Book Quotes

Occasionally, while reading, you come across a profound sentence you simply need to share. Well, here goes …

China Miéville said:

As an immerser I progressed to the ranks I aspired to—those that granted me a certain cachet and income while keeping me from fundamental responsibilities. This is what I excelled at: the life-technique of aggregated skill, luck, laziness and chutzpah that we call floaking.

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Vernor Vinge said:

Half-assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to the beginning of the human experience.

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And one I liked for it's simplicity, a trait that make the Earthsea books so fascinating.

Ursula K. LeGuin said:

“What are dragons?”
“Great creatures,” Tenar said, “like lizards, but longer than a ship—bigger than a house. With wings, like birds. They breathe out fire.”

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Nice thread Arhu.I wish I could remember quotes from book but I usually forgot all of them few weeks after I finished book.

“Don't Panic.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

One I always found inspiring -

"Creation is an act of sheer will."
- John Hammond in Jurassic Park

Now granted his creations were alive and people, but I like th meaning nonetheless!

I been looking through my discworld collection and I remembered some of my favorite quotes.

"Today the city, tomorrow the world. Tomorrow the world, and - " he calculated quickly, "on Friday the universe! Good, that leaves the weekend free..."Sourcery

"Today Is A Good Day For Someone Else To Die!" feet of clay

"multiple exclamation marks are the sign of a diseased mind" Eric

"Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned." Small gods

I really like this thread I am sorry it isn't more popular.So I am going to ressurect it with some First law quotes:

have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.

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Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose

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Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes

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Sometimes it doesn't matter too much what choice you make, as long as you make it quick and stick to it.

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Chose? If you believe that I chose any part of the pitiful shadow of a life you see before you, you are very much mistaken. I chose glory and success. The box did not contain what was written on the lid.

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Muhammad (PBUH) is not the father of any man among you, but He is Messenger of Allah and the last of the Prophets. And Allah is Ever All Aware of everything.

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And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing…
but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun

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From the best book ever written.

Digger Nick said:

From the best book ever written.

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Who (actually) wrote it?

Regarding the 2nd quote, what is its context?

Pioneer of computing Ada Lovelace, from a collection of her private letters, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers:

I am more than ever now the bride of science. Religion to me is science, and science is religion. In that deeply-felt truth lies the secret of my intense devotion to the reading of God’s natural works…

And when I behold the scientific and so-called philosophers full of selfish feelings, and of a tendency to war against circumstances and Providence, I say to myself: They are not true priests, they are but half prophets — if not absolutely false ones. They have read the great page simply with the physical eye, and with none of the spirit within.

The intellectual, the moral, the religious seem to me all naturally bound up and interlinked together in one great and harmonious whole… There is too much tendency to making separate and independent bundles of both the physical and the moral facts of the universe.

Whereas, all and everything is naturally related and interconnected. A volume could I write on this subject…

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Laws of Thermodynamics
1. You cannot win.
2. You cannot break even.
3. You cannot stop playing the game.
—- My university physics book, unattributed quote (maybe the authors made it up?)

"If you think you've gotten a good deal from a Deveel, first count your fingers, then your limbs, then your relatives."
— Asprin's Myth books (which have quite a few great quotes in their chapter headers)

"To me truth is precious…I should rather be right and stand alone than to run with the multitude and be wrong…. The holding of the views herein set forth has already won for me the scorn and contempt and ridicule of some of my fellowmen. I am looked upon as being odd, strange, peculiar…. But truth is truth and though all the world reject it and turn against me, I will cling to truth still."
— Some great thinker defending an unpopular truth?
— Nope! Charles Silvester de Ford, trying to prove the earth is flat.

"And further back, way back: my 1st grade teacher writing FNORD on the blackboard, while a wheel with a spiral design turned and turned on his desk, turned and turned, and his voice droned on, IF YOU DON'T SEE THE FNORD IT CAN'T EAT YOU, DON'T SEE THE FNORD, DON'T SEE THE FNORD…"
— The Illuminati books

"…the Law [of Fives] is: All phenomena are directly or indirectly related to the number five, and this relationship can always be demonstrated, given enough ingenuity on the part of the demonstrator."
—- Hagbard Celine in the Illuminati books

Stay Alert
Trust No One
Keep Your Laser Handy
—- The Paranoia rulebooks

"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross, but it's not for the timid."
—- Q in Star Trek: Next Generation, which I'm sure got novelized at some point <ahem>

"Sometimes knowing gives no advantage whatsoever. Sometimes it only means sharing the danger."
— Siuan Sanche in Jordan's _Wheel of Time_

And, as long as we're into holy books…

The Heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
— Psalm 19:1-4

“In the dark that followed - Lucy said; "where I was born, the trees were always in the sun. And I left that place because it was intolerant of rain. Now, we are here in a place where there are no trees and there is only rain. And I intend to leave this place - because it is intolerant of light. Somewhere - there must be somewhere where darkness and light are reconciled. So I am starting a rumour, here and now, of yet another world. I don't know when it will present itself - I don't know where it will be. But - as with all those other worlds now past when it is ready, I intend to go there.”
― Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage

“...with every new manoeuvre, the light was growing dimmer--fading by numbers as well as strength--and the sound could no longer be heard, but only the pulse of it--seen going out in the darkness--losing its edges--caving in at its centre--webbing, now, as if a spider was spinning against the rain--until the last few strands of brightness fell--and were extinguished--silenced and removed from life and from all that lives forever.
And the bell tolled--but the ark, as ever, was adamant. Its shape had taken on a voice. And the voice said: no.”
― Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage

“Complaints about reality are immature.”
― Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage

Still waiting to read this one but the Polish to English will be out in 2015. Here is the write doing a short clip from the book. There are five more clips he did to promote the book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6QYPL4BagE

Andrzej Sapkowski said:

[Geralt, taking a bath 'Bloody hell, Yen, that’s cold. Can’t you heat the water?'
[Yennefer 'No, [..] the cold will do you good after the elixirs.'
Geralt did not argue. There was absolutely no point arguing with Yennefer.

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Lots of wisdom in the last line. The German translation left out the word "absolutely", which made for a nice understatement. Don't know how it's in the original though.