Favorite Quote / Sentence in Literature

Kahrey · Post by **Kahrey** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:55 pm

probably....

"Life is trial and error. Those who succeed are those who survive their failures and keep trying." L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

oh, its from Fall of Angels.

felonius · Post by **felonius** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 7:38 am

Another Gibson excerpt. I can't stay away from this man!

The drug hit him like an express train, a white-hot column of light mounting his spine from the region of his prostate, illuminating the sutures of his skull with x-rays of short-circuited sexual energy. His teeth sang in their individual sockets like tuning forks, each one pitch-perfect and clear as ethanol. His bones, beneath the hazy envelope of flesh, were chromed and polished, the joints lubricated with a film of silicone. Sand-storms raged across the scoured floor of his skull, generating waves of high thin static that broke behind his eyes, spheres of purest crystal, expanding....

--Neuromancer

Man! That prose is regal! I'd love to hear that read aloud by someone with a really powerful voice - James Earl Jones, maybe.

bob k. mando · Post by **bob k. mando** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 5:02 pm

Asimov in Foundation wrote:
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

yes, and one of the first options of those who understand how the universe really works. to wit, if they weren't incompetent, they'd have chosen violence much earlier.

Echus Cthulhu Mythos · Sun Aug 01, 2004 10:41 pm

bob k. mando wrote:Asimov in Foundation wrote:
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

yes, and one of the first options of those who understand how the universe really works. to wit, if they weren't incompetent, they'd have chosen violence much earlier.

That is like saying it is safer to drink and drive, than drive sober because 25% (or something) of road deaths are caused by drink drivers, therefore if you drive sober you have a 75% chance of killing someone.

False logic!

I'll shut up now... before you attack me or something.

bob k. mando · Post by **bob k. mando** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:58 pm

are caused by drink drivers

snicker. and this, children, is why you shouldn't partake and post at the same time.

i'd like to point out that you're arguing with asimov as much as you are with me ... i simply said the same thing that he did in a different way. think of it like this; if violence is the last refuge of the incompetent (as asimov puts it), what were the first 50 (pick large number of your choice) options they tried, eh? i expect that there was a lot of diplomacy and appeasement and other stupidity involved.

yes, i KNOW what he meant, it's rather sad that he wasn't more capable of expressing it properly. assuming that he's being quoted correctly of course. holmes, clarification on that point if you please, there's a good man.

where we differ is in real world applications vs atheist humanist ivory tower 'morality'. let us apply YOUR idea (violence is the first choice of the incompetent) to the real world. i suggest you ask your grandparents why they were so incompent as to choose violence when the japanese came calling in 1941. or perhaps we could ask europe why they chose violence when hitler decided the continent belonged to him. i'm sure that many are the russians who wish that a little more violence had been used in opposition to lenin.

one could well ask the english why they insisted on choosing violence in the case of Archduke Ferdinand ... but that would be evidence for your side of the case.

as for the participation of the french in that matter, well, they're just stupid, jealous and proud.

the truth is that many times there is no other viable response BUT violence. wisdom lies in knowing when it's necessary. fools adopt a moral equivalence posture which equates all violence as being the same.

taarna · Post by **taarna** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:58 pm

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me....Only I will remain.

- Paul Atreides, Dune

Post by **Darb** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 5:12 pm

Welcome aboard, Taarna.

Say, are you a fan of the movie "Heavy Metal" ?

I saw that in the movie theaters, when it first came out.

taarna · Post by **taarna** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 5:19 pm

Why...yes!
I thought it kicked A when I first saw it in the theatres. And it has stood the test of time (read: aging/maturity/fuddyduddyism). Own the DVD. I channel her some days at work when muggles just....don't...get...it.
Follow-up movie sucked I hear.

bob k. mando · Post by **bob k. mando** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 5:28 pm

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me....Only I will remain.
- Paul Atreides, Dune

that's from dune? whoa, it's been too long since i read those books. here i was thinking it was Peter Puppy who said that.

Post by **Darb** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 5:37 pm

TAARNA: Indeed.

Egads, the trouble I went to to get an official copy of that movie. First, ages ago, I bought a copy on VHS tape back when the technology was still fairly new ... it was a bootleg copied and sold illegally by one of the early outfits that trailblazed what has only now, after like 20 years, become the immensely popular 'anime' industry. I was there in the early 80's, carrying the torch of anime fandom on high. Anyway, the sound quality sucked.

Then I bought it on DVD shortly after THAT technology came out ... again, another bootleg, with crappy sound quality.

Now here it is many years later, and there's finally a decent 'offical' DVD available, as well as the official movie soundtrack. I have both of those too.

