Quotes Looking for An Article

"I'm being quoted to introduce something, but I have no idea what it is and certainly don't endorse it." —Randall Munroe, xkcd #1942

Have you discovered a page that doesn't begin with a quote, and you want to rectify that situation? Perhaps one of these quotes might be appropriate.

If you're adding a quote to this page, please double-check that it actually is a quote and actually comes from the work it claims to come from, and include the attribution in the quote. (If you need to know why, see the annotation on this Irregular Webcomic strip.)

If you use or see a quote from this page on another page, please remove the quote from this page.

Anime and Manga

Reimu: Sorry Bean throwing is canceled this year. Even though I asked you to play the Oni [...] Suika: No-no way! I even dressed up as an Oni! —Wild and Horned Hermit (a Touhou manga)

No matter how we try to fool ourselves This is the reality we're stuck with... But you know what? I won't avert my eyes anymore —Tomorrow lyrics, Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!

Stealing someone else's happiness Starts to sound like a pretty good idea But that won't make us satisfied in the end. —Tomorrow lyrics, Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!

"Constellations of stars that I am seeing for the first time… you are all only allowed to exist as objects for my conquest and rule. Just wait." —Reinhard von Lohengramm, Legend of the Galactic Heroes

"There is nothing more noble and beautiful than a warrior with no distractions. One could say he is the closest thing to God." —Treize Khushrenada, Gundam Wing

"Man fears the darkness, and so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire." —Rei Ayanami, Neon Genesis Evangelion

"Doctor Tenma. For you all lives are created equal, that’s why I came back to life. But you’ve finally come to realize it now, haven’t you? Only one thing is equal for all, and that is death." —Johan Liebert, Monster (manga)

"Immortality is wasted on the young." —Alucard, Hellsing

"Romance [...] is flexible in that it can act as the central reason to include an array of props. Want tension? Create awkward scenarios that sprout from romance. Mind some comedy? There are countless cliché gags based on a romantic relationship. Want to keep a healthy male fan base? Add girls, some naughty camera angles, and you’ve got yourself a steady audience. Romance is versatile, but requires a lot of characterization and work on the story. Some anime producers decided that these weren’t important, but liked the broad spectrum of actions that romance covered. So they included the drama, comedy, and fan-service, but left out the tedious process of developing a proper romance." —Austin, Anime: The World of Fake Romance (The Artifice)

"Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people discovered anime through [Carl] Macek's work, including a lot of the fans who went on to found North America's anime industry. You could make the case that the popularization of anime might have happened anyway, but the fact is, Macek was the one who did it." —Christopher Macdonald, CEO and editor-in-chief of Anime News Network, The 'Robotech' master

We weep for a bird's cry, but not for a fish's blood; blessed are those with a voice. —Major Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence

I'll show you just how cruel a person can be, so long as they can excuse it as protecting the ones they love. —Shiage Hamazura, A Certain Magical Index III episode 26

Comic Books

No man is poor who can do what he likes to do once in a while! —Scrooge McDuck, as quoted by Forbes

Fan Works

Marisa: Ah... Sorry for not meeting expectations. Alice & Patchouli: We weren't expecting anything. Marisa: Ah... I see. —Omoito (a Touhou doujin)

When I write things like this I'm not advocating them. If I advocated everything I write, I wouldn't be able to write racist characters, murder or bullying – let alone all the killing my stories have. I write stories. I write conflict. I write villages destroyed by Grimm and both men and women sometimes being bastards and using their influence to make other people's lives unhappy. I've written Mercury stealing a kiss from Ruby and Cinder seducing Jaune to use as nothing more than a sex toy (in Stress Relief), and ironically people were fine with the latter but a kiss on the former is totally not okay. Anyway, me writing those things doesn't mean I go around bribing women to kiss me and then dragging innocent young men to bed. It just means I'm writing characters who aren't your typical goodies. —Coeur Al'Aran, author's note to Service with a Smile chapter 54

Did I feel guilty about stealing an ancient heritage and taking out a patent on it? Not after I saw the company's monthly balance sheet. —GremlinJack, A Young Girl's Delinquency Record

The workmen watched with smiles that were entirely too wide for her mental well-being, full as they were of a certain amount of schadenfreude, a concept she was aware of even if she couldn't spell it. —Desperately Seeking Ranma, Chapter 56

Film

"It’s a tiny bit arrogant of people to go around worrying about those less fortunate." —Nick Smith, Metropolitan

John 'The Hangman' Ruth: Major Marquis Warren, this here is Daisy Domergue. Domergue, to you, this is Major Warren. Daisy Domergue: Howdy, nigger. John 'The Hangman' Ruth: [laughing] She's a pepper, ain't she? Now, girl, don't you know darkies don't like being called niggers no more? They find it offensive. Daisy Domergue: I've been called worse. John 'The Hangman' Ruth: Now, that I can believe. —The Hateful Eight

"In the aftermath of violence, the distinction between hero and villain is sometimes a matter of interpretation or misinterpretation of facts. "Taxi Driver" suggests that tragic errors can be made." —Disclaimer from a TV broadcast of Taxi Driver

