John Scalzi Quotes

61 Sourced Quotes

Part of what makes us human is what we mean to other people, and what people mean to us.

John Scalzi
It's easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she's never been anything but dead, than to miss her at all the places where she was alive.

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

John Scalzi
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
Look, I said. Something that needs your attention. Over there. Away from here.

John Scalzi
I didn't say that, Szilard said, in a tone that implied that perhaps he had.

John Scalzi
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
Imagine if every species named itself after its greatest flaw. We could name our species arrogance.

John Scalzi
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.

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

John Scalzi
I don't care whether I really exist or don't, whether I'm real or fictional. What I want right now is to be the person who decides my own fate.

John Scalzi
I have no idea what that means, Nick, Paulson said. Talk normal human to me.

John Scalzi
I'm not insane, sir, I said. I have a finely calibrated sense of acceptable risk.

John Scalzi
Do you believe that? I asked.
It doesn't matter whether I believe it or not, Redhouse said.

John Scalzi
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
My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid. I miss that sort of security, and that sort of connection with someone.

John Scalzi
Star Wars is not entertainment. Star Wars is George Lucas masturbating to a picture of Joseph Campbell and conning billions of people into watching the money shot.

John Scalzi
I was pretty certain my dad was not up to no good, running for senator notwithstanding.

John Scalzi
In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug," Cassaway said, dryly.

John Scalzi
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
Who are you and what medications aren't you taking?

John Scalzi
Harry! Boutin said. Nice guy. Didn't know he was that smart. He hid it well.

John Scalzi
You are sufficiently like me to officially be interesting.

John Scalzi
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
The problem with aging is not that it's one damn thing after another—it's every damn thing, all at once, all the time.
You can't stop aging. Gene therapies and replacement organs and plastic surgery give it a good fight. But it catches up with you anyway. Get a new lung, and your heart blows a valve. Get a new heart, and your liver swells up to the size of an inflatable kiddie pool. Change out your liver, a stroke gives you a whack. That's aging's trump card; they still can't replace brains.

John Scalzi
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
Many people believe geekdom is defined by a love of a thing, but I think - and my experience of geekdom bears on this thinking - that the true sign of a geek is a delight in sharing a thing. It's the major difference between a geek and a hipster, you know: When a hipster sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say "Oh, crap, now the wrong people like the thing I love." When a geek sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say "ZOMG YOU LOVE WHAT I LOVE COME WITH ME AND LET US LOVE IT TOGETHER."

John Scalzi
We've already established whoever is writing us is an asshole.

John Scalzi
I have drinks, Hanson said, coming up behind Duvall.
Why, Jimmy, Duvall said. That makes you my new favorite person.

John Scalzi