Refuge in Audacity/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


"Crime, when exposed, has no refuge but in audacity."
Tacitus, Roman historian
"Who Dares, Wins."
—Motto of British SAS
"In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom."
J. G. Ballard
"But knocking over Florida is against the law! ...I think."
Muriel, Courage the Cowardly Dog, "The Clutching Foot"
"When the remarkable becomes bizarre, reason turns rancid."
Cheshire the Cat, American McGee's Alice
"Fortune favours the audacious."
Desiderius Erasmus, and the McDuck Family Motto

Police Officer: Hey You! Where are you going with that elephant?

Bowers: Elephant? What elephant?
Billy Rose, Jumbo
"To see [The Producers] for the first time in 1968, when I did, was to witness audacity so liberating that not even There's Something About Mary rivals it. [...] There is such rapacity in its heroes, such gleeful fraud, such greed, such lust, such a willingness to compromise every principle, that we cave in and go along."
"The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can."
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
"There was every reason to believe I was heading for trouble, that I'd pushed my luck a bit far. I'd abused every rule Vegas lived by -- burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help. The only hope now, I felt, was the possibility that we'd gone to such excess, with our gig, that nobody in a position to bring the hammer down on us could possibly believe it [...] When you bring an act into this town, you want to bring it in heavy. Don't waste any time with cheap shucks and misdemeanors. Go straight for the jugular. Get right into felonies. The mentality of Las Vegas is so grossly atavistic that a really massive crime often slips by unrecognized."
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
"Inexperienced operatives give up their cover ID under pressure. Experienced ones play it harder."
—'Michael Westen, Burn Notice

Marcus: Control! This is Delta! We are continuing toward the objective on a Brumak-
Anya: You're what?!

Marcus: We're riding a Brumak!
"Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable."
Matilda Wormwood, Matilda
"The key is to commit crimes so confusing that police feel too stupid to even write a crime report about them."
"I just surfed a Robo Dracula from the moon, so all y'alls can just take it."

Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle
Razzle dazzle 'em
Show 'em the first rate sorcerer you are!
Long as you keep 'em way off balance
How can they spot you've got no talents?
Razzle Dazzle 'em...

And they'll make you a star!

Chater: You insulted my wife in the gazebo yesterday evening!

Septimus: You are mistaken. I made love to your wife in the gazebo. She asked me to meet her there, I have her note somewhere, I dare say I could find it for you, and if someone is putting it about that I did not turn up, by God, sir, it is a slander.
Arcadia, Tom Stoppard
"If you saw a naked warrior dancing naked while dodging bullets in the tune of Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive", you'd respect the guy for the sheer audacity of the act."
"Run before you walk! Fly before your crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I'd rather fail really hugely."
Moist von Lipwig, Going Postal

Beck: ...You juiced my pizza.

Cat: Why chew what you can drink?
Victorious, "Robarazzi"
"It was like teabagging a bear cub in front of its mother. The sheer audacity of it is the only thing that saved him."
Sven Bianchi, Questionable Content
"You ever try just throwing something at a guy with a hostage? Of course not, who the hell does that? But that is exactly why it works every time."
Detective Kamina, Double K
"Fetus in a bowl of jello. And people said Game Freak was out of ideas..."
YouTube comment on Duosion from Pokémon Black and White
"If you can hijack a plane with a pair of tweesers then frankly you deserve that plane."
Ed Byrne
"Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive."
Ferris Bueller in Ferris Buellers Day Off
Well, I was on my way to this gay gypsy Bar-Mitzvah for the disabled when I suddenly thought, "Gosh! The Third Reich's a bit rubbish. I think I'll kill the Führer." Who's with me?
Melody Pond to a group of heavily-armed Nazis, "Let's Kill Hitler"
There's a line in the sand, right, and you can't even see the line in the sand. You're actually out of sand into, like, tropical tundra regions.
"Sometimes, crazy works."
Optimus Primal, Beast Wars

Madeleine: Well, I'd love to tell you what a monster you are, but I have to help Bin Laden's nephew buy a co-op on Park Avenue.

Arthur: If that were true, you wouldn't tell me.
Inside Man (Sure she wouldn't)
Whilst we've been going on with our respectable lives, those with sick and depraved minds have been building their armies and constructing their story. A preposterous story that will redefine history and dazzle the world with mind-blowing special effects. I think you know what I'm talking about, ladies and gentlemen. That's right: MOTHERFUCKING SPACE NAZIS in a film called Iron Sky.
Iron Sky trailer