"This isn't a ploy to try and teach me to iron my own suits again, is it?"
"No sir, we learned the last time that despite your enviable skills in the forensic sciences and the martial arts, setting an electric iron on 'wool' is mysteriously beyond you." -- Bruce and Alfred [Adrian Tullberg, "An Unusual Mission"]
"Sir, as I have warned you in the past - when your usual practice is to take a young woman on a date, swan around making unintelligent conversation, then leave her at home because you have to go on patrol, you are bound to alienate that young lady. You have proven an economic law by steadily using up a finite resource. You have aggravated, annoyed and disrupted every available woman currently within Gotham's city limits."
"Are you sure..."
"Master Bruce, I have spent the last few days trying to 'fix you up', and all I have to show for it is repeated refusals, ringing ears ... and two tentative proposals for coffee on the weekend. Apparently, I'm quite the catch." -- Alfred and Bruce [Adrian Tullberg, "An Unusual Mission"]
"The two of us spend a lot of time together talking comics -- some would say it's an inordinate amount of time--some might even say we waste a lot of time talking about comics. But they give us a wide berth as they pass us by, so we keep talking." -- Joss Whedon
"I think he's a few bats short of his belfry." -- Batgirl
"Ah, who cares? Tell them anything you want! They'll believe you! Humans are GULLIBLE! That's why cats RULE THE WORLD!" -- Catreece, Reality Check v2 #2
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, what is it this time, Virg? Crazed ghouls, rabid llamas, three-toed sloths bent on world domination?" -- Mighty Max
"Unbelievable! We're on the fringes of space -- there's barely any air at all to let the sound travel, and I can still hear him!" -- Iron Lantern
"Where's my resume?"
"In your purse."
"Where's my purse?"
"By the door."
"Where's the door?"
"That's it, no more caffeine for you." -- Katchoo and Francine, SIP 2
"I say we fight to the death!"
"You always say that, Normie."
"I know. That doesn't make it a bad idea." --- 'Mighty Max'
"The raptors! They're all chasing Bart!"
"Notify me when you have a *problem*." -- Ayla and Brainy, Impulse 21
"[Warren] Ellis, the man who makes death and degradation fun." -- Dave Van Domelen, r.a.c.m.
"Listen to him, Bart! Haven't you caused ENOUGH trouble yet?"
"That DEPENDS. How much IS there?" -- a Legionnaire and Bart, Impulse 21
"SCREW morals. Some things are just plain WRONG." -- Frostbite, DV8 #2
"You shouldn't have made my bedtime 8 o'clock."
"Any earlier seemed excessively cruel. What did I tell you about that, anyway?"
"Who pays attention? You think I didn't know you said things to me just to get a reaction? By the way, baby powder is *not* made from real babies. I bet my mom won't play with my head."
"And oh, the fun she'll miss." -- Bart and Max, Impulse 24
"I'm still bored."
"I'll alert the Justice League." -- Max and Bart, Impulse 14
"Damn, I'm good."
"Whatever you say, Miss Omigodweregonnadie."
"Shut up." -- Freefall and Burnout [David Warner]
"Well, these duds are a bit on the snug side. One deep breath and my adventures are going to be printed in the Epic line..." -- Jennifer Walters
"Oh great! Some anonymous bad guy is ready to pay three millions bucks to find out how tough I am... and I *know* how these things work! It'll be at least my third issue before I find out who it is. Although you readers will probably find out on the next page..." -- also JW, She-Hulk #1
"If you two are going to compare male...egos, at least let me turn my back." -- Maggie the Cat
"As soon as you pull the pin, Mr Grenade is no longer your friend." -- Ernie 'Violens' Schultz
"You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on."
"Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. It wastes your time and annoys the pedant." -- Miles
"Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart." -- Miles Vorkosigan
"Some fellows you have to hit with a brick to get their attention. Some you have to hit with a BIG brick." -- Delia Koudelka, 'Memory'
"A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind." -- Aral
Vorkosigan
"Do it for yourself. The universe will be around to collect its cut later." --
Miles, 'Mirror Dance'
"Am I reading too much into all that innuendo, or did you in fact just connive to assassinate Gregor in one breath, offer to cuckold him in the next, accuse your father of homosexuality, suggest a patricidal plot against him, and league yourself with Cavilo -- what are you going to do for an encore?"
"Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection.' -- Cordelia, 'Mirror Dance'
"It's not a comfortable thing, to be chosen so. I tried to avoid it for a long
time, but God finds ways of dealing with draft dodgers." -- Suegar, 'Borders of
Infinity'
"Pain... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is
quite painless. Pain, like death, is going to come on regardless. Question is,
what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?" --
Cordelia, 'Barrayar'
"Peace to you, small lady. You've won a twisted poor modern knight, to wear your favor on his sleeve. But it's a twisted poor world we were both born into, that rejects us without mercy and ejects us without consultation. But at least I won't just tilt at windmills for you. I'll send in sappers to mine the twirling suckers and blow them into the sky." -- Miles, 'Mountains of Mourning.'
"Don't panic."
"When you can see the color of the feathers, you'll also understand how you can expand your borders to infinity." -- Miles and his invisible hat, 'Borders of
Infinity'
"Miles excels in producing more red herrings than a genengineered-fish
hatchery..."-- AmyCat on Miles Vorkosigan
"I'm *not* schitzophrenic. A little manic-depressive, maybe."
"Miles cursed himself silently, then out loud. He really had to try to cultivate a more normal attitude toward senior officers.... When a normal ensign looked at his commander, he ought to see a god-like being, not a, a... future subordinate." -- 'The Vor Game'
"The will to be stupid is a very powerful force." -- Miles Vorkosigan
"Half of what we call madness is just some poor slob dealing with pain by a
strategy that annoys the people around him." -- Mark Vorkosigan
"God's not here. Somebody's got to fill in." -- Leo Graf, 'Falling Free'
Harry Potter Fandom
"Harry was nervous. He wasn't used to public speaking and he'd never taught anything to anybody, unless you counted teaching Hermione how to break rules. Which he didn't, because he didn't want Hermione to hit him with the Fire-Starting Glare of Extreme Huffiness." -- Jelsemium, "A Harry Situation"
"I suppose I could try to get a job. Can't say what I'm actually qualified for, though. I mean, all the guidance I can ever remember on the subject assumed "Heir Apparent to the Dark Lord's Number Two" was my only viable career option, really. Perhaps I should set up as a consultant, pointing out the great glaring clangers in would-be Evil Overlords' cunning plans. Soul destroying work, but someone's got to do it." -- Draco Malfoy [A.J. Hall, "Lust Over Pendle"]
"All I want is a bath, a hot cocoa, and a nap by the fire. That's all I ever wanted out of life, and I don't care if I sound like Eliza Doolittle. If only for one year, I'd like to simply go to class, do my studies, win the Quidditch Cup, and go to sleep without worrying whether or not the morning will mean my getting dead at the hands of some indescribably unpleasant monster. If this is too much to ask from an educational programme, tell me now and I'll never say another word." -- Harry Potter [QuizzicalSphinx]
"You think you might be being stalked by a homophobic werewolf?"
