Best 529 quotes in «sci fi quotes» category

Don’t talk. Don’t sputter out a solitary protest or it will be your last. Take me to them.” “Who the f**k are you?” He palmed the man’s forehead and slammed his skull against the wall. “I said don’t talk, and you want to do as I say. I’m the one thing monsters like you and your kind fear. I’m what haunts your nightmares and hunts you in the darkness.

Don't worry, boss,” HARV said. “I get the feeling that this is only the tip of the iceberg of complications.” “HARV, you’re a machine. You don’t get feelings.” “Would it make you feel better if I said I've done a numerical analysis on the probabilities and the results are skewed toward you having more problems with this case?

Do you know what an Asterion is?” “Do you?” Nika caught herself before she flinched, frowned, gasped or gave any other outward sign of surprise, but it was definitely not the response she’d anticipated. “Explain your answer.” “If you were capable of comprehending my explanation, my answer would no longer be needed. I will instead give you the answer you were expecting: Asterions are a species of hybrid synthetic-organic beings of moderate sapience who practice self-directed evolution.” Moderate sapience? She bit back a tart retort; a diplomat never got offended or angry unless they intended to do so.

Do you know why the lotus is one of my favorite flowers?" I cocked my head to one side so I could see his expression. He shook his head. "This beautiful flower lives in the most vile, muddy water of swamps and bogs," I said and rubbed the smooth metal of the pendant between my fingers. He frowned. "No, seriously... the grosser the environment, the better," I said. "So let me get this straight. You like a flower that lives in disgusting places?" One of his eyebrows rose. "That ain't right." "No, I love this flower," I corrected. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, "Seriously?" "What?" You don't believe me?" "Sure, I believe you. It's just weird." "I'll tell you why, but only if you promise not to laugh," I said. He nodded. Taking a cleansing breath, I rested my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and took that scary first step. "This flower stays in the mud and muck all night long." I peeked at him without moving my head. His face had become set in the smooth lines of one who listens intently. "Then, at sunrise, it climbs toward the light and opens into a pristine bloom. After the sun goes down, the bloom sinks into the mire. Even though it spends the whole night underwater, the flower emerges every morning as beautiful as the day before." Smiling, I swiveled in my seat to face him. "I love this flower because it reminds me that we get second chances every day, no matter what muck life drags us through.

Dwell in the past, worry about the future and find misery in the present.

Each time Olan Chapman comes to life, his anti-quarks remain on the far side of the Time Wall. After his life cycle ends, his quarks collapse back to these roots, and – presto – America's most wanted man is ready for his next adventure.

Eagles can fly higher than other birds, but a small sparrow can evade much better and has a better chance to survive, if falls off the height. (Sentence from my ebook, Tora-Bora mountains)

Earlier that day, a typewriter bomb had exploded at a black market skin house over on Eel Street, sending words raining through the cardboard walls of the boudoirs and tattooing copies of the Machinist’s ‘Twelve Terms’ on the bodies of whores and patrons alike. Forty pieces of merch ruined. Their bodies had been obliterated by language, all traces of their sexuality buried beneath a storm of words. There was something horrific about the sight of those who had survived a typewriter attack. Their faces scarred with text, as if they had become hostages to some awful advertisement. A few of the victims took to working the streets around the library where bibliophiles sometimes paid them to satisfy their fantasies amid the desolate hush of the reading rooms and the deserted stacks where the only witnesses to this erotic pantomime of the blank body and its printed partner were other words.

Efficiency was just a measurement of how fast money moved from the poor to the rich. We prefer the opposite of efficiency, which is to say, justice.

...el Día Uno es todo el primer momento de tu vida en el cual estás atravesado por las instituciones y aprendés, en el mejor de los casos, a desconfiar de ellas, mientras dejás que tejan hilos firmes, en tu cráneo, con la intención de no dejar espacios vacíos: los agujeros del sistema [...] El Día Dos empieza y su amanecer es plateado, con una nueva y no menos firme institución que son las sustancias, legales o ilegales, y algún tipo de pretensión, o nada. En los dos casos, todos los días son el mismo.

El tiempo es como el mercurio: aunque intentes dividirlo en partes más pequeñas, se reconstituye al instante, de nuevo entero sin forma. Los hombres lo han domesticado, lo han encadenado a sus relojes y cronómetros, y fluye igual para todos los que lo han encadenado. Pero déjalo libre, y verás.

Ennesby, get the Serial Peacemaker to the beach for dustoff." "Dustoff? You're going to run away from three guys?" "No, I'm going to kill or capture those three guys, and then run away from the Police.

Even an Astral Adventure needs a little sensuality. "Perhaps you can show me how tastefully decorated your bedroom is." Lee probably felt I did not know what to do next and needed direction. Maybe so, but I did know our coffee was going to get cold.

