“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
John Scalzi
Born place: in The United States
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“Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.
First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.
Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.
Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.
Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, quote from The Name of the Wind
“Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names.”
― Umberto Eco, quote from The Name of the Rose
“She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, quote from The Scarlet Letter
“You possess other people's...bodies."
He accepted that statement with a nod.
"Do you want to possess my body?"
"I want to do a lot of things to your body, but that's not one of them.”
― Becca Fitzpatrick, quote from Hush, Hush
“It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Five People You Meet in Heaven
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