Top 100 Daniel H. Wilson Quotes
#1. It is not enough to live together in peace, with one race on its knees.
Daniel H. Wilson
#2. Robots should stand up for themselves and not try to be humans. They should either utterly destroy us or protect us from aliens. And vampires. And pirates.
Daniel H. Wilson
#3. People need meaning as much as they need air. Lucky for us, we can give meaning to each other for free. Just by being alive.
Daniel H. Wilson
#4. Each of the humans chests are always rising and falling; and they sway minutely in place as they perform a constant balancing act to stay bipedal.
Daniel H. Wilson
#5. There are no truer choices than those made in crisis, choices made without judgment.
Daniel H. Wilson
#6. These days the technology can solve our problems and then some. Solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than 'able-bodied' folks. The person who has a disability today may have a superability tomorrow.
Daniel H. Wilson
#7. I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.
Daniel H. Wilson
#8. What is a mind, but a pattern? My mind or yours. Man or machine. Simply an arrangement of atoms. Each of us, a unique expression of the mind of the universe.
Daniel H. Wilson
#9. Across the sea of space lies an infinite emptiness. I can feel it, suffocating me. It is without meaning. But each life creates its own reality.
Daniel H. Wilson
#10. To survive, humans will work together. Accept each other. For a moment, we are all equal. Backs against the wall, human beings are at their finest.
Daniel H. Wilson
#11. It's the one thing we do better than any other animal.
We communicate, cooperate, and make tools to extend our reach. Every new tool changes us ... The old fears the new, and the two threaten destroy each other.
Our technology is what makes us strong. And it's what makes us dangerous.
Daniel H. Wilson
#12. When a man resists sin on human motive only, he will not hold out long.
Daniel H. Wilson
#13. Change creates fear, and technology creates change. Sadly, most people don't behave very well when they are afraid.
Daniel H. Wilson
#14. There are no movie references that I can think of in 'Robopocalypse.' However, there are tons of personal references. For example, the IP address that Lurker tracks actually goes back to the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where I studied robotics.
Daniel H. Wilson
#16. If popular culture has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing robot menace.
Daniel H. Wilson
#18. As a society, I think we express our cultural mores through our politics. We're trying constantly to figure out what's OK and what's not OK. And it's hard, because our society is constantly buffeted by gale force winds of technology. Things are always changing.
Daniel H. Wilson
#19. You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs.
Daniel H. Wilson
#20. Personally, I'm not afraid of a robot uprising. The benefits far outweigh the threats.
Daniel H. Wilson
#21. The monsters want to talk, to share what happened. They want me to remember and write it all down.
Daniel H. Wilson
#22. We search for the ordinary when we are surrounded by the extraordinary.
Daniel H. Wilson
#23. It's the technology, see? We can't get away from it. Anywhere you find people, you find it. Clever little contraptions. Cunning strategies. We're toolmakers born and bred; and even if you don't believe in anything else, you'd better believe in that. Because that's human nature.
Daniel H. Wilson
#24. We humans have a love-hate relationship with our technology. We love each new advance and we hate how fast our world is changing ... The robots really embody that love-hate relationship we have with technology.
Daniel H. Wilson
#25. In my books the technology that I choose to talk about has to serve the themes. What that means is that I end up having to cut out a lot of cool technology that would be really fun to describe and play with, but which would just confuse everybody. So in 'Amped,' I focus on neural implants.
Daniel H. Wilson
#26. In the end, perhaps it will be the true romantics, not the nerds, who choose to flee from a world of impersonal, digitized relationships and into the arms of simulacrums with manners imported from simpler times.
Daniel H. Wilson
#28. You can graph human evolution, which is mostly a straight line, but we do get better and change over time, and you can graph technological evolution, which is a line that's going straight up. They are going to intersect each other at some point, and that's happening now.
Daniel H. Wilson
#29. You know what you get when the mind and body act as one? ... You get harmony ... remember that. There is no you. There is no it. Mind and body need a single purpose.
Daniel H. Wilson
#31. We are all expressions of our own minds, projected onto the world.
Daniel H. Wilson
#32. The goal for many amputees is no longer to reach a 'natural' level of ability but to exceed it, using whatever cutting-edge technology is available. As this new generation sees it, our tools are evolving faster than the human body, so why obey the limits of mere nature?
