Quotes

For the curious, here is the list of all the quotes I have so far that show up on the site.

  • Attention is energy.
    Ethan Elias Johnson
  • Destiny, or Fate, and Free Will both exist. Destiny is greatness; Free Will is the path we take to get there.
    Ethan Elias Johnson
  • Love is all there is.
    God
    Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch
  • Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.
    Ford Prefect
    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  • Quantum uncertainty means that all of the universe exists as every possibility until consciousness chooses what to create and observe.
    Ethan Elias Johnson
  • Love; thy neighbor is thyself.
    Ethan Elias Johnson
  • Confusion once say, "What?"
    Ethan Elias Johnson
  • Believing is seeing.
    Ethan Elias Johnson
  • It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
    Aristotle
  • It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
    Aristotle
  • Happiness depends upon ourselves.
    Aristotle
  • A witty saying proves nothing.
    Voltaire
  • Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.
    Voltaire
  • OK, here's a nostalgia question: What childhood game does this remind you of?

    ''Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick.''

    If you answered, ''Spin the Bottle,'' then I frankly do not want to know any more about your childhood.
    Dave Barry
  • Don't quote me on that.
    Lots of people
  • Can you remember a time when it wasn't now?
    Ethan Elias Johnson
  • For if I write only for myself, my words can only change myself. But perhaps if I write for the world…
    Ethan Elias Johnson
  • There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!
    Terry Pratchett
    The Truth
  • The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo, my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct answer is: Hey, whatever I select.
    Terry Pratchett
    Lords and Ladies
  • You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was "but we've always done it this way." A million dead people can't have been wrong, can they?
    Terry Pratchett
    The Fifth Elephant
  • WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?

    The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of potato. SQUEAK, he said.

    Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.
    Terry Pratchett
    The Truth
  • "Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'."
    Rincewind describing Twoflower
    The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
  • "There's nothin' wrong with bein' a son of a bitch."
    Gaspode the Wonder Dog
    Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett
  • Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.
    Yoda
    Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
  • "Oh, all right. Of course I accept as a natural born criminal, habitual liar, fraudster and totally untrustworthy perverted genius."

    "Capital! Welcome to government service!" said Lord Vetinari, "I pride myself on being able to pick the right man."
    Terry Pratchett
    Going Postal
  • "I will teach you to deal with time as you would deal with a coat, to be worn when necessary and discarded when not."

    "Will I have to wash it?" said Clodpool.

    Wen gave him a long, slow look. "That was either a very complex piece of thinking on your part, Clodpool, or you were just trying to overextend a metaphor in a rather stupid way. Which do you think it was?"
    Terry Prathcett
    Thief of Time
  • There are no ordinary moments.
    Dan Millman
    Way of the Peaceful Warrior
  • "You haven't yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior's way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability--to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I've shown you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death."
    Socrates
    Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
  • "But when I see the way that mankind loves... You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... What I'm trying to say, Tristan is... I think I love you."
    Yvaine
    Stardust (film)
  • Americans don't need a metaphor for war. We have war. If anything, we use war as a metaphor for sports.
    John Hodgman
    The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
  • You know the old saying: "History is written by the winners. And also, the team of hand-picked historians that the winner keeps hidden away in an underground bunker."
    John Hodgman
    The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
  • I have an unfortunate compulsion. I really would rather not do it, as it is very nerve-wracking and un-fun. But when it works, there is nothing like it.
    John Hodgman answering the question, "Why do you write?" in an interview at Powells.com
  • Lies are just another kind of storytelling, but with the very distinct and enlivening motive of desperation. Since writers are by nature desperate creatures, they usually do a pretty good (or pretty awful, but always interesting) job of lying.
    John Hodgman
  • A "story" is something an author creates in order to generate interest in his novel from movie producers. For this reason, it is critical that the story can be described very quickly, preferably in one sentence of no more than 16 words. For example:

    "John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald meet in hell and team up to assassinate Satan."
    John Hodgman
  • I will start a program of low-budget space exploration that will involve two key elements: (1) A catapult, and (2) Hummer owners.
    Dave Barry
    answering a question about what he will do when he becomes President
  • I would take just one vacation per year, but it would basically last for that entire year.
    Dave Barry
    answering a question about what he will do when he becomes President
  • There is a difference between something being essential, and it being necessary. If you take your favorite book and strip it down to what is merely essential to tell the story, it would be butchery. The end result would horrify you. Essential is the bones of the story, but the soul lives somewhere else.
    Patrick Rothfuss
    interview on MindUnbound.com
  • The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience.
    Neil Gaiman
  • You don't live there always when you write. Mostly it's a long hard walk. Sometimes it's a trudge through fog and you're scared you've lost your way and can't remember why you set out in the first place.

