“Oh, it isn’t that I don’t believe in evil. It’s just that it’s rarer than the funny-mentalist televangelists like to think. I prefer to distinguish among evil and stupid and weird…”

    "I hate this part. I hate having this much power over someone else's happiness, and I hate the possibility that because I'm tired, because I'm irritated, I'll use that power without thinking and leave welts on someone else's psyche that a lifetime can’t erase.
     This is why non-judgmentalism is so very popular. Because judging and choosing and making decisions means saying yes to one possibility and no to all the others. To do that is to take back all the responsibility that Society encourages you to give away.
     Real freedom scares most people to death...”

     “Secrecy is second only to conspiracy as a cheap euphoric decorator accent for Reality.”

     “…Unfortunately, I’ve never been a great believer in doing things just because you can.
     If I’m perfectly honest, the thought of that kind of responsibility scares me. It’s not just that power corrupts. It’s that power magnifies your every action, until nothing doesn’t count. Nobody’s behavior can be flawless under those circumstances. And I can’t stand the idea of making mistakes with people’s lives.
     It’s possible that some people might call me a perfectionist.”

     “Why do people who already know it isn’t going to work always find each other and try?”

     “I went off and collected a beer, a tofu burger, and a handful of oatmeal walnut chocolate chip cookies with silver star-shaped jimmies certified edible. Nothing like a balanced diet, and this was certainly nothing like one.”

     “…If there’s something you think you need to have to survive as the person you think you are, what price is too high to pay for it?
     Is any price too high?”

     “Ah, political correctness, the gentle art of minding somebody else’s business.”

    "Actually, social cowardice can be a rewarding and self-affirming life path."

    "If it wasn't unfair, you wouldn't know it was life."

(Bell, Book, and Murder)
 

Fox (Philip):

    "The end does not justify the means, Ruth. The means are the end. The way you travel determines your destination, and sometimes you can't get there from here."

Nic:

    ...Reality was for those who couldn't handle a good fantasy.
    And Logic was the greatest fantasy of all.
(The Cup of Morning Shadows)

Corporal Vimes:

    ...And then he realized why he was thinking like this.
     It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.
    Around this time, in his former life, Vimes would be taking the cap off a bottle, and wouldn’t be too bothered about the bottle’s contents so long as they crinkled paint…
( Jingo)

Ponder & Archchancellor Ridcully:

    The Archchancellor nudged Ponder and flourished his staff.
    "Now," he said, "if there's a sudden rip in reality and horrible screaming Things come through, our job is to-" He scratched his head. "What is it the Dean says? Kick a righteous donkey?"
    "Some righteous ass, sir," said Ponder. "He says kick some righteous ass."
    Ridcully peered at the empty stage.
    "I don't see one," he said.
(Soul Music, p. 331)

Susan and Death:

    HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
   "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little-"
    YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING HOW TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
   "So we can believe the big ones?"
    YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
    "They're not the same at all!"
    YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET- Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME SORT OF IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
    "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point-"
    MY POINT EXACTLY.
(Hogfather, p. 336)

Footnote to p. 188:

    It's amazing how good governments are, given their track record in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters.
    One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too embarassed to talk about it.
    It's not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be abductors. Some have been in fact abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of other aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops.
    The planet Earth is now banned to all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one- who is big, hairy, and has very large feet.
    The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
(Hogfather)

Granny Weatherwax:

    Granny flew high above the roaring treetops, under a half moon.
    She distrusted a moon like that. A full moon could only wane, a new moon could only wax, but a half moon, balancing so precariously between light and dark... well, it could do anything.
(Carpe Jugulum, p 19)

    She'd been a witch here all her life. And one of the things a witch did was stand right on the edge, where the decisions had to be made. You made them so that others didn't have to, so that others could even pretend to themselves that there were no decisions to be made, no little secrets, that things just happened. You never said what you knew. And you never asked for anything in return.
(Carpe Jugulum, p 30)

    That was the worst part about being good- it caught you coming and going.
(Carpe Jugulum, p 40)

    Supposing there was justice for all, after all? For every unheeded beggar, every harsh word, every neglected duty, every slight... every choice... Because that was the point, wasn't it? You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you might be deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always, you did it by yourself. You were the one there, on the edge, watching and listening. Never any tears, never any apology, never any regrets... You saved all that up in a way that could be used when needed.
(Carpe Jugulum, p 45)

Morpheus & Master Li:

    Dream tells this tale: "There was once a sage who loved his only son as much as you loved yours. One day the son died, and yet the father shed no tears and made no mourning. When they asked why, he told them, I did not mourn him before he was born, and I will not mourn him now he is gone. What do you think of that?"
    Master Li replies, "I think that was foolishness. You mourn, for it is proper to mourn. But your grief serves you: you do not become a slave to grief. You bid the dead farewell, and you continue." The Sandman replies, "Indeed": but it's advice he apparently couldn't bring himself to follow.
(The Sandman Companion, Hy Bender)

    Richard had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.
(Neverwhere, p. 13)