Literature

The Imperial Army is withdrawing “forward” with it’s tail between its legs, as reported by the Federation media —Rumor in the Commonwealth in Saga of Tanya the Evil LN volume 4

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment —Rita Mae Brown, Alma Mater

"I used to think marriage was a plate-glass window just begging for a brick." —Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

"I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid." —Dorothy Parker, The Lost Poems

"For a fellow who’s not too much to look at, you have the instincts of a champion." —Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence

"[...] it is invariably the case that actions bright and exciting in the imagination are, unfortunately, often disappointing or farcical in practice, more so when they have not been thought through thoroughly. Deep thinking gives people a headache. They think they are thinking when in fact they are merely daydreaming. For instance, if you were to ask them what they thought of ‘adventure,’ they would express a vague, undefined pro-adventure attitude, as practically everyone does, albeit from the comfort of an easy chair. They equate, or confuse, their liking for the idea of adventure with an ability to possibly participate in the real thing. Whereas, in practice, they might immediately discover that real adventure — of the neck-on-the-line variety — is unsettling, like entering a fourth dimension where the comfortable laws and rules they take for granted in normal life no longer apply; adrenaline speeds the pumping blood and distorts the faculties; immersion in the immediacy of action obviates wider appreciation. Riding the whirlwind is an acquired taste. The psyche aspires to accommodate the new perspective of both inner and external vision. The more times you act as supreme architect, the more you become one." —Ian Brady, The Gates of Janus (Chapter Fifteen: Ted Bundy)

If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. —Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies

Writers are among the most sensitive, most intellectually anarchic, most representative, most probing of artists. The writer's ability to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and to mystify the familiar — all this is the test of her or his power. —Toni Morrison, Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations, 2019

I'm free from pain. It's where nobody tells me what to do; it's where my imagination is fecund and I am really at my best. Nothing matters more in the world or in my body or anywhere when I'm writing. —Toni Morrison, on NPR's Fresh Air, 2015

You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself. —Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, 1977

My grandfather bragged all the time that he had read the Bible. And it was illegal in his life to read. Ultimately I knew that words have power. —Toni Morrison, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, documentary, 2019

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. —Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, 1993

Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. —Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

If you wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. —Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, 1977

Navigating a white male world was not threatening. It wasn't even interesting. I was more interesting than they were. And I wasn't afraid to show it. —Toni Morrison, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, documentary, 2019

The idea of a wanton woman is something I have inserted into almost all of my books. An outlaw figure who is disallowed in the community because of her imagination or activity or status — that kind of anarchic figure has always fascinated me. And the benefits they bring with them, in spite of the fact that they are either dismissed or upbraided — something about their presence is constructive in the long run. Sula, for instance, was someone the other characters missed terribly when she was gone, even though she was the pariah. In Love, Junior is a poor, rootless, free-floating young woman — a survivor, a manipulator, a hungry person — but she does create a space where people can come with their better selves. —Toni Morrison, O Magazine, 2003

This was brand-new space, and once I got there, it was like the whole world opened up, and I was never going to give that up. I felt original. I hate to admit that because it sounds so self-regarding, I didn't feel like an original human being, but the work was original. You know that feeling — that if you don't write it, it will never be written? You think, Eudora Welty can't do it, only you. —Toni Morrison, O Magazine, 2003

Complicity in the subjugation of race and class accounts for much of the self-sabotage women are prey to, for it is straight out of that subjugation that certain female-destroying myths have come. —Toni Morrison, Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations, 2019

The mind really is a palace. Not only for its perception of symmetry and the outrageously beautiful, but also because it can invent, imagine and most importantly, it can delve. —Toni Morrison, Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations, 2019

An instant later, I was rushing to prepare an entrenchment, practically crying. I never dreamed there might be a day a trowel would seem so important to me. —Visha's POV, Saga of Tanya the Evil

What I learned at a very early age was that I was responsible for my life. And as I became more spiritually conscious, I learned that we all are responsible for ourselves, that you create your own reality by the way you think and therefore act. You cannot blame apartheid, your parents, your circumstances, because you are not your circumstances. You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything. —Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, January 2007

What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it. —Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832)

Sunny called the cops. Twenty minutes later, a police cruiser quietly pulled up to the building with its lights off. A highly agitated Sunny told the officer that an employee had quit and departed with company property. When the officer asked what he’d taken, Sunny blurted out in his accented English, “He stole property in his mind.” —John Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist. —Louis Nizer, Between You and Me (Beechurst Press, 1948)

Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one. —Nora Ephron, I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections

Never get into a war of words with a poet, Ironbreaker. You can't win. —Gotrek, Gotrek and Felix (Orc Slayer)

He had put off entering the fray quite long enough. It was either fight or be cut down. And though a few minutes ago he might have thought that a mercy compared to the tedium of dwarfish conversation, he found that now his life was at risk, even Snorri’s banalities were not without charm. —Gotrek and Felix (Giantslayer)

A thought made him smile. Why was it that, when faced with a horde of howling orcs he wished so dearly for this life, and when faced with this life, he wished so dearly for a horde of howling orcs? A truism could have been found somewhere in that conundrum, if he had had any energy for that sort of thing anymore. —Gotrek and Felix (Manslayer)

