn day and not even knowing why you’re here.”
― Frank Miller, quote from Sin City, Vol. 1: The Hard Goodbye

“A true scientist is bored by knowledge; it is the assault on ignorance that motivates him - the mysteries that previous discoveries have revealed.”
― Matt Ridley, quote from Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

“Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy, or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness—even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile—reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined—those dead, those living, those generations yet to come—that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength—to the very survival of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from From the Corner of His Eye

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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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.