    "People ask me why I write what I write. At the end of the day, the real answer is, 'What makes you think I have any choice at all?' If you stick me and Stephen King and John Grisham in front of a decaying old house in the woods, Steve would probably come up with a story about the really nasty thing that lives in that house that's going to eat the couple lost in the woods who turn up there and John Grisham is probably going to do the novel saying that's the place where the young attorney fleeing from the city with secrets in his briefcase can go and hide. I'd wonder what would happen if the little shack in the woods got up on chicken legs and walked away."
("Enter Sandman", interview in Wicked magazine, issue #1)

Anita Blake:

    "What could be more innocent? Biker Nuns from Hell, but besides that."
(Bloody Bones)

    "Love sucks. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it's just another way to bleed."
(Blue Moon)

    "Pity is an emotion that can get you killed. The only thing that can be more dangerous is blind hate, and maybe love."

    "Heads they win, tails you lose."

Anita, Larry, and Jason:

    "He knows you pretty well for someone who's only met you twice," Larry said.
    "Three times," I said. "Two out of three times, he's tried to eat me."
    Larry's eyes widened a little. "You're kidding."
    "She just looks so tasty," Jason said.
(Bloody Bones, p 177)

    "Life is not without pain, but life concerns itself with how we handle that pain, or joy, or confusion or triumph. Life is more than time passing before death, it is the sum and total of all we make of it. Decisions may not be easy, but many is the time when not making a decision, not taking an action is worse than a poor decision. Evil flourishes where it is not opposed, and those who are able to oppose it must to protect those who cannot protect themselves."
(I, Jedi, p.465, Michael Stackpole)

Katja Faro:

    I don't want to make it sound as though I don't have any friends, that I never talk to anyone- but sometimes it feels like that all the same. I always seem to be standing on the outside of a friendship, of conversations, never really engaged. ...I was out with a bunch of people. I was in the middle of any number of conversations and camaraderie. But I still went home alone. I listened to what was going on around me. I smiled some, laughed some, added a sentence here, another there, but it wasn't really me that was partaking of the company. The real me was one step removed, watching it happen. Like it seems I always am. Everybody I know seems to inhabit one landscape that they all share while I'm the only person standing in the landscape that's inside of me.
(from "Birds", published in the collection Moonlight & Vines)

Pan, to Angela:

    "Remembering can keep the pain too fresh," he explains. "It is so much easier to forget- or at least, it is more comfortable. But you and I, we are not seeking comfort, are we? We know that to forget is to give in to the darkness, so we walk in the light, that we hold fast to our joys and our pains."
("In the Quiet After Midnight", Moonlight & Vines)

Hannah and Angela:

    "Think it through first," Hannah said, "but then don't look back."
    Angela nodded. "Exactly. If you embrace the decision you've made, everything seems that much clearer because you're not fighting self-doubt."
("In the Quiet After Midnight", Moonlight & Vines)

Sarah:

    I find myself needing to ask, is this how we spend our lives- imagining each other? Because you can never really know what another person's thinking or feeling, can you? And just because they're thinking or feeling one thing at one time, what's to stop them from changing their minds about it?

    Someone once told me never to fall in love with a place or person because they're only on loan. ...It's because what you fall in love with doesn't last. Everything changes. Sometimes you can grow with it, but sometimes you just grow apart instead.
("The Pennymen", Moonlight & Vines)

Jilly:

    "...We're all carrying around devils inside us, but the thing to remember is, we're carrying angels, too. Sometimes we just have to wait a little longer for the angels to show up, that's all."
("The Pennymen", Moonlight & Vines)

Finn, the Hob:

    But why was it that being a doer only felt good afterwards, when you could sit around and chat about it, maybe boast a little? Why couldn't you feel all brave and sure of what you were doing while you were doing it?
(Jack of Kinrowan, p. 316)

Guildenstern:

    "We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."

Player:

    "Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference as long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions."

(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Tom Stoppard)

(warning: language)
Dr. Kay Scarpetta:

    Whenever Marino was tired or half drunk, he said f--k a lot. In truth, it was a grand word that expressed what one felt by the very act of saying it. But I had explained to him many times before that not everyone could deal with its vulgarity, and for that matter, some perhaps took it all too literally. I personally never thought of f--k as sexual intercourse, but rather as wishing to make a point.
(Point of Origin, p.186, © Patricia Cornwell)

    "First we have to belive, and then we believe."
(G.C. Lichtenberg)

    "If one does not hope, one will not find the unhoped for, since there is no trail leading to it, and no path."
(Heracleitus of Ephesus)

    "I'm not indecisive. Am I indecisive?"
(Jim Scheibel, mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota)

    "The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

    "There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in travelling in a stage-coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place."
(Washington Irving)

    "An enemy is not he who injures, but he who wishes to do so."
(Democritus of Abdera)

    "People know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does."
(Michel Foucault)

    "Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. ...The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both."
(Carl Sagan)

    "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." (Einstein)

    "...We recieve as friendly that which agrees with [us], we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense."
(Michael Faraday)

    "Confront the dark parts of yourself and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing."
(Angus Wilson)

    "To a greater force, and to a better nature, you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind in you, which the heavens have not in their charge. Therefore if the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought."
(Dante)