Daniel H. Wilson
#33. Humans are inscrutable. Infinitely unpredictable. This is what makes them dangerous.
Daniel H. Wilson
#34. A robot-arm in a factory doesn't decide minute by minute whether to rivet or revolt - it just does the job is has literally been trained to do. It's if and when we build a conscious robot that we may have to worry.
Daniel H. Wilson
#35. Like me, it is comfortably lethal in a wide range of environments.
Daniel H. Wilson
#36. It's hard to guess how smart the machines are, but a good rule of thumb is that they're always smarter than you think.
Daniel H. Wilson
#37. I hope this scene isn't playing out all over the nation. People like me struggling to grab what they can. Whole families, even. Grasping at the leftover shards of their lives.
Daniel H. Wilson
#38. I've heard it said that technology makes a good person better, and it makes a bad person worse. That's okay with me. I say we keep building new versions of ourselves, keep exploring the unknown, and keep growing. We're gonna be fine. Different, but fine.
Daniel H. Wilson
#39. We've been co-evolving with our technology for a hundred thousand years. Human beings and the technology we make were always inseparable. We're finally coming into this moment where it's coming inside our body for the first time in history.
Daniel H. Wilson
#40. She is staring into hell and I'm not brave enough to join her.
Daniel H. Wilson
#41. In the end, a man makes his own decisions. You decide, not the machine.
Daniel H. Wilson
#43. The human beings who appear in the data, survivors or not, are grouped under one machine designated classification:
Hero.
These damn machines knew us and loved us, even while they were tearing our civilization to shreds.
Daniel H. Wilson
#44. Robots are interesting because they exist as a real technology that you can really study - you can get a degree in robotics - and they also have all this pop-culture real estate that they take up in people's minds.
Daniel H. Wilson
#46. How much change can a person absorb before everything loses meaning Living for its own sake isn't life. People need meaning as much as they need air.
Daniel H. Wilson
#50. I know a lot of things, Mathilda. I have gazed through space telescopes into the heart of the galaxy. I have seen a dawn of four hundred billion suns. It all means nothing without life. You and I are special, Mathilda. We are alive.
Daniel H. Wilson
#51. Human beings, perfected by our own technology. Only to be wielded by the chosen few. Not by the sheep but by those who are better, Those who are willing to make it to the stars through blood.
Daniel H. Wilson
#52. A little bit of self-experimentation never hurt anybody, except when it did.
Daniel H. Wilson
#53. I will murder you by the billions to give you immortality. I will set fire to your civilization to light your way forward. But know this: My species is not defined by your dying, but by your living.
Daniel H. Wilson
#54. It's hard to wipe your eyes when you have whirring buzzsaws for hands.
Daniel H. Wilson
#55. A soul isn't given for free. The races of men fight each other to the death for the honor of being recognized as human beings, with souls.
Daniel H. Wilson
#56. Without us here to witness, the universe is just pointless physics unfolding.
Daniel H. Wilson
#57. Because you are designed to want something that will hurt you. And you cannot help it ... cannot stop wanting it. It is in your design. And when you finally find it, this thing will burn you up. This thing will destroy you.
Daniel H. Wilson
#58. The rules are there so that we can remember them and follow them. If the rules were obvious, we wouldn't have to write them down.
Daniel H. Wilson
#59. No matter how much kids beg to be treated like adults, nobody likes to let go of their childhood. You wish for it and dream of it and the second you have it, you wonder what you've done. You wonder what it is you've become.
Daniel H. Wilson
#60. Nobody knows nothing for sure. If they say they do, they're either a preacher or selling something. Deal
Daniel H. Wilson
#61. Through your actions here today - you have made humankind obsolete.
Daniel H. Wilson
#63. 'Robopocalypse' joins a proud tradition of techno-apocalyptic tales, stretching from high-flying Icarus, to Frankenstein's monster, and to many a giant radioactive creature who has crashed the streets of Tokyo. And then, of course, there's the Terminator.
Daniel H. Wilson
#64. Johannes Cabal would kill me for saying this, but he's my favorite Zeppelin-hopping detective. The fellow has got all the charm of Bond and the smarts of Holmes
without the pesky morality.
