1 What I can't stand is the feeling that my brain is leaving me for
2 someone more interesting.
4 I leave the show floor, but not before a pack of caffeinated Jolt gum
5 is thrust at me by a hyperactive girl screaming, "Chew more! Do more!"
6 The American will to consume more and produce more personified in a
7 stick of gum. I grab it.
10 I never until now realized that the primary job of any emoticon is to
11 say "excuse me, that didn't make any sense." ;-P
14 Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien
15 a ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien a retrancher.
16 (Perfection is apparently not achieved when nothing more can be added,
17 but when nothing else can be removed.)
18 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupe'ry, Terres des Hommes
20 I'd sign up in a hot second for any cellular company whose motto was:
21 "We're less horrible than a root canal with a cold chisel."
24 She was alot like starbucks.
25 IE, generic and expensive.
26 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/001376.html
28 Tell me something interesting about yourself.
30 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/archives/batch20.php
32 We were at a chinese restaurant.
33 He was yelling at the waitress because there was a typo in his fortune
35 -- hugh http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000321.html
37 Three little words. (In order of importance.)
42 █████ -- hugh macleod "Three Words"
44 N: Why should I believe that?"
45 B: Because it's a fact."
47 B: F, A, C, T... fact"
48 N: So you're saying that I should believe it because it's true.
51 -- "Ploy" http://www.mediacampaign.org/multimedia/Ploy.MPG
53 UF: What's your favorite coffee blend?
54 PD: Dark Crude with heavy water. You are understandink? "If geiger
55 counter does not click, the coffee, she is just not thick."
57 "There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the
58 right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself."
61 Quite the contrary; they *love* collateral damage. If they can make
62 you miserable enough, maybe you'll stop using email entirely. Once
63 enough people do that, then there'll be no legitimate reason left for
64 anyone to run an SMTP server, and the spam problem will be solved.
65 -- Craig Dickson in <20020909231134.GA18917@linux700.localnet>
67 It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong
70 Filing a bug is probably not going to get it fixed any faster.
73 Build a fire for a man, an he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on
74 fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
77 Dropping non-free would set us back at least, what, 300 packages? It'd
78 take MONTHS to make up the difference, and meanwhile Debian users will
79 be fleeing to SLACKWARE.
81 And what about SHAREHOLDER VALUE?
82 -- Matt Zimmerman in <gYuD3D.A.ayC.nGB39@murphy>
84 You could say she lived on the edge... Well, maybe not exactly on the edge,
85 just close enough to watch other people fall off.
86 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000309.html
88 Guns Don't Kill People.
92 -- Maritza Campos http://www.crfh.net/d/20020601.html
94 "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
95 them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
96 where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
98 Miracles had become relative common-places since the advent of
99 entheogens; it now took very unusual circumstances to attract public
100 attention to sightings of supernatural entities. The latest miracle
101 had raised the ante on the supernatural: the Virgin Mary had
102 manifested herself to two children, a dog, and a Public Telepresence
104 -- Bruce Sterling, _Holy Fire_ p228
106 Junkies were all knitted together in a loose global macrame, the
107 intercontinental freemasonry of narcotics.
108 -- Bruce Sterling, _Holy Fire_ p257
110 America was far better suited to be the World's Movie Star. The
111 world's tequila-addled pro-league bowler. The world's acerbic bi-polar
112 stand-up comedian. Anything but a somber and tedious nation of
113 socially responsible centurions.
114 -- Bruce Sterling, _Distraction_ p122
116 The attackers hadn't simply robbed the bank. They had carried off
117 everything portable, including the security cameras, the carpets, the
118 chairs, and the light and plumbing fixtures. The conspirators had
119 deliberately punished the bank, for reasons best known to themselves,
120 or to their unknown controllers. They had superglued doors and
121 shattered windows, severed power and communications cables, poured
122 stinking toxins into the wallspaces, and concreted all of the sinks
123 and drains. In eight minutes, sixty people had ruined the building so
124 thoroughly that it had to be condemned and later demolished.