The vile little profiteer, thought Felix. Was it any wonder cults like the Cleansing Flame flourished when men like Otto preyed on the poor and the unfortunate? —Nathan Long, Gotrek and Felix (Manslayer)

The last two men backed away from him, squeezing back through the trap and running into the darkness beyond. Felix started forward, snarling. “Don’t be drawn, manling,” said Gotrek’s from behind him. With an effort, Felix restrained himself from chasing the men. It always amazed him how, when his blood was up, he found himself ready to do things you couldn’t have paid him to do when he was calm and thinking clearly. —Nathan Long, Gotrek and Felix (Manslayer)

You’re a fool, umgi, even by the standards of your kind. The day this vermin keeps its word is the day an elf gets down on his effeminate knees and begs the secret behind a well-made shelf. —Handrik, Headtaker

There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called the silliest ever known among men. They are much more wild than the wildest romances of chivalry and much more dull than the dullest religious tract. Moreover, the romances of chivalry were at least about chivalry; the religious tracts are about religion. But these things are about nothing; they are about what is called Success. One every bookstall, in every magazine, you may find works telling people how to succeed. They are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books. —G. K. Chesterton, "The Fallacy of Success", All Things Considered (1909)

People ought to think for themselves, Captain Vimes says. The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to. —Corporal Carrot, Men at Arms

But that's the trouble with trying to apply anything remotely scientific to an art form ; statistical analysis of a field that, by its nature, has no absolutes is something like attempting chemical analysis of an emotion. It remains interesting, but not absolutely convincing! —John W. Campbell, Jr., Astounding Science Fiction, December 1949, page 92

My emotion I well can remember    O'er a "promise" that somewhere I'd seen One night, away back in December    Anno Domini 1918. Happy tears in my orbs began wellin'    As I read how the England-to-be Would become a fit messuage to dwell in       For heroes like me. Refreshed by an access of ardour    I returned to my business in town; But, as life seemed each day to grow harder,    I despaired of its joy and its crown; Till, fed up with a "tale" for poor Tommies,    My temper I finally lost, And pronounced that oracular "promise"       A palpable frost. But I've tumbled at last to my error;    For, although I am far from content, I know that this era of terror    Is just what the Government meant; When through England so bell-like and clear rose    That eager, that passionate vow; Since none but a race of real heroes       Can live in it now. —Punch, December 1st, 1920, commenting on political promises

"If it's possible to kill a man with a device, then I've been taught how to use it." —Ashok Vadal, Son of the Black Sword

"If I made a list of all the men who wanted me dead for one cause or another, it would be a very long list." That wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe by the time they reached the Ice Coast he'd be finished. It would give him something to do to pass the time. —Ashok Vadal, Son of the Black Sword

"The more closely our own pistols resemble machine-guns, the better we like it." —William Ewart Fairbairn and Eric Anthony Sykes, Shooting to Live

for in judging others I must be content to be judged by all —St. Jerome, Preface to the Vulgate Version of the New Testament, addressed to Pope Damasus, A.D. 383

Live-Action TV

"At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That's how we're made. So, you can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them. But there are some lines that are way too dangerous to cross." —Dr. Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy, "The First Cut Is the Deepest"

We all know that artists are the epitome of mental health. —Stephen Colbert (joking), The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

"Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming." —Jamie Kellner, then-chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting, in an interview with Cableworld, April 29, 2002

"It's the people's will. I am their leader. I must follow them." —Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington), Yes Minister, "The Greasy Pole"

And I know some people are going to say I'm only saying that to pander to Florida voters, but from a very young age, my two greatest loves were always Jews and Cuban food. —"Sarah Palin" (Tina Fey), Saturday Night Live

Music

"All of us get lost in the darkness Dreamers learn to steer by the stars All of us do time in the gutters Dreamers turn to look at the cars" —Rush, The Pass

"On reflection it seems ironic and perhaps fitting that a series of musical pieces exploring themes of loss and melancholia should in themselves be impacted upon by an unexpected experience of loss ..." —An Imaginal Space, on "Loss"

Lost - another time we found now the power Crash - into a world of darkness and light Dust - of thousand stars into the reactor Life comes from death - blankness from light —Core Domain by Thunderblast

"That alert-sounding siren doesn't always have to go off at the start of a beat track; the sound of the beat nearly gives it away on its own." —CVoss on J Dilla, Rate Your Music

No, I do not believe roses only bloom just to conceal the thorns. I merely accept the thorn pricked finger bleeds. —Think The Adder Benign by Shai Hulud

The girl next door, the American Dream Skin as perfect as mocha ice cream She got a job teaching at the high school Kids finally had a teacher who was cool But the parents got her fired - they made a big stink When they found out she don’t wear pink. —Shemekia Copeland, "She Don't Wear Pink"

New Media

Imagining other dragons Edrilanish would regard as her elders feels strange. Of course, everybody was young at some point, but imaging her as anybody but the Dragon Queen is almost surreal. —nobody_here, Descendant of a Demon Lord

Changing your mind is proof that you have one. —attributed to @elysiansuns

Radio

"Underground radio meant something because it said something ..." —Pioneer FM deejay Charles Laquidara.