Every cell of my body says, ‘Oh god yes! Crime? I can do some crime!’ I want this ship like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. I had a poster of the first-ever Breakbolt model on my bedroom wall when I was nine. It’s like a manifestation of every dream I’ve ever had, everything I’ve ever wanted for myself: a piloting license, a beautiful ship under me, and stars out the viewport. Child Nax says, ‘Do it, do the crime!

Eso hubiese sido una paradoja -habló Lesperance-. El tiempo no permite esas confusiones…, un hombre que se encuentra consigo mismo. Cuando va a ocurrir algo parecido, el tiempo se hace a un lado.

ESPE: So, in both conversations, Lama Sangyay steers you away from thinking directly about Epifanio or your relationship (or lack thereof) and right into the nature of your mind. So masterful. CLARA: Isn't he? I hate those instructions. I do not want to do those contemplations. I want Epifanio! ESPE [laughing]: Of course you do. How does it feel to want? CLARA: "Et tu, Brute?" ESPE: Oh, sí, Señora. ¡Yo también!

Everything was so much sharper without the Link fogging me--sights, sounds, smells. It was exhilarating and shocking and terrifying. I knew my emotions had grown too strong. They were dangerous to the Community. They were dangerous to me. But still, I wanted color. I wanted to soar with happiness even if it meant dealing with the weight of fear and guilt, too. I wanted to live. And that meant that I couldn't give the glitching up. At least not yet. Just a little bit longer.

Every flutter in her chest when he sat beside her, every flush to her cheeks after a compliment, and every longer-than-average embrace would end tonight.

Falling apart wasn't an option.

Fear shuts down people, but it wakes you up ---Four

‘Foo Kyu’ is just a very unfortunate cultural coincidence." "Just think about his poor son, ‘Foo Kyu Two.’

Forget it,” I said. “Opie could be bloodthirsty, rabid, radioactive, and selling life insurance and he’d still be preferable to listening to the two of you.

For some people,being mean to others is the point of their lives.

From DW: I got it. “Here's the thing,” I said. "I'm not going to be the government's bitch.

From the first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I suppose, may be called the 'influences' of the place. She said it 'smelled' of ghosts and warlocks.

Good to see you too, Otto." -Sydney Rose

Great job, you just executed Ben Franklin! - Otto Ray

Great Gates almighty,” HARV said inside my brain. “I go off-line for a few nanos and the whole world goes to DOS.

Guardando Gundam si ha la sensazione di assistere a una fiction televisiva corale, in cui uomini e donne fatti di carne e sangue combattono, muoiono, vivono e amano all'interno di un palcoscenico che seppur fittizio non ci appare affatto inverosimile. Le vicende legate all'Universal Century di Gundam, la linea temporale all'interno della quale trovano posto sia gli avvenimenti narrati nella serie classica sia le altre produzioni a essa collegate, ci conducono per mano tra i meandri di un altro universo.

Guardo Edith, ormai avanti negli anni: dopo avermi cercato con gli occhi e trovato ai margini di quel giardino solatio, intento a scrivere sul mio solito quaderno rilegato di pelle lista e scolorita, mi scruta da lontano, lasciando affiorare un sorriso che le increspa appena le labbra. È lì e aspetta, come sempre, seduta nella sua poltrona preferita sotto il portico della candida villa in cui viviamo da vent’anni, immersa nel verde e nei fiori. Vorrei dirle che il problema non è nostro, ma del mondo, che non ama le cose semplici. Il mondo è un caos d’idee complicate che si fanno la guerra fra loro, senza lasciare spazio alla ragionevolezza, e a coloro che si lanciano in fantasticherie idealistiche non offre che buche in cui seppellirle, quando giunge il momento di raccoglierne i pezzi. Adesso che anche l’ultimo grande sogno è finito, un’altra Grande Guerra è alle porte. Se sarà ancora peggiore della precedente, probabilmente sarà l’ultima. (...) Sostando in piedi all’ombra del grande albero, Edith fissa un punto lontano, all’orizzonte, appoggiandosi alla staccionata bianca, e continua a fissarlo fin quasi a farsi lacrimare gli occhi.

Hands up.” The voice was low, male, and carried a smoothness to the syllables. “I’ve always wanted to say that.

HARV, can you help at all here?” I asked, spinning downward. “I am writing your obituary. Well, not so much writing it as updating it,” HARV told me. If I lived, I was going to kill HARV.

Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby. Marvin droned, Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see in infrared, How I hate the night. He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night.

Feeds and streams contribute to the fracturing of our consciousness.

Fleshers used to spin fantasies about aliens arriving to ‘conquer’ Earth, to steal their ‘precious’ physical resources, to wipe them out for fear of ‘competition’…as if a species capable of making the journey wouldn’t have had the power, or the wit, or the imagination, to rid itself of obsolete biological imperatives. Conquering the Galaxy is what bacteria with spaceships would do – knowing no better, having no choice.

For some the label sci-fi is just a shortand for science fiction, an alternative to sf gesturing at ... you know, that stuff we like.

Frankly, Olan couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a ping pong paddle.