125 -- Bruce Sterling, _Distraction_ p4
127 Of course Pacman didn't influence us as kids. If it did, we'd be
128 running around in darkened rooms, popping pills and listening to
131 "It's not Hollywood. War is real, war is primarily not about defeat or
132 victory, it is about death. I've seen thousands and thousands of dead
133 bodies. Do you think I want to have an academic debate on this
137 THERE IS NO GRAVITY THE WORLD SUCKS
138 -- Vietnam War Penquin Lighter
139 http://gallery.donarmstrong.com/clippings/vietnam_there_is_no_gravity.jpg
141 Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
144 If you have the slightest bit of intellectual integrity you cannot
145 support the government. -- anonymous
147 Debian's not really about the users or the software at all. It's a
148 large flame-generating engine that the cabal uses to heat their coffee
149 -- Andrew Suffield (#debian-devel Fri, 14 Feb 2003 14:34 -0500)
151 "I was thinking seven figures," he said, "but I would have taken a
152 hundred grand. I'm not a greedy person." [All for a moldy bottle of
154 -- Sammi Hadzovic [in Andy Newman's 2003/02/14 NYT article.]
155 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/14/nyregion/14EYEB.html
157 [T]he question of whether Machines Can Think, [...] is about as
158 relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.
159 -- Edsger W. Dijkstra "The threats to computing science"
161 "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
162 We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
163 -- Jeremy S. Anderson
165 "A one-question geek test. If you get the joke, you're a geek: Seen on
166 a California license plate on a VW Beetle: 'FEATURE'..."
167 -- Joshua D. Wachs - Natural Intelligence, Inc.
169 "Ban cryptography! Yes. Let's also ban pencils, pens and paper, since
170 criminals can use them to draw plans of the joint they are casing or
171 even, god forbid, create one time pads to pass uncrackable codes to
172 each other. Ban open spaces since criminals could use them to converse
173 with each other out of earshot of the police. Let's ban flags since
174 they could be used to pass secret messages in semaphore. In fact let's
175 just ban all forms of verbal and non-verbal communication -- let's see
176 those criminals make plans now!"
178 "There's no problem so large it can't be solved by killing the user
179 off, deleting their files, closing their account and reporting their
180 REAL earnings to the IRS."
183 When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I
184 realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked
188 "People selling drug paraphernalia ... are as much a part of drug
189 trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide."
190 -- John Brown, DEA Chief
192 Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
196 If you wish to strive for peace of soul, then believe; if you wish to
197 be a devotee of truth, then inquire.
198 -- Friedrich Nietzsche
200 My spelling ability, or rather the lack thereof, is one of the wonders
203 Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars
204 has to be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost
205 anything. And if they can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into
206 the serial port and load up the HP-48 VT-100 emulator.
207 -- Jeff Dege, jdege@winternet.com
209 Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and
213 CNN/Reuters: News reports have filtered out early this morning that US
214 forces have swooped on an Iraqi Primary School and detained 6th Grade
215 teacher Mohammed Al-Hazar. Sources indicate that, when arrested,
216 Al-Hazar was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square and
217 a calculator. US President George W Bush argued that this was clear
218 and overwhelming evidence that Iraq indeed possessed weapons of math
221 I'd never hurt another living thing.
224 -- Chris Bishop http://www.chrisbishop.com/her/archives/her69.html
226 Our days are precious, but we gladly see them going
227 If in their place we find a thing more precious growing
228 A rare, exotic plant, our gardener's heart delighting
229 A child whom we are teaching, a booklet we are writing
230 -- Frederick Rükert _Wisdom of the Brahmans_
231 [Hermann Hesse _Glass Bead Game_]
233 Of course, there are cases where only a rare individual will have the
234 vision to perceive a system which governs many people's lives; a
235 system which had never before even been recognized as a system; then
236 such people often devote their lives to convincing other people that
237 the system really is there and that it aught to be exited from.
238 -- Douglas R. Hofstadter _Gödel Escher Bach. Eternal Golden Braid_
240 Fate and Temperament are two words for one and the same concept.
241 -- Novalis [Hermann Hesse _Demian_]
243 [Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause".]
244 I think they misspelled this. Shouldn't it be "Operation Just 'Cause"?
245 -- TekPolitik http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=59669&cid=5664907
247 Grimble left his mother in the food store and went to the launderette
248 and watched the clothes go round. It was a bit like color television
250 -- Clement Freud _Grimble_
252 There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good
253 sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
256 Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
257 signifies [...] a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those
258 who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending
259 money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of
260 its scientists, the hopes of its children. [...] This is not a way of
261 life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it
262 is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. [...] [I]s there no other
263 way the world may live?