"[The Canadian radio industry] frustrates me so much. I want to see it flourish, I want to hear great material being produced by quality radio hosts, but instead it’s amateur hour all throughout the country as the corporations slash budgets and hire people fresh out of school (or who never even went to school) who aren’t ready to be in front of the mic in markets that should only be hiring seasoned veterans…" —A Dose of Buckley, Radio Hypocrisy

"The writing process... You've seen The Shining?" —Jinkx, Q, November 27, 2023

Video Games

"The truth, Walker, is that you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not: A hero." —Spec Ops: The Line

"You're a disgusting, MMO-addicted NEET hermit... and I'm your beloved little sister!" —Rikana, Mix Ore

"You can't talk yourself out of loneliness, it doesn't work that way. You can't be the one writing both the questions and the answers, then there's no movement! Then there's no circulation! If all of your anxieties are being channeled into your work, then if the work ever fails you have no backup and you're just going to crash." —Davey Wreden of The Stanley Parable fame, on the dialogue of one of Coda's games, The Beginner's Guide

"Their catch phrase for EOS Online is "For the MMORPG that you've lost." The only thing that I have lost while testing this game is interest." —Steparu Review

"While Clannad certainly has a bunch of the generic "lol Japan is perverts", I'd be hard-pressed to call it a game designed for porn. I mean, if you enjoy masturbating to your own tears, that's not the game's fault." —Ad__Hominem, Reddit (r/KotakuInAction, So the ABC tv show Good Game just did an episode on sex in games...)

"Who'd of thought it, huh? A bunch of small towners like us wrapped up in an adventure like this." —Olivia, Minecraft: Story Mode

"It's one of those games that seems to do exactly what it set out to do. Neverending Nightmares does indeed trap you in a seemingly never-ending cycle of wandering halls and avoiding monsters. It just does it in a far more tedious and uninteresting way than your own mind would." —Audish, Steam review of Neverending Nightmare

But what is video gaming if not one well-crafted delusion after another? —Ben Croshaw, Fully Ramblomatic, March 13, 2024

Web Comics

Alexia Murtaugh: Made in good faith, that offer puts us under Samaritan clauses. BOOM. We're here legally. Kevyn Andreyasn: Are we the good guys if we're this crafty about being the good guys? Alexia Murtaugh: I'm a career good-guy. This qualifies as "justifiably crafty righteousness". —Schlock Mercenary, April 22, 2016

Oh no! Roy's been staggered! Or possibly stunned! Maybe dazed? Dazzled? I know it's one of the swoopy-star conditions, not one of the swirly-eye ones. —Elan, The Order of the Stick, "Conditional Diagnosis"

Riff: You realize you are about a year off from that joke being topical. Torg: Some jokes never get old. Riff: Others are born that way. —Sluggy Freelance, August 29, 1997

Agatha: What do you call it ... when you have to work with someone you'd be better off killing? Krosp: Politics. —Girl Genius, Volume 20, Page 11

In closing, social distancing works; that goes for avoiding predators as well as viruses. —Lindesfarne's Virtual Quill, May 24, 2020

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make me think I deserved it. —Randall Munroe, xkcd, "Sticks and Stones"

Well, it's not like communications are difficult and being polite is never a waste of bandwidth. —Florence, Freefall #3557

My job is to protect the world. Not the status quo. —Serini, The Order of the Stick, "No Chance"

Besides, I didn't get into the hero business to only right wrongs done to people who look like me. I mean, if you want to get technical, I literally did, but I branched out pretty quickly. —Roy Greenhilt, The Order of the Stick, "I Mean, Geez"

Sam: Can we get a tour of the place? I could learn how you guys make nuclear explosives. Gregor: Normally I am in favor of education. Here, I will sing the praises of ignorance. —Freefall #3597

If microgravity caused rapid fat loss instead of muscle loss, humans would have had a vastly overfunded space program and been an interplanetary species by the 1970's. [sic] —Sam Starfall, Freefall #3628

Kengarff: I'm sorry about Commander Teff, sir. Commodore Shufgar: He was like a son to me. Kengarff: Sir... You plucked his eye out with a spoon when the prisoners escaped. Commodore Shufgar: Let that be a warning to the rest of my family. —Schlock Mercenary, April 1, 2007

Still, it's a lot to ask. That's why this procedure is voluntary. <beat> Just like your employment. —Captain Tagon, Schlock Mercenary, January 3, 2012

Petey: If I detained and contained everyone whose choices could hurt others I would need to build a much, much larger ring of cities. Para: I can't help but notice all the construction outside. —Schlock Mercenary, February 13, 2013

Theo: Has the plenipotent proto-god discovered humility? Petey: Sure. I muscled right through it and discovered "awesome" on the other side. —Schlock Mercenary, March 8, 2013

Murtaugh: You can ruin a thing by looking at it too closely. Liz: If a close look ruins a thing, the thing was already broken. —Schlock Mercenary, May 26, 2013

It makes for a good science-fiction adventure to have the captain say something along the lines of "prime directive be damned." It makes for much better science-fiction, however, to have the captain able to say in frank honesty "I have no idea what this prime directive concept is, and it sounds like foolishness that belongs in another universe entirely. Go away. I have work to do." If you persisted in whining about native cultures, that captain would have no choice but to shoot you. —Howard Tayler, author's note to the Schlock Mercenary strip for February 5, 2002.