"Typical Gryffindor plan: 'well, we're sure as hell not going to get killed staying back here. I know, let's get closer!'" -- Draco Malfoy [jords, 'Harry Potter and the Siren's Song']
"To quote Marian: "Jack the Ripper of Gryffindor Tower wrote fluff." Won't happen again. All Weasley killings were conducted off-screen during the bloody Death Eater attack that happened while Harry and Ginny were obliviously snogging away. When they got back to the village and found it in smouldering ruins with bodies littering the streets, they decided to take vows of chastity to atone for their guilt." -- Ashwinder trying to excuse her fluff
"Most of the time, despite the ridiculous Muggle proverb, Snape had found that Misery did not, in fact, love Company. Misery wanted Company to bugger off and die so that Misery could sulk in peace. Screaming Agony, on the other hand, liked Company just fine, mostly because Company provided an alternate target." -- Marina Frants
"As always, I should like to remind you all that the Forbidden Forest has, in the past year, devoured eight-and-a-half of our graduating students, as well as several underclassmen, and is strictly off-limits. Hence the name Forbidden Forest. Believe me, if it were completely safe we would have long ago changed the name to the Come-And-Go-As-You-Damned-Well-Please Forest." -- Dumbledore [QuizzicalSphinx]
Emma Bull
"We're only cast as extras in real life." -- Eddi, 'War For the Oaks'
"We're all immortal until we die." -- 'War For the Oaks'
"That is what is called an unnecessary risk. If you continue like this, I shall be the first immortal to die of heart failure." -- the phouka
"Your duty as an honest citizen of Bordertown is to deplore evil. You are not
obliged to tie a cape over your shoulders and search the alleys for it." --
Tick-Tick, 'Finder'
"You have to break an omelette to make eggs." -- Camphir, 'Finder'
Robert Heinlein
"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of - but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards." -- Lazarus Long
"To be 'matter of fact' about the world is to blunder into fantasy - and dull
fantasy at that,for the world is strange and wonderful." -- Woodrow Wilson
Smith
"When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets." -- Lazarus Long
Mercedes Lackey
"It is considered good manners to let people know that you are planning on setting off fireworks from the roof of their house -- and you plan to have their help doing it." -- Elspeth, 'Winds of Change'
"Life doesn't require a logical explaination." -- Mac Lynn, 'When the Bough
Breaks'
"Forget the Force. Trust in the gauge spread." -- Dottie, 'Born to Run'
"Could you manage subtlety, do you suppose?"
Spider Robinson
"If it don't come out in laughter, man, it's comin' out in tears" -- Jake,
'Callahan's Legacy'
"I got the time travel blues, since I met myself coming in;
"Euphemisms are for the differently brained."
"A truce between the sexes? Are you out of your goddamn mind, Jake? What else is there to keep our minds off onrushing death? Television?" -- all loosely copied from the walls at Mary's Place.
"I don't require my customers to be human; just to be polite." -- Mike Callahan
"God has a sense of humor, but it's often rather crude
*****
"Morituri Nolumus Mori." (translation: "We who are about to die don't
want to.") -- mission motto, courtsey of Rincewind, 'The Last Hero'
"Forty-two! Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"
"There is one theory that says that if anyone ever figured out what the universe was for, that it would immediately disappear and be replaced with something even more inexplicable. There is another theory which says that this has already happened." -- Douglas Adams
"A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times." -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII
"Apparently, on New Texas, killing a politician was not _malum in se_, and was _mallum prohibitorum_ only to the extent that what happened to the politician was in excess of what he deserved." -- H. Beam Piper, 'Lone Star Planet'
"Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it." -- Arthur, HHGttG
"Who said anything about panicking? This is still just the culture shock.You wait till I've settled down into the situation and found my bearings. *Then* I'll start panicking!" -- Arthur, HHGttG
"...We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere.... And to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys." -- HHGttG
"Eavesdroppers rarely hear well of themselves."
"What is it with this airline? They ought to have three moniters in the terminal -- arrivals, departures and odds." -- Jenny Barker, Thorrarinn Gunnerson
"Who died and left you in charge?"