264 -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
266 A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
267 won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
270 A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very
271 easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over
272 expenditures on armaments and military equipment. It pays without
273 discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the
274 syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors
275 are an abundant source of gain.
278 All bad precedents began as justifiable measures.
279 -- Gaius Julius Caesar in "The Conspiracy of Catiline" by Sallust
281 Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
284 Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for
288 I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like
289 to run their own business. I know men that would make my wife a
290 better husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to
292 -- The Best of Will Rogers
294 If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its
295 freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it
296 values more, it will lose that, too.
297 -- W. Somerset Maugham
299 Sentenced to two years hard labor (for sodomy), Oscar Wilde stood
300 handcuffed in driving rain waiting for transport to prison. "If this
301 is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners," he remarked, "she
302 doesn't deserve to have any."
304 The sheer ponderousness of the panel's opinion [...] refutes its
305 thesis far more convincingly than anything I might say. The panel's
306 labored effort to smother the Second Amendment by sheer body weight
307 has all the grace of a sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by
308 sitting on it---and is just as likely to succeed.
309 -- Alex Kozinski, Dissenting in Silveira v. Lockyer
310 (CV-00-00411-WBS p5983-4)
312 EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN
313 Don't be teased or humiliated. See their look of surprise when you
314 step right up to a urinal and use it with a smile. Get Dr. Mary Evers'
315 EQUAL-NOW Adapter (pat. appld. for) -- purse size, fool proof,
316 sanitary -- comes in nine lovely, feminine, psychedelic patterns --
317 requires no fitting, no prescriptions.
318 -- Robert A Heinlein _I Will Fear No Evil_ p470.
320 It has always been Debian's philosophy in the past to stick to what
321 makes sense, regardless of what crack the rest of the universe is
323 -- Andrew Suffield in 20030403211305.GD29698@doc.ic.ac.uk
325 If I had a letter, sealed it in a locked vault and hid the vault
326 somewhere in New York. Then told you to read the letter, thats not
327 security, thats obscurity. If I made a letter, sealed it in a vault,
328 gave you the blueprints of the vault, the combinations of 1000 other
329 vaults, access to the best lock smiths in the world, then told you to
330 read the letter, and you still can't, thats security.
333 Q: What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the
334 Experience of the Past Million Years?
336 -- Bokonon _The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon_ (Vonnegut _Cats Cradle_)
338 This can't be happening to me. I've got tenure.
339 -- James Hynes _Publish and Perish_
341 I now know how retro SCOs OSes are. Riotous, riotous stuff. How they
342 had the ya-yas to declare Linux an infant OS in need of their IP is
343 beyond me. Upcoming features? PAM. files larger than 2 gigs. NFS over
344 TCP. The 80's called, they want their features back.
345 -- Compactable Dave http://www3.sympatico.ca/dcarpeneto/sco.html
347 This message brought to you by weapons of mass destruction related
348 program activities, and the letter G.
350 Identical parts aren't.
353 Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
356 If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
359 The solution to a problem changes the problem.
362 There is no mechanical problem so difficult that it cannot be solved
363 by brute strength and ignorance.
366 More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads.
367 One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness.
368 The other, to total extinction.
369 Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
372 For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing
376 The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing
377 that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot
378 possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to
380 -- Douglas Adams _Mostly Harmless_
382 <Clint> why the hell does kernel-source-2.6.3 depend on xfree86-common?
383 <infinity> It... Doesn't?
386 "For those who understand, no explanation is necessary.
387 For those who do not, none is possible."
389 Frankly, if ignoring inane opinions and noisy people and not flaming
390 them to crisp is bad behavior, I have not yet achieved a state of
392 -- Manoj Srivastava in 87n04pzhmh.fsf@glaurung.internal.golden-gryphon.com
394 "Because," Fee-5 explained patiently, "I was born in the fifth row.
395 Any fool would understand that, but against stupidity the very Gods
396 themselves contend in vain."
397 -- Alfred Bester _The Computer Connection_ p19
399 Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves
400 exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves
401 only the unanimity of the graveyard.
402 -- Justice Roberts in 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
404 The beauty of the DRUNKENNESS subprogram was that you could move your
405 intoxication level up and down at will, instead of being caught on a
406 relentless down escalator to bargain basement philosophy and the
408 -- Rudy von Bitter _Software_ p124
410 The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one
411 day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and
412 that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.