Hold your breath while I peel that thing off you. <beat> It won't help, but I need a break from your voice. —Belkar, The Order of the Stick, "Lurking Below", reacting to Vaarsuvius's Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness

Para: The view is still amazing. Schlock: All I see are the bright lights of a billion places I'll never go. —Schlock Mercenary, February 24, 2013

GM: Don’t sweat it, Corey. Every GM makes mistakes in their first game. GM: And every game thereafter. —Darths & Droids, Episode 2119

Kevyn: If there were any justice she'd have half a dozen Doctorates and would be designing defense systems for wealthy, paranoid governments. Captain Tagon: ...Who would be using them to shoot at us. Kevyn: Okay, so maybe it's not justice we want. —Schlock Mercenary, October 22, 2006

Web Original

Bah. I know protagonists when I see them. You may not have the stupid hair or the ridiculous swords bigger than you are, but you've got the completely nonsensical outfits down perfectly. —Christoph, A Friendly Voidling

and Epimetheus is given a gift by the gods. And the gift he is given is Pandora. And everything's great until one day, she, out of curiosity or for whatever reason, smashes a jar that she has, in which all of the things that are bad, all of the things that make life hard, the way that the story is sometimes told, that remains, after all of the evils in the world have flown out into the world, is hope. I've never been quite sure how to interpret that, because you can think of hope as remaining as being this wonderful, pure, happy thing. Or you can think of it as the final cruelty of the gods, as they've loosed all of these terrible things upon us, and then just to make it little worse, they've given us all hope. —Neil Gaiman, Tech Support (Neil Gaiman Answers Mythology Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED)

You took the vikings all the way to North America. Where in North America we're not quite sure, but we are pretty sure you did go there. There was some raiding, some trading, some strife with indigenous people, and then, you didn't settle the land and kill 95% of American Indians. And for that Lief Erikson: I Say Good Job. —John Green, Crash Course (web video)

"1) Does it have bass? 2) Does it blow your fucking mind? Then it's Future Bass. It's not a genre, it's a state of mind." —r/futurebass description, Reddit

Luigi: Guys, I think I found the switch to the lasers. Mario: How can you be sure? Luigi: There's a sign below the switch that says "Lazerz." Sonic: What a goddamn genius! —Mario & Luigi: The Great Castle Heist! (Machinima)

"You know, there's a really thin line between "YouTube Challenge" and "Snuff Fetish Film." —Andre the Black Nerd (Black Nerd Comedy), WORST OF 2015: Black Nerd Rants

"'A very important message from a shark.' Somehow, I don't think these two things belong in the same sentence. —TheMysteriousMrEnter, Tentacolino Review

"The modern information age got such a jump start from the "calculator wars" that it's bizarre that it isn't discussed in any more depth than it is." —LGR Tech Tales - The Calculator Wars

"Didn't they, like, put ads in a reaction video to a little girl's suicide video and a school shooting?" —Steve (a human being with empathy), Finebros React (Psychicpebbles short)

"We're reacting to ourselves now? That's so useless and redundant. (happy shrug) Why didn't we think of it before?!" —Rafi Fine, Finebros React (Psychicpebbles short)

"[Changes in modern media, compared to old works, make] the story reflect the sensibilities of a modern audience. Fiction is [a] product of culture, and culture is a product of circumstance. Our circumstances now are not the same as they were in classical times, so neither is our culture and neither is our fiction." —MrBtongue, Tasteful, Understated Nerdrage: Genre vs. Literature

"There was a point in the early 90's when people thought the internet was going to create a global forum for the spread of new ideas, that it would make national boundaries and old prejudices irrelevant. Indeed people attached an almost utopian significance to it. The global village was no longer a theory but a reality. Fast forward about 20 odd years and we use it to watch videos of fat men eating junk food and vomiting —feedtheoctopus, Kiwi Farms thread about JoeysWorldTour

"[LeafyIsHere]'s actually been coming out of his shell quite a bit recently [as of late 2016]. He's making more 'facecam' videos- I love that too, by the way, calling 'em 'facecam' videos. You know, for the rest of the planet who isn't afraid to show their face, we just call 'em 'videos'." —iDubbbzTV, Content Cop - Leafy

LucasSomething: [...] [I] just love how Youtube drama has become a shounen anime where every month you discover that the villain was actually being manipulated by an even stronger villain. Leafy backstabbing Keemstar to avoid getting hate is getting him much more hating than if he sided with Keemstar. Oh the irony... StarvingAutist: It's like Death Note, but with dank memes. —Kiwi Farms thread about LeafyIsHere

Do you have a brain, or does that mustache go all the way to the center? — Imp, Shamus Plays WoW #1: It’s an Imp’s Life

Naturally I object to this plan on moral grounds. As in: It’s moral, therefore we shouldn’t be wasting our time with it. — Imp, Shamus Plays WoW #7: The Cataclysm Begins!

