Sfdebris.net

This is a thread for fantasy, scifi, horror and similar works that provided words of wisdom you find helpful. I've already got one in my sig.

Some of my favorite lines from some of my favorite stories.

"It was often better to ignore transgressions than to command ineffectively."

Walter M. Miller Jr. A Canticle for Leibowitz

"Surely you must realize that your success has made you some bitter enemies."

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

"There is nothing more seductive than the memory of power."

I swear that is from Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation but I can't find it again.

The Second Apocalypse is not for everyone. It is not 'dark' and 'gritty' fantasy, it is black and sticky. And almost entirely populated by awful people doing awful things.

That said, it is also written by a philosopher, and god damn it, he wants you to know it. So if you've reached a time of your life where meandering philosophical bullshit appeals to you (as I have) then it's extremely rewarding. The series is chock full of magnificent quotes, but my personal favorite at the moment is this one.

"But measure" the slave replies "is not something accomplished and then forgotten, Skiotha. Old measure is merely grounds for the new. Measure is unceasing."

"It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built."

He's dead, Jim.

"Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Rings

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
"But that's terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.”

-- Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

DAMN THAT'S POWERFUL.

"If is follows ought,
It'll do what they thought
In the end we all do what we must."

Here's one!

"Counselor Troi herself told me that feelings are neither positive or negative. It is how we act on them that makes them good or bad."

"-My full name is the Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath. Cool,eh?

-Such braggadocio. That smacks of smokescreen, not power.

- Take it as you will, chum. But how many Culture ships do you know of that exaggerate their puissance?"

The Hydorgen Sonata by Iain M. Banks.