    "Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast, or a god."
(Aristotle)

    "I've never really made a conscious effort to collect books. I accumulate them; I don't collect them."
(Neal Stephenson)

    "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn."
    "I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."
(Jane Austen)

    "Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure- that of being Salvadore Dali."
(Himself)

    "Here's to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking.
    If you cheat, may you cheat death.
    If you steal, may you steal a woman's heart.
    If you fight, may you fight for a brother.
    And if you drink, may you drink with me."
(Irish Toast)

    "And time is not a gulf, nor space a bar;
    Our hearts are loyal, even when we're far;
    As once we were, again tonight we are."
(Georgina Goddard King)

    "Let's be grateful for those who give us happiness; they are the charming gardeners who make our soul bloom."
(Marcel Proust)

    "Almost anything is easier to get into than to get out of."
(Allen's Law)

    "Oh! let us never, never doubt
    What nobody is sure about!"
(Hilaire Belloc)

    "To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers or both."
(Elizabeth Charles)

    "i'm sure that you've been briefed my
    absorption lines they are frayed and i fear
    my fear is greater than my faith"
(Tori Amos, "Suede")

    "It is an anxious, sometimes a dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose, they can only be chosen; they cannot 'do,' they can only be done by."
(Rume Godden)

    "When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
    When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."
(Khalil Gibran, The Prophet)

    "How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become- to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being."
(Antoine Saint-Exupery)

    "I don't want my friends to die for me; if they will be polite, and let me alone, I will be satisfied."
(Howe)

    "You dread the blows that do not strike and you lament the things you never lose."
(Goethe, Faust- part I)

    "...give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be one."
(Plato)

    "The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."
(Herbert Sebastian Agar)

    "And though poor stones have neither speech nor tongue,
    While active winds and streams both run and speak,
    Yet stones are deep in admiration."
(William Wordsworth)

    "For the most part, we have made the beasts of fancy in our imagination more cruel and bloodthirsty than the actual 'lower animals'. The dragons of the Western world do evil for evil's sake; the harpy is more terrible than the vulture, and the were-wolf is far more frightful than the wolf. Almost the only beast that kills for the pure joy of killing is Western civilized man, and he has attributed his own peculiar trait to the creatures of his imagination."
(Odell Shepard, The Lore of the Unicorn)

    "Of all the agonies of life, that which is most poignant and harrowing- that which for the time annihilates reason and leaves our whole organization one lacerated, mangled heart- is the conviction that we have been decieved where we placed all the trust of love."
(William Henry Bulwer, British diplomat)

    "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
(Henry Louis Mencken)

    "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves."
(Abraham Lincoln)

    "JOHNSON: Well, we had a good talk.
   BOSWELL: Yes, Sir; you tossed and gored several persons."
(James Boswell)

NUMBER TWO: I TRY TO WAKEN AND GREET THE WORLD ONCE AGAIN

    In a pine tree,
    A few yards away from my window sill,
    A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and down,
    On a branch.
    I laugh, as I see him abandon himself
    To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do
    That the branch will not break.

(© James Wright, from "Two Hangovers"; out of The Branch Will Not Break, 1963)

    "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

    "The past is a bridge to the present- and we never stop paying the toll."

    "Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." (Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.)
( Neil Gaiman, I believe)

    "They that have the power to hurt and will do none,
    That do not do the thing they most do show,
    Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
    Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
    They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
    And husband nature's riches from expense;
    They are the lords and owners of their faces,
    Others but stewards of their excellence."
(taken from an Elizabeth Hand novel, Winterlong)

    "The victories of character are instant, and victories for all."

    "I'd love to have this problem solved in my scientific lifetime, but my greatest fear is that the solution may be boring."

    "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."

    "Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown."

    "Psychotics build castles in the sky, neurotics live in them, and psychologists collect the rent."

    "but it's so hard to separate
     the agony from the excuse"

    "The madness of demons is rage- the madness of angels, hope."

    "For every evil under the sun, there is a remedy or there is none. If there be one, seek `til you find it; if there be none, never mind it."

    "Remember: Kinky is a feather. Perverted is the whole chicken."

    +++Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot.+++ (Hex)

    Just once, I wish there could be more of us than them.

    I don't suffer from insanity- I REVEL in it.

    If you think I'm weird, I know you're boring.

    Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are chewy, and taste great dipped in chocolate.

    I'm lost. I've gone to look for myself. If I should return before I get back, please ask me to wait.

    Once, long ago, cats were worshipped as gods. They have never forgotten this.

    "I have given up my search for the truth, and am now looking for a good fantasy." (Ashleigh Brilliant)

    There are few personal problems that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives.

    Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

    Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

    "Space...is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." (Douglas Adams)

    Reality is a user-defined parameter.

    It is insidious and subtle.  It is dangerous and terrifying to behold.  It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

    "Egotist, n.: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me." (Ambrose Bierce)

Other Quote Sites:
Meghan's Quote page
Quoteland: Quotes for Every Occasion
*The* Home of X-Files Quotes
Anita Blake: Advice, Quotes
Pessimist Quotations