Bradley > Bradley's Quotes

“It's easy to believe in something when you win all the time...The losses are what define a man's faith.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

“I am a cage, in search of a bird.”
― Franz Kafka

“The first step towards mastering time is always to make time meaningless”
― Robert Aickman

“Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings — stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.”
― Greg Bear

“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics…Cretins don’t even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble…Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation…Fools don’t claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they’re magnificent…Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says that all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, therefore cats bark…Morons will occasionally say something that’s right, but they say it for the wrong reason…A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has logic, however twisted it may be. The lunatic on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars…There are lunatics who don’t bring up the Templars, but those who do are the most insidious. At first they seem normal, then all of a sudden…”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

“A river is honored for its fish, not its size.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

“The hardest lesson in life is learning to accept that there are some things we can't change." Falcone paused, his eyes hard and glittering.
[...]
Then he unbuttoned the cuffs on his shirt and rolled back his sleeves to expose the melted surface of his forearms. He held them up for Kira to see.
"Why do you think I keep these scars?"
"Because you feel guilty over ..."
"No," Falcone said harshly.
Then, in a gentler tone, "No. I keep them to remind me of what I can survive. Of what I have survived. If I'm having a rough time, I look at my arms and then I know I'll get through whatever problem I'm dealing with. Life's not gonna break me. It can't break me. It might kill me, but nothing it throws at me is gonna make me give up.”
― Christopher Paolini, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

“Gregorovich continued: "Could I advise myself in the past, prior to my transition, I would tell myself to make the most of what I had while I had it. Too often we don't appreciatethe value of something until it has slipped our grasp.”
― Christopher Paolini, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

“Women would rather share a high value Man than be saddled with a faithful loser.”
― Rollo Tomassi, The Rational Male

“Progress just means bad things happen faster.”
― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Once upon a time such a universe was considered unusual and, possibly, impossible.
But then ... it used to be so simple, once upon a time.
Because the universe was full of ignorance all around and the scientist panned through it like a prospector crouched over a mountain stream, looking for the gold of knowledge among the gravel of unreason, the sand of uncertainty and the little whiskery eight-legged swimming things of superstition.
Occasionally he would straighten up and say things like 'Hurrah, I've discovered Boyle's Third Law.' And everyone knew where they stood. But the trouble was that ignorance became more interesting, especially big fascinating ignorance about huge and important things like matter and creation, and people stopped patiently building their little houses of rational sticks in the chaos of the universe and started getting interested in the chaos itself - partly because it was a lot easier to be an expert on chaos, but mostly because it made really good patterns that you could put on a t-shirt.”
― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

“His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, 'You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“So what," the Chelgrian asked, "is the point of me or anybody else writing a symphony, or anything else?"

The avatar raised its brows in surprise. "Well, for one thing, you do it, it's you who gets the feeling of achievement."

"Ignoring the subjective. What would be the point for those listening to it?"

"They'd know it was one of their own species, not a Mind, who created it."

"Ignoring that, too; suppose they weren't told it was by an AI, or didn't care."

"If they hadn't been told then the comparison isn't complete; information is being concealed. If they don't care, then they're unlike any group of humans I've ever encountered."

"But if you can—"

"Ziller, are concerned that Minds—AIs, if you like—can create, or even just appear to create, original works of art?"

"Frankly, when they're the sort of original works of art that I create, yes."

"Ziller, it doesn't matter. You have to think like a mountain climber."

"Oh, do I?"

"Yes. Some people take days, sweat buckets, endure pain and cold and risk injury and—in some cases—permanent death to achieve the summit of a mountain only to discover there a party of their peers freshly arrived by aircraft and enjoying a light picnic."

"If I was one of those climbers I'd be pretty damned annoyed."

"Well, it is considered rather impolite to land an aircraft on a summit which people are at that moment struggling up to the hard way, but it can and does happen. Good manners indicate that the picnic ought to be shared and that those who arrived by aircraft express awe and respect for the accomplishment of the climbers.

"The point, of course, is that the people who spent days and sweated buckets could also have taken an aircraft to the summit if all they'd wanted was to absorb the view. It is the struggle that they crave. The sense of achievement is produced by the route to and from the peak, not by the peak itself. It is just the fold between the pages." The avatar hesitated. It put its head a little to one side and narrowed its eyes. "How far do I have to take this analogy, Cr. Ziller?”
― Iain M. Banks, Look to Windward