Anonymous: apollodown has hidden their mods in reaction to american politics. On a scale of beyond 10 to beyond 10, how utterly retarded is this move? trainwiz: That’s like killing your cat in response to Hurricane Matthew. — [1]

Can you hear that? I can hear it. That's the sound of every former British service member cringing at the mere sight of this rifle and it's so loud that you can hear it over the internet. — Ian McCollum on the L85A1, Forgotten Weapons

Magdalene Visaggio: I think it's genuinely fucked up that @aubreysitterson is being hounded out of comics for speaking his mind in a non-hateful way. Diversity in Comics: He literally decided he was the referee of who got to mourn 9/11. There is nothing more hateful than that. —Diversity in Comics tears apart a hit article on him.

(though my favorite negative review is, and always will be, the guy who said the Grimnoir trilogy was just ripping off the X-Men when I had FDR try to round up over a hundred thousand people who were considered scary to put them in concentration camps. Holy crap.) — Larry Correia, "Some Reactions to Sad Puppies 2: Rainbow Puppy Lighthouse The Huggening"

Could an AI android live forever? What, like your other IT devices? You'd be lucky if it survives until next Thursday. —Alistair Dabbs, The Register, 28 Jun 2019

The Nuremberg defence is something typically saved until things are really bad, but in this case the PFY has decided to use it as our opening gambit. —Bastard Operator From Hell, 18 Oct 2019

Because clearly the UK government is really, really scared of ninjas. They're not scared of gangs stabbing each other with kitchen knifes or shooting each other, but they are really, really scared of ninjas. [...] the UK government is frikin terrified of ninjas. Gangs, terrorists, not a problem. Ninjas are the real problem that we're facing today, or at least in 1988. —Matt Easton, UK Weapon Laws: 19 Offensive Weapons - Nonsensical?

This article is about Eta Carinae, a luminous blue hypergiant with anomalous Fe[ii] emission spectra. For the 1998 Brad Bird film, see The Iron Giant (film). —mouseover text for xkcd #2360, spoofing The Other Wiki's hatnotes

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become. —Kurt Vonnegut, reposted on Twitter, October 17, 2020

[A]fter all, when you really look at those happy endings, fairy tales are some of the most senselessly violent stories on the planet. —Laura I. Miller, Bustle, "8 Wicked Women From Fairy Tales You Didn't Know"

But if you think that asking you to improve your ability to write and communicate while you're contributing to a wiki about writing and communication is insulting, then you've got a fundamental conflict with our core mission. —Robert M. Schroeck, post on All The Tropes

But one of the great things about open source is that if enough users are unhappy with some change a company makes to its software, they can just fork it and carry on. —Liam Proven, The Register, "Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson"

I'm not scared. Us Irish people aren't afraid of anything. Except landlords. That's the only thing we're scared of. —Mick O'Donovan, I Played Modern Sonic.exe Games

Othais: Girl pockets are useless. [...] How do you live like this? Mae: You don't. That's the problem. —C&Rsenal finds the Colt 1903's "Pocket Model"'s designation a bit optimistic.

Yes, the women in these stories are being portrayed as wonderful and beautiful and perfect. But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them. —Cracked.com, "5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women"

This problem can be solved with the right amount of planning, which, as it turns out, is a shit ton of planning. —Bismuth, Mario Enters Parallel Universes

[T]his thing which uh, is very cool and very steampunk, it's also entirely implausible. — "Drachinifel on illustration from The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror

And if you're ever in doubt about the thinking behind modern movies, simply apply Drinker's Razor: All things being equal, the dumbest explanation is usually the correct one. —Critical Drinker

Western Animation

"Sometimes, you need to take responsibility for your own happiness. It takes a long time to realize how truly miserable you are, even longer to see it doesn't have to be that way. Only after you give up everything can you begin to find a way to be happy." —Cuddlywhiskers, BoJack Horseman ("BoJack Kills")

Welcome, workers of Nutzi Land! What a glorious privilege is yours, to be a Nutzi! To work 48 hours a day for the Fuehrer. —Donald Duck in Nutzi Land

Now, what's the fun in watching a kid get eaten by a monster if it's my kid? —Eda, The Owl House

Moe: Sorry, Homer. I've been planning this vacation for years. I'm finally gonna see Easter Island. Homer: Oh, right. With the giant heads. Moe: With the what now? —The Simpsons

Homer: Where are we going? Marge: Shh! Marge: I don't want the kids to hear. I always hated hearing my parents fight. Bart: They're fighting in the car again. Lisa: That music always sends a chill down my spine. —The Simpsons

Other

you're a very very healthy fifty-five-year-old man, except, of course, for the brain cancer. —Anne Lamott's Father's oncologist

"You see people, the truly ironic thing about all of this, is that going to College/University was supposed to be about expanding young minds. Helping them to broaden their own experiences and give them the best possible start in life. A new perspective; a chance to grow. Now it seems to be more about hiding new experiences from them and reinforcing their own pre-conceptions. Instead of preparing them for reality, we're teaching them to be reality ignorant." —Kleyno, Dr. Frankenstein regrets creating his monster: Even Salon.com thinks trigger warnings have ruined college (Voat thread)

