"We must not only cut asunder the snare of the mind and the senses, but flee also from the snare of the thinker, the snare of the theologian, and the church-builder, the meshes of the Word and the bondage of the Idea. All these are within us waiting to wall in the spirit with forms; but we must always go beyond, always renounce the lesser for the greater, the finite for the Infinite, we must be prepared to proceed from illumination to illumination, from experience to experience, from soul-state to soul-state. . . . Nor must me attach ourselves even to the truths we hold most securely, for they are but forms and expressions of the Ineffable who refuses to limit itself to any form or expression." -- Sri Aurobindo Ghose, quoted in The Holographic Universe.
"Finally, I considered myself already dead, with each day a precious gift that I didnt deserve." Joker One - Donovan Campell
"At another time, on another battlefield, my radio call sign had been "Gabriel", because the archangel and I have a lot in common. Legend says Gabriels trumpet will sound the last judgment. I do the same sort of thing with my rifle." Shooter - Gunnery SGT. Jack Coughlin
"Bro, it's not that bad here," A Marine says in the darkness. "Just think if someone invaded Los Angeles. Americans would f**king riot if their cable went out for a day. These people don't have water, electricity, hospitals, sewers, nothing, and they're waving and smiling." Generation Kill - Evan Wright
The one that springs to mind at the moment is "What do you despise? By this you are truly known." from Dune, and really all of the Bene Gessirit proverbs. "From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain." is another one of my favorites.
"You are the cruel ones who deny the Grey Havens..." from the last book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The gunslinger coda or whatever it's called, that ends "I kill with my heart," from those books is also good, but I'm not going to put the whole thing here.
"I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get.", the opening line of Ender's Game
"How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think than in all other time. I'd like to be an old man to really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time."
'That's just it. Weapons aren't meant to think, only to be used.' - Horus Rising, by Dan Abnett. I'm not entirely sure if it's worded correctly, but it's too dark to read now... I'll post the correct one as soon as I can find the page again.
Corran:"Do any of you speak Basic?" Kotaa Zun-qin:"I speak your infidel tongue. It tastes like the waste excretions of an ill vhlor on my tongue, but I can speak it. Please, ask me something so I may deny it to you." Corran: "We infidels don't normally sample the waste excretions of ill animals, so I don't fully understand the reference. I suppose that such delicacies are reserved for the Chosen."
-Star Wars: Edge of Victory II
Atin:"Dar, you actually like thieving stuff, don't you?" Darman: "It's not stolen. It's differently procured."
-Star Wars: Republic Commandos
Janson: "Red Two, this is Red Three. Am I crazy, or is the general doing what he tells us never to do?" Tycho: "Three, Two. Yes you are, and yes he is. Pay no attention."
Dona Crista laughed a bit. "Oh, Pipo, I'd be glad for you to try. But do believe me, my dear friend, touching her heart is like bathing in ice." "I imagine. I imagine it feels like bathing in ice to the person touching her. But how does it feel to her? Cold as she is, it must surely burn like fire."
All of these are from "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagel
"Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story."
"There are no happy endings because nothing ends."
"Unicorn: I'm a little afraid to go home. I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am no longer like the others, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but now I do. I regret. Schmendrick: I am sorry. I have done you evil and I cannot undo it. Unicorn: No. Unicorns are in the world again! No sorrow will live in me with that joy... save one - and I thank you for that part, too.
“We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream”
"I think that love is stronger than habits or circumstances. I think it is possible to keep yourself for someone for a long time, and still remember why you were waiting when she comes at last.”
And a couple from The Sandman Series by Neil Gaiman:
"I could never again be an angel. Innocence, once lost, can never be regained." ~ Lucifer (Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman: Season of Mists")
"Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly." ~ Todd Faber (Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman: Fables and Reflections")
"Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like 'Maybe we should just be friends' or 'How very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love." ~ Rose Walker (Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman: The Kindly Ones")
"You lived what anybody gets. You got a lifetime." ~ Death (Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman: Brief Lives")
'When you have come to the edge of all that you know, and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen: there will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught to fly'.
From Warmaster Horus; I think it was in 'False Gods', but I know it was in the Horus Heresy series.
"There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast" (Simon) "Pig's head on a stick" "Fancy Thinking the Beast could be hunted and killed" Lord of the Flies Simon and The Beast
"I am with you 'til you die," -- The Dungeon, Lynne Reid Banks... A bit of a younger teen novel, but that line always just sort of stuck with me, especially given the context in which it was used.
"Ramirez managed to keep his face blank, but Audley looked like he was having one of those Pegasus Galaxy moments where you had to keep doing your job but what you really wanted was a little time to freak out. John could sympathize. He'd been having one for the past day and a half."
it came from a Stargate Atlantis book. Always stuck in my head, even after this long.
"It is generally thought, on those worlds where the mall life form has seeded, that people take the wire metal baskets away and leave them in strange and isolated places, so that squads of young men have to be employed to gather them together and wheel them back. This is exactly the opposite of the truth. In reality the men are hunters, stalking their rattling prey across the landscape, trapping them, breaking their spirit, taming them and herding them into a life of slavery. Possibly."
Bob rolled his eyelights. “It’s a semidivine immortal, Harry. It doesn’t procreate. It has no need to recombine DNA. That means that gender simply doesn’t apply. That’s something only you meat sacks worry about.” “Then why is it that you stare at naked girls every chance you get,” I said, “but not naked men?” “It’s an aesthetic choice,” Bob said loftily. “As a gender, women exist on a plane far beyond men when it comes to the artistic appreciation of their external beauty.” “And they have boobs,” I said. “And they have boobs!” Bob agreed with a leer
"In my three years as a Wayfarer, I have never never seen such a jumble of twisted emotions, petty hatreds, deceit, lies, vindictive bitchery, pious hipocrisy, and venal agendas!" -Inspector Danolarian Scryverin, of the Wayfarer Constables, West Quadrant
"We’re all cut off at birth with a knife and left at the mercy of strangers. You hear that? Strangers. I know what you want to do. Well, you can go to hell. I’m not responsible. I’m just another stranger. Birth I can give you, but life I cannot, I cant keep anyone alive. Not any more."
"The spaces between the perceiver and the thing perceived can be closed with a shout of recognition."
On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero.
and
You buy furniture, you tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. buy the sofa, then for a couple of years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled, then the right set of dishes, then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things that you used to own, now they own you.
We kicked through the slithering things and stomped up after the dog, just as the stairwell door banged shut on its own. I reached for the knob.
At the same moment it began to melt and transform, turning pink and finally taking the shape of a flaccid penis. It flopped softly against the door, like a man was cramming it through the knob hole from the other side.
I turned back to John and said, "That door cannot be opened."
"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life" The opening paragraph from Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
"He took a heartbeat to savour the moment, raised his customised bolt pistol and snapped off a single shot, almost without aiming. The shell sped directly into the Celestarch's head, causing it to explode. Only Xenothan and an observer close to her side would notice that he had put the bullet right through her third eye."
Time is not our master, despite the relentless swing of the pendulum. Through the power of Memory and Imagination, do we not swim through the rivers of Time at will, diving both into our Past and our Future? Equally, the notion that Time is constant is mere illusion. The passage of Time, which is irrelevant in our dreams, is ignored in activity and is only truly experienced in a state of extreme boredom. Therefore, do not let Time be your master, rather seek to master Time. - Gideon the Cutpurse