413 -- Sir Karl Popper _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_ §11
415 [A] theory is falsifiable [(and therefore scientific) only] if the
416 class of its potential falsifiers is not empty.
417 -- Sir Karl Popper _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_ §21
419 I shall require that [a scientific system's] logical form shall be
420 such that it can be singled out, by means of empirical tests, in a
421 negative sense: it must be possible for an empirical scientific system
422 to be refuted by experience.
423 -- Sir Karl Popper _Logic of Scientific Discovery_ §6
425 It was said that life was cheap in Ankh-Morpork. This was, of course,
426 completely wrong. Life was often very expensive; you could get death
428 -- Terry Pratchet _Pyramids_ p25
430 "The trouble with you, Ibid" he said, "is that you think you're the
431 biggest bloody authority on everything"
432 -- Terry Pratchet _Pyramids_ p146
434 He was wrong. Nature abhors dimensional abnormalities, and seals them
435 neatly away so that they don't upset people. Nature, in fact, abhors a
436 lot of things, including vacuums, ships called the Marie Celeste, and
437 the chuck keys for electric drills.
438 -- Terry Pratchet _Pyramids_ p166
440 Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but
441 that's not why we do it.
444 Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you. If you don't
446 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p240
448 Cheop's Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
449 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p242
451 An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications.
452 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p244
454 Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
455 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p250
457 There is no such thing as "social gambling." Either you are there to
458 cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it--or you're a sucker. If you
459 don't like this choice--don't gamble.
460 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p250
462 Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.
463 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p251
465 In all matters of government, the correct answer is usually: "Do
467 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p428
469 Where I sleep at night, is this important compared to what I read
470 during the day? What do you think defines me? Where I slept or what I
472 -- Thomas Van Orden of Van Orden v. Perry
474 No amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free
475 [...] You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
476 -- Robert Heinlein _Revolt in 2010_ p54
478 "Facts" are the refuge of people unwilling to reassess what they hold
481 LEADERSHIP -- A form of self-preservation exhibited by people with
482 autodestructive imaginations in order to ensure that when it comes to
483 the crunch it'll be someone else's bones which go crack and not their
485 -- The HipCrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan
486 (John Brunner _Stand On Zanzibar_ p256-7)
488 "I'm a rational being--of a sort--rational enough, at least, to see the
489 symptoms of insanity around me. And I'm human, the same as the people
490 I think of as victims when my guard drops. It's at least possible I'm
491 even crazier than my fellows, whom I'm tempted to pity.
492 "There seems only one thing to do, and that's get drunk"
493 -- Chad C. Mulligan (John Brunner _Stand On Zanzibar_ p390)
495 "You have many years to live--do things you will be proud to remember
497 -- Shinka proverb. (John Brunner _Stand On Zanzibar_ p413)
499 If you find it impossible to believe that the universe didn't have a
500 creator, why don't you find it impossible that your creator didn't
502 -- Anonymous Coward http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=167556&cid=13970629
504 Information wants to be free to kill again.
505 -- Red Robot http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive.php?s=1372
507 NASCAR is a Yankee conspiracy to keep you all placated so the South
509 -- http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=327
511 Leukocyte... I am your father.
512 -- R. Stevens http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive.php?s=1546
514 S: Make me a sandwich
515 B: What? Make it yourself.
516 S: sudo make me a sandwich
518 -- xkcd http://xkcd.com/c149.html
520 We cast this message into the cosmos. [...] We are trying to survive
521 our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved
522 the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations.
523 This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill
524 in a vast and awesome universe.
525 -- Jimmy Carter on the Voyager Golden Record
527 Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, after they
528 have exhausted all other possibilities.
531 As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
532 instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly
533 unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware
534 of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting
535 victims of the darkness.
536 -- William O. Douglas
538 One day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven and almost went back
542 To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is
546 If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
550 I'm wrong to criticize the valor of your brave men. It's important to
551 die for one's country when it means being the subject of a king who
552 wears a ruffled collar or a pleated one.
553 -- Cyrano de Bergerac
555 Democracy is more dangerous than fire. Fire can't vote itself immune
557 -- Michael Z. Williamson
559 A Democracy lead by politicians and political parties, fails.
561 We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die
562 together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to
563 live together we have to talk.
