“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.”
“He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.”
“Maybe I’ll post a consumer review. “Brought product to surface of Mars. It stopped working. 0/10.”
“I guess you could call it a "failure", but I prefer the term "learning experience".”
“I can't wait till I have grandchildren. When I was younger, I had to walk to the rim of a crater. Uphill! In an EVA suit! On Mars, ya little shit! Ya hear me? Mars!”
“If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do.”
“I started the day with some nothin’ tea. Nothin’ tea is easy to make. First, get some hot water, then add nothin’.”
“Also, I have duct tape. Ordinary duct tape, like you buy at a hardware store. Turns out even NASA can’t improve on duct tape.”
“As with most of life's problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation.”
“Actually, I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be “in command” if I were the only remaining person.”
What do you know? I’m in command”
“LOG ENTRY: SOL 381 I’ve been thinking about laws on Mars.
Yeah, I know, it’s a stupid thing to think about, but I have a lot of free time.
There’s an international treaty saying no country can lay claim to anything that’s not on Earth. And by another treaty, if you’re not in any country’s territory, maritime law applies.
So Mars is “international waters.”
NASA is an American nonmilitary organization, and it owns the Hab. So while I’m in the Hab, American law applies. As soon as I step outside, I’m in international waters. Then when I get in the rover, I’m back to American law.
Here’s the cool part: I will eventually go to Schiaparelli and commandeer the Ares 4 lander. Nobody explicitly gave me permission to do this, and they can’t until I’m aboard Ares 4 and operating the comm system. After I board Ares 4, before talking to NASA, I will take control of a craft in international waters without permission.
That makes me a pirate!
A space pirate!”
“It’s true, you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl.”
“Me: “This is obviously a clog. How about I take it apart and check the internal tubing?” NASA: (after five hours of deliberation) “No. You’ll fuck it up and die.” So I took it apart.”
“Problem is (follow me closely here, the science is pretty complicated), if I cut a hole in the Hab, the air won't stay inside anymore.”
“They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially ‘colonised’ it. So technically, I colonised Mars.
In your face, Neil Armstrong!”
“If ruining the only religious icon I have leaves me vulnerable to Martian vampires, I'll have to risk it.”
“WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! -> (.Y.).”
“The screen went black before I was out of the airlock. Turns out the “L” in “LCD” stands for “Liquid.” I guess it either froze or boiled off. Maybe I’ll post a consumer review. “Brought product to surface of Mars. It stopped working. 0/10.”
“I'm calling it the Watney Triangle because after what I've been through, shit on Mars should be named after me.”
“Everything went great right up to the explosion.”
“[11:49] JPL: What we can see of your planned cut looks good. We’re assuming the other side is identical. You’re cleared to start drilling. [12:07] Watney: That’s what she said. [12:25] JPL: Seriously, Mark? Seriously?”
“My asshole is doing as much to keep me alive as my brain.”
“I admit it’s fatally dangerous,” Watney said. “But consider this: I’d get to fly around like Iron Man.” “We’ll keep working on ideas,” Lewis said. “Iron Man, Commander. Iron Man.”
“But really, they did it because every human being has a basic instinct to help each other out. It might not seem that way sometimes, but it’s true.”
“Just three words? Nothing about his physical health? His equipment? His supplies?'
'You got me,' she said. 'He left a detailed status report. I just decided to lie for no reason.'
'Funny,' Venkat said. 'Be a smart-ass to a guy seven levels above you at your company. See how that works out.'
'Oh no,' Mindy said. 'I might lose my job as an interplanetary voyeur? I guess I'd have to use my master's degree for something else.'
'I remember when you were shy.'
'I'm space paparazzi now. The attitude comes with the job.”
“Live Another Sol would be an awesome name for a James Bond movie.”
“I need to ask myself, 'What would an Apollo astronaut do?' He'd drink three whiskey sours, drive his Corvette to the launchpad, then fly to the moon in a command module smaller than my Rover. Man those guys were cool.”
“You know what? "Kilowatt-hour per sol" is a pain in the ass to say. I'm gonna invent a new scientific unit name. One kilowatt-hour per sol is... it can be anything... um... I suck at this... I'll call it a "pirate-ninja".”
“Once I got home, I sulked for a while. All my brilliant plans foiled by thermodynamics. Damn you, Entropy!”
“Gay probe coming to save me. Got it.”
“Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.”
“I would carry some of it if I could, Bean said silently. Like I did today, you can turn it over to me and I’ll do it, if I can. You don’t have to do this alone.
Only even as he thought this, Bean knew it wasn’t true. If it could be done, Ender was the one who would have to do it. All those months when Bean refused to see Ender, hid from him, it was because he couldn’t bear to face the fact that Ender was what Bean only wished to be — the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you.
I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.”
“What in hell is that?”
She kept going toward the bathroom, refusing to apologize or look down at the pink, delicate, very
short lace nightgown. When she emerged, face washed and clean, Rowan was sitting up, arms crossed
over his bare chest. “You forgot the bottom part.”
She merely blew out the candles in the room one by one. His eyes tracked her the entire time.
“There is no bottom part,” she said, flinging back the covers on her side. “It’s starting to get so hot,
and I hate sweating when I sleep. Plus, you’re practically a furnace. So it’s either this or I sleep
naked. You can sleep in the bathtub if you have a problem with it.”
“So, what, you got cigarette burns, too?" Gitanes said.
Chip showed his palm, "It's nothing."
"Self-inflicted. You pathetic American."
"Different kind of prison" Chip said.”
“Never forget you are a miracle”
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