John Scalzi: Trending quotes (page 2)

“You are sufficiently like me to officially be interesting.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 12 (p. 277)

“He’s almost certainly planned for the contingency of being caught. He’s rich and he’s got more lawyers than some countries have people.”

John Scalzi book Lock In

Source: Lock In (2014), Chapter 22 (p. 301)

People , Country

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

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 12 (p. 275)

Guy

“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.”

John Scalzi book Zoe's Tale

Source: Zoe's Tale (2008), Chapter 1 (pp. 27-28)

Life , People , Optimism , Thinking

““Every creature has fear,” Jared said. “Even the non-conscious ones.”
“No,” Boutin said. “Every creature has a survival instinct. It looks like fear but it’s not the same thing. Fear isn’t the desire to avoid death or pain. Fear is rooted in the knowledge that what you recognize as yourself can cease to exist. Fear is existential.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 13 (p. 286)

Death , Pain , Fear , Knowledge

“That’s physicists for you. Not exactly brimming over with poetry.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 12 (p. 271)

“You don’t win by getting through all your life not having done anything.”

John Scalzi book Redshirts

Coda II: Second Person (p. 292)
Redshirts (2012)

Life

““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.”

John Scalzi The Last Colony

Source: The Last Colony (2007), Chapter 1 (p. 8)

““I don’t know,” Davidson said. “Maybe it’s not about politics. Maybe these guys are just assholes.”
“Seems the simplest explanation,” I said.”

John Scalzi book Lock In

Source: Lock In (2014), Chapter 14 (p. 181)

Guy

“The failure mode of clever is “asshole.””

John Scalzi

The Failure Mode of Clever http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/06/16/the-failure-state-of-clever/

Failure

“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.”

John Scalzi The Last Colony

Source: The Last Colony (2007), Chapter 7 (p. 136)

““That’s a nice speech, Trujillo,” Rybicki said. “It doesn’t make it true.”
“General, at the moment, I wouldn’t place you as an authority on truth.””

John Scalzi The Last Colony

Source: The Last Colony (2007), Chapter 14 (p. 274)

Truth

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

John Scalzi book Zoe's Tale

Source: Zoe's Tale (2008), Chapter 7 (p. 76)

Life , Thinking

““Obviously, the Rraey have some way to predict, with a high degree of accuracy, where our ships are going to skip. How do they do that?”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to,” I said.
“That’s exactly right. But they do anyway. So, quite obviously, our model of how skipping works is wrong. Theory gets thrown out the window when observation proves it isn’t so. The question now is what is really going on.””

John Scalzi

Source: Old Man’s War (2005), Chapter 13 (p. 224)

Way , Question , Thinking

“In this universe, experience counts.”

John Scalzi

Source: Old Man’s War (2005), Chapter 8 (p. 142)

Universe

“The recruit was Sam McCain; in one of our lunch sessions I recalled Sarah O’Connell describing him as more mouth than brain. Unsurprisingly, he’d been in sales most of his life.”

John Scalzi

Source: Old Man’s War (2005), Chapter 8 (p. 136)

Life

“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.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 5 (p. 86)

Life , People , Sadness , Understanding

“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.”

John Scalzi book Zoe's Tale

Source: Zoe's Tale (2008), Chapter 21 (p. 302)

Hope , Way

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

John Scalzi The Last Colony

Source: The Last Colony (2007), Chapter 15 (p. 306)

“You are better at small talk than I am. That is not always a compliment.”

John Scalzi book Lock In

Source: Lock In (2014), Chapter 22 (p. 296)