566 A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
567 -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
569 Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you really want to test his
570 character, give him power.
573 When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one
574 by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
575 -- Edmund Burke "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents"
577 Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the
578 rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct
580 -- Mark Twain _A Horse's Tail_
582 No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this
583 does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
584 -- Sir Karl Popper _Logic of Scientific Discovery_
586 The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of
587 the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the
588 benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any
589 curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.
590 -- Adolf Hitler _Mein Kampf_ p403
592 I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended
593 up where I needed to be.
594 -- Douglas Adams _The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul_
596 Mozart tells us what it's like to be human, Beethoven tells us what
597 it's like to be Beethoven, and Bach tells us what it's like to be the
601 PowerPoint is symptomatic of a certain type of bureaucratic
602 environment: one typified by interminable presentations with lots of
603 fussy little bullet-points and flashy dissolves and soundtracks masked
604 into the background, to try to convince the audience that the goon
605 behind the computer has something significant to say.
606 -- Charles Stross _The Jennifer Morgue_ p33
608 This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic
611 Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or
612 daring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But
613 the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer
614 to achieve immortality by not dying.
615 -- Terry Pratchet _The Color of Magic_
617 Only one creature could have duplicated the expressions on their
618 faces, and that would be a pigeon who has heard not only that Lord
619 Nelson has got down off his column but has also been seen buying a
620 12-bore repeater and a box of cartridges.
621 -- Terry Pratchet _Mort_
623 He no longer wished to be dead. At the same time, it cannot be said
624 that he was glad to be alive. But at least he did not resent it. He
625 was alive, and the stubbornness of this fact had little by little
626 begun to fascinate him -- as if he had managed to outlive himself, as
627 if he were somehow living a posthumous life.
628 -- Paul Auster _City of Glass_
630 I really wanted to talk to her.
631 I just couldn't find an algorithm that fit.
632 -- Peter Watts _Blindsight_ p294
634 Everyone has to die. And in a hundred years nobody's going to inquire
635 just how most people died. The best thing is to do it in the way that
636 strikes your fancy most.
637 -- Kenzaburō Ōe _Silent Cry_ p5
639 I learned really early the difference between knowing the name of
640 something and knowing something
641 -- Richard Feynman "What is Science" Phys. Teach. 7(6) 1969
643 Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle
644 is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to
646 -- Richard Feynman "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific
647 Culture in Modern Society"; 1964
649 To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an
653 The computer allows you to make mistakes faster than any other
654 invention, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila
657 Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that
659 -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
661 You could say to the Universe this is not /fair/. And the Universe
662 would say: Oh it isn't? Sorry.
663 -- Terry Pratchett _Soul Music_ p357
665 G: If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?
666 EB: Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and
667 scatter oneself over a wide area.
668 -- Somewhere in No Man's Land, BA4
670 Love is... a complex sequence of neurochemical reactions that makes
671 people behave like idiots. It's similar to intoxication, but the
672 hangover's even worse.
673 -- J. Jacques _Questionable Content_ #1039
674 http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1039
676 Who is thinking this?
678 -- Greg Egan _Diaspora_ p38
680 I have no use for "before and after" pictures.
681 I can't remember starting, and I'm never done.
682 -- a softer world #221
683 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=221
685 Show me your flowcharts and conceal your tables, and I shall continue
686 to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your
687 flowcharts; they'll be obvious.
688 -- Fredrick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man Month
690 Religion is religion, however you wrap it, and like Quell says, a
691 preoccupation with the next world clearly signals an inability to cope
692 credibly with this one.
693 -- Richard K. Morgan "Broken Angels" p65
695 After the first battle of Sto Lat, I formulated a policy which has
696 stood me in good stead in other battles. It is this: if an enemy has
697 an impregnable stronghold, see he stays there.
698 -- Terry Pratchett _Jingo_ p265
700 Vimes hated and despised the privileges of rank, but they had this to
701 be said for them: At least they meant that you could hate and despise
703 -- Terry Pratchett _The Fifth Elephant_ p111
705 J.W. Grant: "Bastard!"
706 Rico: "Yes, Sir. In my case, an accident of birth. But you, Sir,
707 you're a self-made man."
708 -- Henry "Rico" Fardan in "The Professionals"
710 "You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in
711 a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die from
712 asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my
713 mother told me when I was young."
