John Scalzi

Quotes

1. “Speaking of secrets, how are your negotiations with the Obin going?”

   Both Mattson and Robbins looked at Szilard warily. “There are no negotiations with the Obin,” Robbins said.

   “Of course not,” Szilard said. “You’re not negotiating with the Obin to continue Boutin’s consciousness program for them. And the Obin are not negotiating with us to knock down whichever of the Rraey or Eneshans is still left standing after their upcoming little war. No one’s negotiating with anyone about anything. And how are these non-negotiations not going?”

   Robbins looked at Mattson, who nodded. “They’re not going surprisingly well,” Robbins said. “We probably won’t reach an agreement in the next couple of days.”

   “How not wonderful,” Szilard said.

   p. 335

2. 

   “You and I don’t actually need to be here for this,” I said to the goat. The goat didn’t respond, but I could tell she agreed with me.

   p. 8

3. 

   You are sufficiently like me to officially be interesting.

   p. 277

4. 

   Some people are just no good at not being in charge.

   p. 57

5. 

   When you control communication, you can hide anything you want.

   p. 97

6. 

   Harvey was not especially introspective, but this didn’t mean he was stupid. He was moral, within his lights; he understood the value of subtlety even if he wasn’t much for it himself, and one of the reasons he could get away with being loud and obnoxious was that he was a fair stick at strategy and logistics. Give him a job and he’d do it, usually in the most entropy-producing way possible, yes, but also in a way that achieved exactly the aim it was supposed to. One of Harvey’s guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down. When asked about it, Harvey called it his Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.

   p. 315

7. 

   Eight-year-olds can switch into acquisition mode pretty quickly.

   p. 53

8. 

   Rationality is not one of humanity’s strong points.

   p. 88

9. 

   '''No, it's not fair. You're in the wrong universe for fair.

   p. 238

10. 

    Those people you saw—the realborn—are born without a plan. They’re born because biology tells humans to make more humans; but it doesn’t consider what to do with them after that. Realborn go for years without the slightest clue what they’re going to do with themselves. From what I understand, some of them never actually figure it out. They just walk through life in a daze and then fall into their graves at the end of it. Sad. And inefficient.

    p. 86

11. 

    When power is within reach, few will wait patiently for it.

    p. 169

12. 

    “Harry!” Boutin said. “Nice guy. Didn’t know he was that smart. He hid it well.”

    p. 275