"I always assumed insanity was a state of mind." -- Mira, Thorrarinn Gunnerson
"Evil has few followers, but a lot of hired hands." -- Thorrarinn Gunnerson
"It wasn't a dark and stormy night. It should have been, but that's the weather for you." -- Terry Pratchett, "Good Omens"
"A paranoiac is only crazy if people *aren't* out to get him." - Inanna,
'Mutineer's Moon'
"You never learn until too late that everyone's passing for normal." -- Will
Shetterly, 'Never-Never'
"It had been an awful dream, involving Venom. That it had also involved the Cookie Monster was no help, though now that she was awake, she could not get rid of the memory of a voice saying, 'Ooo, me impressed!' at the sight of Venom's teeth." -- Diane Duane, 'The Lizard Sanction'
"'Don't meddle in the affairs of wizards for they are subtle and quick to anger.' A fellow sorcerer said that. Good at his job, knew a lot about jewelry. Not bad at fireworks, either. Wasn't the snappy dresser Merlin was, though. Let's see what his name? Raist--no that was the irritating young chap, kept hacking and spitting up blood all the time. Digusting. The other's name was Gand-something or other..." -- Zifnab(the Fabulous)
"Precisely why all of the above should be so is not clear, but goes some way to
explain why, on the disc, the Gods are not so much worshipped as blamed." - Terry Pratchett, 'The Colour of Magic'
"There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently. (The
gene-tampered turkey you're talking to isn't necessarily one of them.)" -- Larry Nivens
"It is good to have an end to journey toward;
"Lone Power, I accept your gift! And give a gift, I think, of equal worth.
"What's loved, survives." -- both Diane Duane
"In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs..." -- Ursula K. LeGuin
"Who is it plans for the future of the human race?"
"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their end." -- Bilbo Baggins.
"Meddle not in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger."
-- Sam, 'Lord of the Rings'
"How many times is order created? The question has no meaning. A tree falls in the forest and the universe hears it." -- Steven Brust, 'Reign in Hell'
"Never be embarrassed or ashamed by anything you choose to write." -- Larry Nivens
"I [..] am rarely happier then when spending an entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand. Ten seconds, I tell myself, is ten seconds. Time is valuable and ten seconds' worth of it is well worth the investment of a day's happy activity working out a way to save it." -- Douglas Adams, "Last Chance to See"
"Nothing is fixed. In and out the shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter, woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden amongst them is a filigree which will with time become a world." -- Clive Barker, "Weaveworld"
Comments and contributions to perri@neon-hummingbird.com.
SFI-FI/FANTASY
Lois McMaster Bujold
"And what do you find on the other side? When you go on?"
"Your life again. What else?"
"Is that a promise?"
"It's an inevitability. No trick. No choice. You just go on." -- Harra and Miles, 'Memory'
"Depends on the straight lines." -- Elena and Miles, 'The Vor Game'
"I'm not panicking, I'm watching you panic. It's more entertaining." -- Miles and Quinn, 'Brothers in Arms'
"Know thyself."
"We try, sir." -- Miles and Galeni, 'Brothers in Arms'
"Well, weirder things have happened."
"Weirder things have happened? In what universe are we talking about here?"
"She's right, you know. That one would be a bit weird, even for us." -- Melanie, Draco and Neville [A.J. Hall, "Lust Over Pendle"]
"No." -- Tannim and Chinthliss, 'Chrome Circle'
I'd tell you all about it...but where the hell do I begin?"
What He thinks is a howler, you or I would say is rude
But cursing Him is not a real productive attitude
Just laugh -- you might as well, my friend, 'cause either way you're screwed" -- Jake, 'Callahan's Legacy'
"I checked it very thoroughly, and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is." -- Loonquawl and Deep Thought on the answer to the universe, HHGttG
"I believe that's the point." -- Owen Deathstalker and Tobias Moon
"I did." -- Mira and Jenny, Thorrarinn Gunnerson
but it is the journey that matters, in the end." -- Ursula K. Le Guin
I take death with me out of time, and make of it a path, a birth.
Let the teeth come! As they rend me
So they tear your ancient hate for aye
So rage, proud Power! Fail again
And see my blood teach Death to die!" -- from "The Song of the Twelve"
"Speaking." -- random Larry Nivens line