714 "Why, what did she tell you?"
715 "I don't know, I didn't listen."
716 –- Douglas Adams _The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy_
718 a friend will help you move
719 a best friend will help you move bodies
720 but if you have to move your best friend's body
722 -- a softer world #242
723 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=242
725 It was a very familiar voice. [...] It was a voice you could have used
726 to open a bottle of whine.
727 -- Terry Pratchett _The Last Continent_ p270
729 The carbon footprint of a single human being is enormous.
730 If you think about it, your honour,
731 I'm an environmentalist.
732 -- a softer world #283
733 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=283
735 We must realize that today's Establishment is the New George III.
736 Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If
737 it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution.
738 -- William O. Douglas _Points of Rebellion_
740 "Them as can do has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak
741 up for them as have no voices."
742 -- Grandma Aching in _The Wee Free Men_ by Terry Pratchett p227
744 But if, after all, we are on the wrong track, what then? Only
745 disappointed human hopes, nothing more. And even if we perish, what
746 will it matter in the endless cycles of eternity?
747 -- Fridtjof Nansen _Farthest North_ p152
749 There is no more concentrated form of evil
752 I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be
753 pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My
754 life is my own. I resign.
755 -- Patrick McGoohan as Number 6 in "The Prisoner"
757 Where am I? THE VILLAGE. What do you want? INFORMATION. Which side are
758 you on? THAT WOULD BE TELLING. WE WANT INFORMATION. INFORMATION.
759 INFORMATION. You won't get it! BY HOOK OR BY CROOK, WE WILL. Who are
760 you? THE NEW NUMBER 2. Who is Number 1? YOU ARE NUMBER 6. I am not a
761 number! I am a free man! HAHAHAHAHAHA.
762 -- Patrick McGoohan as Number 6 with Number 2 in "The Prisoner"
764 Let us chat together a moment, my friend. There are still several
765 hours until dawn, and I have the whole day to sleep.
766 -- Count Orlock in _Nosferatu (1922)_
768 Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far
769 as society is free to use the results.
770 -- Richard M Stallman _GNU Manifesto_
772 "She decided what she wished to happen and then assumed that reality
773 would bend to her wishes." [...] "Reality doesn't indulge wishes."
774 -- Terry Goodkind _Phantom_ p133
777 We are all going to die.
778 I intend to deserve it.
779 -- a softer world #421
780 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=421
782 All my dreams came true.
783 I just didn't think them through.
784 -- a softer world #388
785 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=388
787 You think to yourself, hey, it's a test tube, for God's sake. Pretty
788 soon, though, the rush from a test tube isn't enough. You want to
789 experiment more and more. Then before you know it, you're laying in
790 the corner of a lab somewhere with a Soxhlet apparatus in one hand,
791 a three neck flask in the other, strung out and begging for grant
793 -- Tim Mitchell, 1994 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize Speech
795 The smallest quantity of bread that can be sliced and toasted has yet
796 to be experimentally determined. In the quantum limit we must
797 necessarily encounter fundamental toast particles which the author
798 will unflinchingly designate here as "croutons".
799 -- Cser, Jim. Nanotechnology and the Physical Limits of Toastability.
802 [The] JK-88 [coffee] percolator is capable of achieving the ultimate
803 balance of aroma and density, aftertaste and emollience, pentosans and
804 tannins. The next step is to reduce the cost of the HPLC-E technology
805 to the point where it can be manufactured for less than the cost of a
807 -- Charles Stross "Extracts from the Club Diary" in _Toast_ p83-4
809 Something the junk advertisers don't seem to understand: we live in an
810 information super-saturated world. If I don't want to buy something,
811 no amount of shouting or propagandizing will budge me; all it will do
812 is get me annoyed. On the other hand, if I have a need for your
813 product, I can seek it out in an eyeblink.
814 -- Charles Stross "Toast: A Con Report" in _Toast_ p136
816 [On a trip back from collecting grass seeds in tropical bird stomachs
817 and being thought by the customs agents to be transporting Marijuana.]
818 "Anyone so square as to tell you they are transporting grass seeds is
820 -- Peter K. Klopfer _Seeds of Doubt_ Science 134:177 10 April 2009
823 "Soon equates to good, later to worse, Uagen Zlepe, scholar.
