β
Right now Iβm having amnesia and dΓ©jΓ vu at the same time. I think Iβve forgotten this before.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers.
β
β
Steven Spielberg
β
Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war
Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war
Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.
β
β
Wallace Stevens
β
We're all stories, in the end.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
There's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Bow ties are cool.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
If at first you don't succeed then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Reinette: One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule 408.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.
β
β
Steven Weinberg
β
The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that's the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
The Doctor: Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Children are dying."
Lull nodded. "That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2))
β
Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
β
β
Steve Kloves
β
You want weapons? We're in a library! Books! The best weapons in the world!
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Always speak politely to an enraged dragon.
β
β
Steven Brust (Jhereg (Vlad Taltos, #1))
β
The Doctor: 'You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, but you really think they're lying to make you feel better?'
Amelia: 'Yeah...'
The Doctor: 'Everything's going to be fine.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
The Doctor: Doctor Song, you've got that face on again.
River: What face?
The Doctor: The "He's hot when he's clever" face.
River: This is my normal face.
The Doctor: Yes it is.
River: Oh, shut up.
The Doctor: Not a chance.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Come on, Rory! It isn't rocket science, it's just quantum physics!
-The Doctor (Matt Smith)
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Amy Pond: 'I thought... well, I started to think you were just a madman with a box.'
The Doctor: 'Amy Pond, there's something you better understand about me, 'cause it's important and one day your life may depend on it. [He Smiles] I am definitely a madman with a box.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.
β
β
Steven Moffat (A Study In Pink (Sherlock #1))
β
The Doctor: [aiming gun at the ceiling] Didn't anyone ever tell you? There's one thing you never put in a trap if you're smart. If you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there's one thing you never, ever put in a trap.
Angel Bob: And what would that be, sir?
The Doctor: Me. [fires]
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezes are cool.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?" chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
β
Quiet people have the loudest minds.
β
β
Stephen King
β
The lesson of history is that no one learns.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2))
β
The Doctor: Oh, now what's this, then? I love this. A big, flashy-lighty thing. That's what brought me here. Big, flashy-lighty things have got me written all over them. Not actually, but give me time... and a crayon.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Rule 1: The Doctor lies.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
I'll be a story in your head. That's okay. We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? 'Cause it was, you know. It was the best. The daft old man who stole a magic box and ran away. Did I ever tell you that I stole it? Well I borrowed it. I was always going to take it back.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Hitler: Thank you, whoever you are. I think you just saved my life.
The Doctor: Believe me... It was an accident.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Never knowingly be serious. Rule 27.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
You don't want to take over the universe. You wouldn't know what to do with it beyond shout at it.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles)
β
Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.
β
β
Wallace Stevens
β
Never run when you're scared. Rule 7.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.
β
β
Wallace Stevens
β
Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1))
β
Are you paralyzed with fear? Thatβs a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
β
The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
β
We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
β
When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?'
The Imass shrugged before replying.
'I think of futility, Adjunct.'
'Do all Imass think about futility?'
'No. Few think at all.'
'Why is that?'
The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her.
'Because Adjunct, it is futile.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1))
β
The best kind of friend is the kind you sit with, never say a word and walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you ever had.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8))
β
There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
See the bowtie? I wear it and I don't care. That's why it's cool.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work, wheareas economics represents how it actually does work.
β
β
Steven D. Levitt (Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything)
β
Kallor shrugged. '[...] I have walked this land when the T'lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?'
'Yes,' [said Caladan Brood.] 'You never learn.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #3))
β
I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time" so I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is that considered a hostage situation?
β
β
Steven Wright
β
The Doctor: This is bad, I don't like this. [kicks console and yells in pain] Never use force, you just embarrass yourself. Unless you're cross, in which case... always use force!
Amy: Shall I run and get the manual?
The Doctor: I threw it in a supernova.
Amy: You threw the manual in a supernova? Why?
The Doctor: Because I disagreed with it! Now stop talking to me when I'm cross!
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
[The Doctor, Capt. Jack and Rose are cornered by the empty children.]
The Doctor: Go to your room! Go to your room! I mean it. I'm very, very angry with you. I'm very, very cross! GO! TO! YOUR! ROOM! [The children lurch away and obey him.] I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Amy: I never knew you drank wine.
Doctor: I'm 1103 I must have drunk it sometime in my life.
*takes sip and spits it out in disgust*
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
When I was in school the teachers told me practice makes perfect; then they told me nobodyβs perfect so I stopped practicing.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course.
β
β
Steven Erikson (House of Chains (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #4))
β
River Song: Right then. I have questions, but number one is this - what in the name of sanity have you got on your head?
The Doctor: It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Rose: Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas!
The Doctor: Who says I'm not, red-bicycle-when-you-were-twelve?
Rose: [shocked] What?
The Doctor: And everybody lives, Rose! Everybody lives! I need more days like this! Go on, ask me anything; I'm on fire!
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
If itβs time to go, remember what youβre leaving. Remember the best.
β
β
Steven Moffat (Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts)
β
If a man says something in the woods and there are no women there, is he still wrong?
β
β
Steven Wright
β
First in , Last out.