    But sometimes you fly, and that pays for everything.
    Neil Gaiman
  • If you think reading a book is hard, you should try writing one. Because it’s even harder. It’s still not as hard as writing a game, though. If you discount the purely visual pop-up parts, a book is made almost entirely of words. As a novelist, you just need to think of a few decent strings of words and then fill the other 98% of the book with more or less random descriptions of things and exclamation points.
    Erik Wolpaw
  • In defense of games, I want to point out that the writing in plays, including everything by August Strindberg and The Lion King, is 100% pure crap. So we’re doing better than they are even though they have the benefit of mostly not being about space marines.
    Erik Wolpaw
  • After Psychonauts went on to be very, very popular in Europe, I got busy with my next big project: being unemployed.
    Erik Wolpaw
  • You sit in a room with someone, and you expend a lot of energy thinking of ways to postpone doing any work. After a while, you start saying the vilest, most offensive things you can think of in a desperate attempt to crack the other guy up. This sort of greases the wheels for eventually writing a line or two of usable dialog.
    Erik Wolpaw
  • Sometimes an old idea gets relegated to the back of the line in the mad delight of a new idea, one you've never had before, and that you write fast in the thrill of the new. No rules. Just stories, and you tell as many of them as you can.
    Neil Gaiman
  • While often nothing the players do makes any sense at all within the context of the gameworld, you can be sure they will fixate on any and all flaws in the thinking on the part of NPCs.
    Shamus Young
  • “Plot” is what the DM does to amuse himself when the players aren’t talking.
    Shamus Young
  • The consequences you impose on your players for poor choices should be directly proportional to how much those choices annoyed you at the time.
    Shamus Young
  • Don’t worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can’t help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you’ll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don’t worry about whether you’re "commercial". Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.
    Neil Gaiman
  • Don’t be ashamed of the creative urges which drive you. And certainly don’t be ashamed of your ego. Hubris is only hubris when it fails. When Hubris pays off, we call these people geniuses.
    Kieron Gillen
  • Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saw, but it is never as strange as lies. (Or, for that matter, as true.) Proof of which maxim is the fact that I just made it up.
    John Hodgman
    The Areas of My Expertise
  • The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.
    Edsger Wybe Dijkstra
  • One of the most difficult tasks people can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games.
    C.G. Jung
  • He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
    Friedrich Nietzche
    Beyond Good and Evil
  • The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks.
    Jean-Paul Sartre
  • I usually congratulate people when they tell me, "I don't know who I am anymore."
    Eckhart Tolle
    A New Earth
  • When you let go of the thought that you should or need to know who you are, what happens to confusion? Suddenly it is gone. When you fully accept that you don't know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be. Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.
    Eckhart Tolle
    A New Earth
  • All games inherently teach.
    Jonathan Blow
  • In other words, with games, learning is the drug.
    Raph Koster
    A Theory of Fun for Game Design
  • Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device.
    David Langford
  • Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.
    Eckhart Tolle
    A New Earth
  • In Zen they say: "Don't seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions."
    Eckhart Tolle
    A New Earth
  • There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
    Hamlet
    Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
  • The truth is that there is no journey. You are right now what you are attempting to be. You are right now where you are attempting to go.

    It is the master who knows this, and thus ends the struggle.
    God
    Conversations With God: Book 3 by Neale Donald Walsch
  • In form, you are and will always be inferior to some, superior to others. In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.
    Eckhart Tolle
    A New Earth
  • But that doesn't mean I don't hate my job sometimes.

    It doesn't matter what you do for a living. Ron Jeremy probably calls in sick some days because he just can't stand the thought of getting another blowjob. I don't doubt that Mike and Jerry over at Penny Arcade occasionally wake up in the morning and think, "Fuck, I've got to play more fucking video games today."
    Patrick Rothfuss
  • God is not He who is, but That which is.
    Baruch Spinoza
  • If you give a good idea to a mediocre group, they'll screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a good group, they'll fix it. Or they'll throw it away and come up with something else.
    Edwin Catmull
  

One Comment

  1. Hmm, quite a medley there. I like the first quote, by Neale Walsch. His book, “Conversations With God” is really uplifting.
    Then ther are other quotes that are kind of witty but superficial.

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