John Scalzi

Quotes

1. “I don’t appreciate the suggestion that I’m acting irrationally,” he said.

   “Then don’t act irrationally,” Jane said, “because there will be consequences.”

   p. 136

2. 

   Imagine if every species named itself after its greatest flaw. We could name our species arrogance.

   p. 288

3. 

   I guess I was just hoping there might be a way to do things other than the way that ends up with everyone getting killed.

   p. 302

4. 

   Sometimes I don’t know if my life is complicated, or if it’s that I just think too much about things.

   p. 76

5. 

   “This is Major Perry’s house?”

   “I hope so,” I said. “All his stuff is here.”

   p. 23

6. 

   When you’re a kid, a rural, agriculturally-based colony town is a lot of fun to grow up in. It’s life on a farm, with goats and chickens and fields of wheat and sorghum, harvest celebrations and winter festivals. There’s not an eight- or nine-year-old kid who’s been invented who doesn’t find all of that unspeakably fun. But then you become a teenager and you start thinking about everything you might possibly want to do with your life, and you look at the options available to you. And then all farms, goats and chickens—and all the same people you’ve known all your life and will know all your life—begin to look a little less than optimal for a total life experience. It’s all the same, of course. That’s the point. It’s you who’s changed.

   p. 27

7. 

   “I don’t think it would actually make you happier to be told you were right about this,” he said finally.

   “I don’t want to be happy,” Dahl said. “I just want to know.”

   p. 229

8. 

   “Look,” I said. “Something that needs your attention. Over there. Away from here.”

   p. 306

9. 

   Who are you and what medications aren’t you taking?

   p. 49

10. 

    She was temptable—which, if you believe in an all-powerful God, means God intentionally put temptation into Eve. Which seems like a dirty trick, if you ask me.

    p. 288

11. 

    Teenagers can be idiotic and stupid, but teenagers also model their behavior from the signals they get from adults.

    p. 72

12. 

    “I have no idea what that means, Nick,” Paulson said. “Talk normal human to me.”

    p. 200