Motto of the bridgeburners
β
β
Steven Erikson (Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #3))
β
The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do whatβs important first.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
β
When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it'll never end. But however hard you try you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one moment, accepts it. Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. (In the library, the Doctor walks back to the TARDIS. He stops, looking at the doors. Then he raises his hand, and stands there poised like that for a long moment. Finally he snaps his fingers. The doors open. He smiles slowly and walks in, joining Donna. Then he snaps his fingers again, and the doors close. River's voice continues over this.) Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call... everybody lives.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
So is this how it works Doctor? You never interfere with the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there are children crying?
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendos
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
β
β
Wallace Stevens
β
The Doctor: Just had a fall. All the way down there, right to the library. Heck of a climb back up.
Amelia: You're soaking wet.
The Doctor: I was in the swimming pool.
Amelia: You said you were in the library.
The Doctor: So was the swimming pool.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly."
"I want to be a soldier. A hero."
"You'll grow out of it.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1))
β
If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them.
Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death.
β
β
Steven Erikson (The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6))
β
Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things.
But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
β
β
Steven Weinberg
β
I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned, Tβlan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #3))
β
Everyone has a photographic Memory, some just don't have film.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be alowed to know this.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The Virtues of War)
β
The money we spend to help you is really to help ourselves. We invest in you because you will do great things, and we want to be part of it.
β
β
Steven Decker (Projector for Sale)
β
Though the man above might say hello, expect no love from the beast below
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Whereβs the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
I have a hobby. I have the worldβs largest collection of sea shells. I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe youβve seen some of it.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
We all change, when you think about it. Weβre all different people all through our lives. And thatβs OK, thatβs good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
River Song: Use the stabilisers!
The Doctor: It doesn't have stabilisers!
River Song: The blue switches!
The Doctor: The blue ones don't do anything, they're just... blue!
River Song: Yes they're blue: they're the blue stabilisers! [presses the button and the TARDIS indeed stabilises] See?
The Doctor: Yeah? Well, it's boring now, isn't it? They're boring-ers! They're blue... boring-ers!
Amy: Doctor, how come she can fly the TARDIS?
The Doctor: You call that flying the TARDIS? [scoffs] Ha!
River Song: Okay, I've mapped the probability vectors, done a foldback on the temporal isometry, charted the ship to its destination and... [presses a button, the cloister bell clangs] parked us right alongside.
The Doctor: Parked us? But we haven't landed!
River Song: Of course we've landed; I just landed her.
The Doctor: But it didn't make the noise.
River Song: What noise?
The Doctor: You know, the... [does an impression of the TARDIS materialisation sound]
River Song: It's not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on.
The Doctor: Yes, well, it's a brilliant noise. I love that noise.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Midnight Tides (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #5))
β
I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words of Miss Kenton. Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me. Indeed- why should I not admit it? - at that moment, my heart was breaking.
β
β
Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day)
β
It's a funny thing about stories. It doesn't feel like you make them up, more like you find them. You type and type and you know you haven't got it yet, because somewhere out there, there's that perfect thing -- the unexpected ending that was always going to happen. That place you've always been heading for, but never expected to go.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings.
[Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005]
β
β
Steven Pinker
β
This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers donβt. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
β
Angel Bob: Doctor? Excuse me, hello, Doctor? Angel Bob here, sir.
The Doctor: Ah, there you are, Angel Bob. How's life? Sorry, bad subject.
Angel Bob: The Angels are wondering what you hope to achieve.
The Doctor: Achieve? We're not achieving anything. We're just hanging, it's nice in here: consoles; comfy chairs; a forest... how's things with you?
Angel Bob: The Angels are feasting, sir. Soon we will be able to absorb enough power to consume this vessel, this world, and all the stars and worlds beyond.
The Doctor: Yeah, but we've got comfy chairs. Did I mention?
Angel Bob: We have no need for comfy chairs.
The Doctor: [amused] I made him say 'comfy chairs'.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
There is something profoundly cynical, my friends, in the notion of paradise after death. The lure is evasion. The promise is excusative. One need not accept responsibility for the world as it is, and by extension, one need do nothing about it. To strive for change, for true goodness in this mortal world, one must acknowledge and accept, within one's own soul, that this mortal reality has purpose in itself, that its greatest value is not for us, but for our children and their children. To view life as but a quick passage alone a foul, tortured path β made foul and tortured by our own indifference β is to excuse all manner of misery and depravity, and to exact cruel punishment upon the innocent lives to come.
I defy this notion of paradise beyond the gates of bone. If the soul truly survives the passage, then it behooves us β each of us, my friends β to nurture a faith in similitude: what awaits us is a reflection of what we leave behind, and in the squandering of our mortal existence, we surrender the opportunity to learn the ways of goodness, the practice of sympathy, empathy, compassion and healing β all passed by in our rush to arrive at a place of glory and beauty, a place we did not earn, and most certainly do not deserve.
β
β
Steven Erikson (The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6))
β
The Doctor: Amazing.
Nancy: What is?
The Doctor: 1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it, nothing. Until one tiny, damp little island says "No. No, not here." A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. I don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
[T]he unnamed soldier is a gift. The named soldier--dead, melted wax--demands a response among the living...a response no-one can make. Names are no comfort, they're a call to answer the unanswerable. Why did she die, not him? Why do the survivors remain anonymous--as if cursed--while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold?
Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.
β
β
Steven Erikson (Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2))