824 Therefore, immediacy."
825 -- Iain M. Banks _Look to Windward_ p 213
827 He quite enjoyed the time by himself in the mornings. The day was too
828 early to have started going really wrong.
829 -- Terry Pratchet _Only You Can Save Mankind_ p133
831 Let me bring you up to speed:
833 You are now up to speed.
834 -- Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau in _The Pink Panther 2_ (2009)
836 A kiss was mysterious and powerful, fragile and invincible. Like any
837 spark, a kiss might fizzle into nothing or consume an entire forest.
838 [...] A kiss could change the entire world.
839 -- Scott Westerfeld _The Killing of Worlds_ p336
841 Rule 6: "If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to
843 -- Howard Tayler _Schlock Mercenary_ March 13th, 2005
844 http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050313.html
846 Rule 30: "A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the
848 -- Howard Tayler _Schlock Mercenary_ March 8th, 2003
849 http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20030308.html
851 There is no form of lead-poisoning which more rapidly and thoroughly
852 pervades the blood and bones and marrow than that which reaches the
853 young author through mental contact with type metal.
854 -- Oliver Wendell Holmes (Tilton 1947 p67)
856 It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
857 -- Frederick Douglass
859 "That is why I am still tyrant of [Ankh-Morpork]. The way to retain
860 power, I have always thought, is to ensure the absolute unthinkability
861 of oneself not being there."
862 -- Terry Pratchett _Unseen Academicals_ p391
864 listen, what you do in the privacy
865 of your neighbour's house while they're away
867 -- a softer world #511
868 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=511
870 Sometimes I wish I could take back all my mistakes
872 what if my mother could take back hers?
873 -- a softer world #498
874 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=498
876 Clean living is less fun
877 and you wind up feeling stupid
879 -- a softer world #489
880 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=489
882 If god is always watching over us
884 -- a softer world #487
885 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=487
887 Maybe I did steal your heart
888 and I am such a perfect criminal
889 that you never noticed
890 -- a softer world #481
891 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=481
893 Life would be way easier
895 -- a softer world #473
896 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=473
899 violence didn't solve anything
900 until one day it did.
901 -- a softer world #470
902 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=470
907 -- a softer world #437
908 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=437
910 First you take a drink,
911 then the drink takes a drink,
912 then the drink takes you.
913 -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
915 It can sometimes happen that a scholar, his task completed, discovers
916 that he has no one to thank. Never mind. He will invent some debts.
917 Research without indebtedness is suspect, and somebody must always,
919 -- Umberto Eco "How to Write an Introduction"
921 Let the victors, when they come,
922 When the forts of folly fall
923 Find thy body by the wall!
926 unbeingdead isn't beingalive
927 -- e.e. cummings "31" _73 Poems_
929 nothing except the impossible shall occur
930 -- e.e. cummings "XLII" _1 x 1_
932 -tommorow is our permanent address
933 and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do,
934 we'll move away still further:into now
935 -- e.e. cummings "XXXIX" _1 x 1_
938 spring when the world is mud-
939 luscious the little lame baloonman
942 -- e.e. cummings "[in Just-]"
944 life's not a paragraph
945 And death i think is no parenthesis
946 -- e.e. cummings "Four VII" _is 5_
948 Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
949 We get very little wisdom from success, you know.
950 -- William Saroyan _My Heart's in the Highlands_
952 Given that the odds of a miracle are one in one million, and events
953 which could be a miracle happen every second, the odds of not seeing a
954 miracle in a month are less than 8 in 100. Clearly miracles are not
957 They say when you embark on a journey
960 They underestimate me.
961 -- a softer world #560
962 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=560
964 I never meant to let you down.
966 the attic lock would hold.
967 -- a softer world #562
968 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=562
970 I made a bunch of stickers
971 to put on rooftops, and in secret tunnels.
972 "If you are reading this,
973 then you are awesome"
974 -- a softer world #569
975 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=569
977 I'm sorry about those late night emails.
978 I only said those things because I was too drunk
980 -- a softer world #579
981 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=579
983 6: If we are one, then we can defeat 2.
984 -- "The Prisoner (2009 Miniseries)" _Schizoid_
986 2: There is no out. There is only in.