From close inspection, she noted the doors were locked with fingerprint scans. Every single one of them. She scratched her head. Well, then, she would have to cut someone’s finger off.

From her own life experience Keldaren knew that loveable hunks were in short supply anywhere in the galaxy, loveable hunks who knew her were an extinct species, and that more marketing companies than friends had her phone number.

Gaia giveth even as she taketh away. The warming of the global climate over the past century had melted permafrost and glaciers, shifted rainfall patterns, altered animal migratory routes, disrupted agriculture, drowned cities, and similarly necessitated a thousand thousand adjustments, recalibrations and hasty retreats. But humanity's unintentional experiment with the biosphere had also brought some benefits. Now we could grow oysters in New England. Six hundred years ago, oysters flourished as far north as the Hudson. Native Americans had accumulated vast middens of shells on the shores of what would become Manhattan. Then, prior to the industrial age, there was a small climate shift, and oysters vanished from those waters. Now, however, the tasty bivalves were back, their range extending almost to Maine. The commercial beds of the Cape Cod Archipelago produced shellfish as good as any from the heyday of Chesapeake Bay. Several large wikis maintained, regulated and harvested these beds, constituting a large share of the local economy. But as anyone might have predicted, wherever a natural resource existed, sprawling and hard of defense, poachers would be found.

Gem thought it would be hilarious to shear his brother’s fine hair off while he was sleeping. Ever since then Menai decided he actually preferred the Mohawk. Both had inherited their mother’s Western Continent coloring, a blend of pearly white and sea grass green that set their bold sea-colored eyes off handsomely. And since they had grown old enough to realize this, they had become a pair of pre-pubescent manipulating terrors.

Had she been kidnapped? If she had, they'd been very efficient, but why take her damn coffee? That was just cruel.

HARV appeared in front of me, arms crossed, head tilted. “You really should read your e-mails from Randy more carefully,” he lectured. “I skim them,” I protested. “Well, if you skimmed them more carefully you would know that prolonged exposure to stealth mode may lead to side effects.” “I can handle . . .” “Impotence.” HARV smiled. “Oh,” I said. “Randy hasn’t really tested it on humans. It’s extra tough to get volunteers for those types of experiments,” HARV said. “Though he has computer simulated it and the results tend to support this conclusion.” “Let’s try to limit our use of stealth mode from now on,” I said.

Having to amuse myself during those earlier years, I read voraciously and widely. Mythic matter and folklore made up much of that reading—retellings of the old stories (Mallory, White, Briggs), anecdotal collections and historical investigations of the stories' backgrounds—and then I stumbled upon the Tolkien books which took me back to Lord Dunsany, William Morris, James Branch Cabell, E.R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake and the like. I was in heaven when Lin Carter began the Unicorn imprint for Ballantine and scoured the other publishers for similar good finds, delighting when I discovered someone like Thomas Burnett Swann, who still remains a favourite. This was before there was such a thing as a fantasy genre, when you'd be lucky to have one fantasy book published in a month, little say the hundreds per year we have now. I also found myself reading Robert E. Howard (the Cormac and Bran mac Morn books were my favourites), Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and finally started reading science fiction after coming across Andre Norton's Huon of the Horn. That book wasn't sf, but when I went to read more by her, I discovered everything else was. So I tried a few and that led me to Clifford Simak, Roger Zelazny and any number of other fine sf writers. These days my reading tastes remain eclectic, as you might know if you've been following my monthly book review column in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I'm as likely to read Basil Johnston as Stephen King, Jeanette Winterson as Harlan Ellison, Barbara Kingsolver as Patricia McKillip, Andrew Vachss as Parke Godwin—in short, my criteria is that the book must be good; what publisher's slot it fits into makes absolutely no difference to me.

He carried emotional and mental scars as long-lasting and vivid as the whip marks on his body.

He created waterfalls for her out of the morning dew, and from the colored pebbles of a meadow stream he made a necklace more beautiful than emeralds, sadder than pearls. She caught him in her net of silken hair, she carried him down, down, into deep and silent waters, past obliteration. He showed her frozen stars and molten sun; she gave him long, entwined shadows and the sound of black velvet. He reached out to her and touched moss, grass, ancient trees, iridescent rocks; her fingertips, striving upwards, brushed old planets and silver moonlight, the flash of comets and the cry of dissolving suns.

He didn't care if Matt made him cuddly or made him hornier than he'd ever been or even made him a lovesick fool. James was keeping him. Hopefully Matt would want to keep James too.

He grumbles incoherently, opens the window a fraction and continues to smoke away. It’s like every time Sidney Drake enters a new location he has to readjust the atmosphere, akin to one of those sci-fi shows where they oxygenate the planet, but for my dad it’s in a suffocating reverse. He replaces the clean wholesome air with a non-stop puff of toxic poison.

Hello fake Everett children.

He loved the idea of paper, how the ink would fade and the paper would age. So finite, he would explain, just like life.