"The aquarium was once the best way to encounter the wonders of sea life. It has become a mere travesty, tacky and cruel." —Subtitle for Through a Glass, Sadly by Bernd Brunner

"The truth is our standards for what a “successful relationship” should be are pretty screwed up. If a relationship ends and someone’s not dead, then we view it as a failure, regardless of the emotional or practical circumstances present in the person’s lives. And that’s kind of insane." —Mark Manson, Healthy Relationships Habits Most People Think are Toxic (Quartz article)

"China Is Banning Erotic Banana Eating on Live Streams But what of cucumbers?" —Headline and Subtitle of a 2016 article by Erik Shilling on Atlas Obscura

"My five-year-old son just got a trophy for soccer. I was as pleased as any father could be, and I pulled him on my lap, and praised him. Then I figured out everyone got a trophy. All my praise turned to lies in my mouth. I could not unsay what I had just said to a five-year-old. I could not tell him that this trophy was meaningless. I could not tell him to try his best, either, because the reward was the same for his best as for his worst. My other son quit the team before the season ended, and the coach wanted to give him a trophy in any case. I was revolted by the idea, deeply offended. They are trying to make my sons into little, weak, selfish, puling nonentities: boys who will cry if they do not get the same reward for hard work as for goofing off. Boys who will grow up to think life is unfair unless they are handed everything they never earned on a silver platter. I cannot regard this attempt with anything but a deep mistrust, bordering on hatred. Who are these people, and what do they have against my boys? Why are they trying to spoil them?" —John C. Wright, If everyone is Super, no one will be, June 10, 2008

"Kafkaesque doesn't even begin to describe how fucked up this is. Those poor kids are going to have their lives ruined because some fuckwad at the police station decided that was the only charge they could stick on them. Our legal system is too fucked up to even repair at this point. It's become a series of depressing stories like this highlighting how broken it is but, until people are impacted by it themselves, most are not willing to raise their voices and demand change." —Bananassassin, Teen Boy Will Be Charged As Adult For Having Naked Pics of a Minor: Himself (Voat thread)

"Transcendental meditation is for human beings, and it transforms life for the good, no matter who you are or what your situation is. For instance, everybody knows education is pretty bad shape these days. There's lots of problems, even in the so-called "good" schools. Stress is hitting kids at a younger and younger age, and there's bullying, there's fights, there's legal and illegal drugs, there's bad relationships, bad grades, nobody likes to learn, there's teacher burnout, and it's kind of a mess. People have tried many things to help, but in my opinion, lots of these good things are surface cures--they don't address the torment inside the student, or the teacher, or the principal. When they get this transcendental meditation, it's a mental techique that allows them to dive deep within to the deepest level of life, which underlies all matter and mind. At the border of intellect, you transcend and experience that unbounded level of life: all positive, pure consciousness with qualities of intelligence, creativity, happiness, love, energy, and peace. I like to say gold flows in and garbage goes out." —David Lynch, 25 February 2014 Q&A on Rolling Stone

Everybody laughs in the same language. —Anonymous

"Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain." —Helen Keller

We see several German soldiers in a bunker, who in order to receive the American guest have borrowed old uniforms from a military museum. Their faces express at once both desperation and cheerfulness. —Das schwarze Korps (Newspaper for SS members) review of Superman comic

For the first edition, I exchanged a few e-mails with him, directly and indirectly, and then the finished books were run past him to be approved and, as he put it, sprinkled with fairy dust. I'm happy and honoured to say that he didn't feel that they needed much from him. (Actually, he threatened me with assassination. But in a very flattering way.) —Phil Masters, discussing his (minimal) interaction with Terry Pratchett while writing GURPS Discworld

Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage —Winston Churchill, "The Coalmining Situation", Speech to the House of Commons, October 13, 1943

"Here’s how bad [the school environment in universities has] gotten, for reals: last summer [of 2015], I agonized over whether or not to include texts about climate change in my first-year comp course. They would have fit perfectly into the unit, which was about the selective production of ignorance and the manipulation of public discourse. But I decided against including them. They forced readers to come to uncomfortable conclusions. They indicted our consumption-based lifestyles. They called out liars for lying. Lots of uncomfortable stuff. All it would take was one bougie, liberal student to get offended by them, call them triggering, and then boom, that’s it, that’s the end of me. So... yeah. This is what call out culture has begot. An academic climate where teachers are afraid to make students think, and where academics themselves are afraid to say a single word that bucks the status quo. Congrats, guys. You’ve won." —White Hot Harlots, A personal account of how call out culture has harmed teaching

"Turning social justice into a joke, one vapid tweet at a time." —Intelligent Calcium on Brianna Wu's use of Twitter, Kiwi Farms thread

So since it's impossible to know what the future will actually look like, that's a defense for writing nonsense. Let's apply this to other genres: "Since it's impossible to know exactly what everyday life was like in the Roman Empire, I can go ahead and write a historical novel where Romans watched Desperate Housewives." —RedImperator on StarDestroyer.Net forums.