987 -- "The Prisoner (2009 Miniseries)"
989 6: I'm human. I have a thousand flaws. I break down. I get up or I
990 don't get up. I get lost. I make the same mistakes over and over. I
991 have scars and wounds. Sometimes when I can't bear them anymore, I
992 drink. You can't fix me. You can't fix any of us. You can't make us
994 -- "The Prisoner (2009 Miniseries)" _Checkmate_
996 We want 6. 6 is the 1.
997 -- "The Prisoner (2009 Miniseries)" _Checkmate_
999 I've had so much good luck recently I was getting sated with it. It's
1000 like sugar, good luck. At first it's very sweet, but after a while you
1001 start to think: any more of this and I shall be sick.
1002 -- Adam Roberts _Yellow Blue Tibia_ p301
1005 Because I am powerless
1006 To amend a broken world.
1007 -- Guy Gavriel Kay _Under Heaven_ p295
1009 What prison taught me was that some people are born into a life where
1010 they're going to be subjected to intense life experiences and personal
1011 tragedy on an almost daily basis. [...] I don't think you get
1012 enlightenment after something like that. I think all anyone really
1013 wants, if they're honest with themselves, is a quiet, easy life
1014 surrounded by people that love them. Anything else is conceit[ed].
1017 Overcast nights are beautiful; the sun, mostly set, a near full moon
1018 partially risen, light pollution from the city, and the sky delicately
1019 purpleorangegray, as if it were a livid bruise.
1021 The terrorist's job is to terrorize the people, to interfere with
1022 freedom in such a way that disrupts ordinary life and commerce. With
1023 due respect, it is clear that the above referenced governmental
1024 agencies are aiding the terrorists' objective.
1025 -- Gary Fielder in Gary Fielder vs Janet Napolitano et al.
1027 [C]haos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought.
1028 It always defeats order, because it is better organized.
1029 -- Terry Pratchett _Interesting Times_ p4
1031 Your absence has gone through me
1032 Like thread through a needle.
1033 Everything I do is stitched with its color.
1034 -- W. S. Merwin "Poetry in Motion" p107
1036 Logs drowse in the pond
1037 Dreaming of their heroes
1038 Alligator and crocodile
1039 -- Vern Rutsala "Poetry in Motion" p77
1041 Once, our bodies were bells:
1042 Simply moving in the wind
1043 We tolled our names.
1044 -- Phillis Levin "Poetry in Motion" p55
1046 It's brief and bright, dear children; bright and brief.
1047 Delight's the lightning; the long thunder's grief.
1048 -- John Frederick Nims "Poetry in Motion" p31
1050 I would like to be the air
1051 that inhabits you for a moment
1052 only. I would like to be that unnoticed
1054 -- Margaret Atwood "Poetry in Motion" p140
1056 I stared at the mountain rising over me. Empty. It was a pointless
1057 thing to have done -- climb up it, across it, and down it. Stupid! It
1058 looked perfect; so clean and untouched, and we had changed nothing.
1059 [...] I had been on it too long, and it had taken everything.
1060 -- Joe Simpson "Touching the Void" p117
1062 Have you ever noticed: the most vocal superpatriots are the old men
1063 who send young men out to die.
1064 -- Harlan Ellison "Basilisk" (_Deathbird Stories_ p73)
1066 "Do you think you might be suffering from post-traumatic stress
1069 -- Walter Jon Williams _This Is Not A Game_ p121
1072 a computer with feelings.
1073 It just doesn't have
1075 -- a softer world #633
1076 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=633
1079 or die and teach by example
1080 -- a softer world #625
1081 http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=625
1083 I'm So Meta, Even This Acronym
1084 -- xkcd http://xkcd.com/917/
1086 [I]t's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are
1087 done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for
1088 the best, especially if there is some god involved.
1089 -- Terry Pratchett _Snuff_ p185
1091 "I always tend to assume there's an infinite amount of money out
1092 there." "There might as well be, [...] but most of it gets spent on
1093 pornography, sugar water, and bombs. There is only so much that can be
1094 scraped together for particle accelerators."
1095 -- Neal Stephenson _Anathem_ p262
1097 "Do you need [...] [t]ools? Stuff?"
1098 "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. [...] We
1100 -- Neal Stephenson _Anathem_ p320
1102 The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and
1103 Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making
1104 mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes
1105 from being corrected.
1106 -- G. K. Chesterton "Illustrated London News (1924-04-19)"
1108 You are educated when you have the ability to listen to almost
1109 anything without losing your temper or self-confidence.