/me queues up "Radar Rider" by Riggs, "Heavy Metal" by Sammy Hagar (long before he joined Van Halen), "Takin a Ride" by Don Felder, and "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" by Blue Oyster Cult

Some may laugh at the idea, but that movie did more to bring both metal, and geeky SciFi fandom (both!) to the maintream than just about anything else ... even though the 'metal' on the album is considered fairly tame by today's MTV 'scream-grunge' standards.

http://www.taarna.net/index.html

- Bowing low at the altar of the Tarrakkian Goddess

Evaine · Post by **Evaine** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:39 am

bob k. mando - in Britain, drivers who drink alcohol are called "drink drivers", so it may not be a typo.

Post by **Kvetch** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 12:28 pm

I was gonna say that.

The BRITISH didn't have that much to do with poor old Franz - it (the war) was caused by an alliance system that took violence as a precept and political tensions in the Balkans combined with German/Russian expansionism (details on request, after I read up my notes - I knew AS history would be of some use)

Post by **Darb** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 1:55 pm

"Political correctness should be redefined as enforced neutrality" - Charlie Pellegrino (from an e-mail dated today)

Wiggum · Post by **Wiggum** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:05 am

"The most common mistake made by those designing something comletely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools" - Douglas Adams

"You know nothing, Jon Snow" - George RR Martin (You'd have to read the book for that one to make any sense)

I'm doing this from memory so it might not be exact:

"I didn't come here to bandy words with a crooked serving man" - JRR Tolkien (Gandalf to Grima)

ChoChiyo · Post by **ChoChiyo** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 6:44 pm

In Clear and Present Danger , there's a scene where snipers are training. They are supposed to get as close to the guys in charge as they can before being spotted. One by one, all are spotted and "out" of the game. They cannot find this one guy. I forget his name. Finally they tell him to stand up--and he does, right up out of the weeds at their feet. When they ask him how he got so goddam close, he says, "The sniper is a sneaky son-of-a-bitch, sir!"

I just love that line.

Gil galad · Post by **Gil galad** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 2:01 am

Ok here's one i noticed from Magic of Recluce that i thought was funny, you might all think its lame..

lerris thinks-She didnt sound very sorry.

lerris says-"You dont sound very sorry"

teejay17 · Post by **teejay17** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 7:01 am

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
George Orwell.

Animal Farm

felonius · Post by **felonius** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 7:50 am

He too could become burdened with no name, no past, no future; with no regret, no memory, no loss; no fear but caution, no longing but appetite, no misery but bodily pain. No part of his self need be exposed except his awareness of the present and that gone in an instant, like a fly snapped at and missed on a summer afternoon. He saw himself, bold and wary, floating on life, needing nothing, obedient only to cunning and instinct, creeping through the bracken upon the quarry, vanishing from pursuers like a shadow, sleeping secure in hiding, gambling again and again until at last he lost; and then departing, with a shrug and a grin, to make way for some other trickster nameless as himself.

--Richard Adams The Plague Dogs

Sounds like Cambodia.

ChoChiyo · Post by **ChoChiyo** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 9:13 am

I wish I could remember who said and who he said it about....all I remember is the quote by a S.F. author regarding a new author:

"He reminds me of Harlan Ellison. Let's kill him now."

I read it in a review many, many moons ago.

I love Harlan Ellison. He's delightful.

Post by **Kvetch** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:23 am

Just read Neuromancer - man that is one good book. I was going to post a description of the mark 11 but can't find it.

ChoChiyo · Post by **ChoChiyo** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:16 pm

â€œEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.â€

endall · Post by **endall** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:41 pm

Speaking of Douglas Adams how about:
'Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!"

Closethefridge · Post by **Closethefridge** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:01 pm

Can't quote them exactly but I'll give it a shot...

"My mother smiled at me with a familiar smile you're sure you've seen before somewhere but you just can't work out where. Clue:it's the movie where the mother goes to stay at a young couple's house for a weekend, and by the end they have to wrestle scissors out of her hands", Vernon God Little.

"And you could peet it with synthemes and velocet or drecnom and a whole lot of other vesches,and you could spend a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog" Clockwork Orange

"Everything in here is a lie", (first page of the religious book of Bokonism in Cat's Cradle.)

Oh, and felonius, nice. Plague dogs rock!

felonius · Post by **felonius** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 11:26 am

Kvetch wrote:Just read Neuromancer - man that is one good book.

Isn't it, though? Really glad you liked it. Has one of the greatest first lines ever, too:

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel...

Oh goodness - can we get any more postmodern, not counting fridge magnets? E-X-I-S-T-E-N-T-I-A-L spells existential, that's right. Favourite Gibson quote, during a Swedish interview, circa 1994: "What the hell would I be doing on the Net?"

Closethefridge :lol: wrote:"And you could peet it with synthemes and velocet or drecnom and a whole lot of other vesches,and you could spend a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog" Clockwork Orange

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