Most college sophomores in their first philosophy class will walk in with the argument that “it’s all relative” and that no research, argument, or discussion can alter our preconceptions. That’s why we call them sophomoric. —Michael Schudson, Here’s what non-fake news looks like

Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law. —Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

With what words, O writer, will you describe with similar perfection, the entire configuration which the drawing here does? —Leonardo da Vinci

Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company. —René Descartes

"As we look for new answers in the modern age, I for one prefer the tried and tested recipes, like speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture." —Elizabeth II, in a speech marking the 100th anniversary of the Women's Institute in Sandringham, 24 January 2019

Maybe people in America think being a 'Sir' is a big deal. But I think we should all be misters together. I think the 'Sir' thing slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery. And it also helps keep us 'quaint,' which I'm not a great fan of. —Albert Finney (who turned down a knighthood when it was offered to him)

That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans: A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An American says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with him? I make no suggestion that one side or other is right, but observation over many years leads me to believe it is true. —Terry Pratchett

"And to those of you who do not support me, I will bear no grudge — as long as I don't know who you are." —John Crosbie, 1983

"Mr. Speaker, I am glad the honourable gentleman finally got around to asking me about this question, because if you want an answer, you have to go to the horse's mouth.... In this case, Mr. Speaker, the other end of the horse asked the question." —John Crosbie, November 29, 1984

"I was never politically correct. I tried to speak my mind, and while it's not possible in politics or practical, always to be truthful and to answer questions truthfully, because it can be too politically damaging. I did try to be truthful wherever I could, and frank, and so sometimes you become an endangered species if that's the way you are." —John Crosbie, 2004

The best antidote for fear is competence - knowing what to do. —Chris Hadfield, on Twitter, March 18, 2020

My own conviction is that every leader should have enough humility to accept, publicly, the responsibility for the mistakes of the subordinates he has himself selected and, likewise, to give them credit, publicly, for their triumphs. —Dwight D. Eisenhower, "What Is Leadership?", June 1965

"I have no illusions of the future. Or maybe it's all illusion. I don't know. I've always been ready for it." —Gord Downie, The Globe and Mail, "The Gord Downie legend: Canadiana's barstool bard has a lasting legacy of enigmatic erudition", a year and a half before he died from the cancer that he knew he had

Margaret Thatcher declared "there is no such thing as society." Microbes — which have killed more humans than any other force on Earth and may render us extinct yet — beg to differ. —Cory Doctorow, April 28, 2020

"MOM. There’s nothing redeeming to be said about that show. Cuties sexualizes young girls and it’s completely inappropriate." My teen daughters are spectacularly opinionated sometimes. I love that they have a strong sense of social justice and even stronger opinions that they are more than willing to share, but I have to challenge that when it seems like they are reacting to something they’ve heard instead of forming their own conclusions. "But have you seen it?" I asked her this week. "No, but I’ve seen the trailers and the debate online. Do NOT write about it. It’s not worth it. The comments will be awful." "But what if that’s exactly the problem? That people are forming judgements about it before actually seeing Cuties or understanding the message behind it?" —Paula Schuck, "I Watched Netflix Movie Cuties With My Teen Daughter And She Has Four Words For It", September 28, 2020

If art is a reflection of society, and I believe this movie is, then what’s inappropriate is us, the audience, accepting that popular culture, social media, reality shows and music all get a pass on the images and videos they share. —Paula Schuck, "I Watched Netflix Movie Cuties With My Teen Daughter And She Has Four Words For It", September 28, 2020

Journalists may write history’s first draft, but when it comes to covering their own history, they don’t even take notes. —"How to Build a Newsroom Time Machine", Journoterrorist

BOMB THE AUDITORIUM. BOMB THE GYM. BOMB EVERYTHING SO NO ONE WANTS TO GO ANYWHERE EVER AGAIN. BOMB EVERYTHING SO OFTEN AND SO RANDOMLY THAT NO WHERE IS SAFE. —Excerpt from former UCLA instructor Matthew C. Harris's 800 page "manifesto"

You see, college English is the only place where Freudian psychology is still legitimate. Everything has to have a deeper meaning. A book just can’t be a story. It has to be an analogy for some social commentary. And heaven help us if it wasn’t, because then all those no-talent hack English professors wouldn’t be able to write 1,000 page commentaries on what the whale in Moby Dick REALLY represented. —Larry Correia, Correia on the Classics

The content of the faith cannot be transmitted in a way contrary to the faith itself. —Pope Francis, while apologizing for the church's part in the Canadian residential school system, April 1, 2022.

In Spanish or Portuguese everything is male or female. The doorknob is male or female. Your chair is male or female. I mean, come on! —Larry Correia on the gendered nature of Romance Languages

Men don’t dislike your novel because it focuses on dialogue. They dislike it because your characters don’t have anything interesting to say. —Mike Kupari in response to Ash Sakar whining about not having male readers.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who implement them are priceless. —attributed to Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay cosmetics

"A fresh new look!" has been the bane of Internet users since the beginning. —Wikipedia user Ambarenya13 on Vector 2022

---

"Ooh, look at me, I looked up a quote!" —Randall Munroe, xkcd #1942