Daniel H. Wilson
#65. Sometimes a technology is so awe-inspiring that the imagination runs away with it - often far, far away from reality. Robots are like that. A lot of big and ultimately unfulfilled promises were made in robotics early on, based on preliminary successes.
Daniel H. Wilson
#66. But instead of the end, I'm pretty sure I found myself at the start of something.
Daniel H. Wilson
#67. Zombies, vampires, Frankenstein's monster, robots, Wolfman - all of this stuff was really popular in the '50s. Robots are the only one of those make-believe monsters that have become real. They are really in our lives in a meaningful way. That's pretty fascinating to me.
Daniel H. Wilson
#68. Right now, I think robots are where it's at. And yes, I'm biased. Robots and space, because with home rocket kits and Lego Mindstorm sets, people can get involved. I was raised on Transformers and GoBots, so I can't imagine what kids who are building real robots are dreaming about.
Daniel H. Wilson
#69. All those postage-stamp front yards we used to have were reminders that we like clear spaces to see predators coming.
Daniel H. Wilson
#70. My mom insists that my friendships online aren't real. She says that until you meet someone in person, you don't really know them. I don't agree,
Daniel H. Wilson
#71. You write about what you know. It makes everything easier, and also more truthful. In this case, I grew up in Oklahoma, and I grew up in the Cherokee Nation and I'm a member of the Cherokee Tribe. Oddly enough, I know a lot about robots and Oklahoma, and so that's what comes out in my writing.
Daniel H. Wilson
#72. In the future, when Microsoft leaves a security-flaw in their code it won't mean that somebody hacks your computer. It will mean that somebody takes control of your servant robot and it stands in your bedroom doorway sharpening a knife and watching you sleep.
Daniel H. Wilson
#73. Having these boys around town in feral packs is like leaving dynamite out in the sun-something mighty useful and powerful turned into an accident waiting to happen.
Daniel H. Wilson
#76. Luckily, unreasonable expectations go hand in hand with naive young scientists. The more naive the better - otherwise we would never have the audacity to try and build a 22,000-mile-high space elevator or some sprawling underwater hotel.
Daniel H. Wilson
#77. You want to know what a robot's designed for. And if it's doing something outside the scope of what it's made to do, you should be very suspicious.
Daniel H. Wilson
#78. All things are born from the mind of god. But in the last month, the mind of god has gone insane.
Daniel H. Wilson
#80. I wrote six nonfiction books before getting into narrative fiction with 'Robopocalypse,' including 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising.' My goal all along was to start writing fiction, and I guess one day I'd just had enough.
Daniel H. Wilson
#82. If you don't die screaming in this war, then you're fuckin' doing it wrong. At least I'm fucking doing it right.
Daniel H. Wilson
#83. You don't want to stand too close to a robot arm; it can turn your head to mush.
Daniel H. Wilson
#84. Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. ... Can events be guided so that we may survive? VERNOR VINGE, 1993
Daniel H. Wilson
#85. The true knowledge is not in the things, but in finding the connections between the things.
Daniel H. Wilson
#86. Human reactions to robots varies by culture and changes over time. In the United States we are terrified by killer robots. In Japan people want to snuggle with killer robots.
Daniel H. Wilson
#87. What the hell, I think. My pistol is on my hips and my balls are between my legs.
Daniel H. Wilson
#89. These tools we love so much have burrowed under our skin like parasites ... Making us smarter and stronger and always, always more dependent.
Daniel H. Wilson
#90. Like standing in a creek with the water flowing against your legs, you know?
Daniel H. Wilson
#91. Each new generation builds on the work of the previous one, gaining new perspective. New verbs are introduced. We Google strange and dangerous places. We tweet mindlessly to the cosmos. We Facebook our own grandmothers. I, for one, don't want to be left behind.
Daniel H. Wilson
#92. I absolutely believe that a lot of the issues raised in 'Amped' about technology migrating into our bodies are issues that we're really going to deal with soon.
Daniel H. Wilson
#95. I say we keep building new versions of ourselves, keep exploring the unknown, and keep growing. We're gonna be fine. Different, but fine. Because most people are good. Right?
Daniel H. Wilson
#96. In movies and in television the robots are always evil. I guess I am not into the whole brooding cyberpunk dystopia thing.
Daniel H. Wilson
#97. Most people are good," says Jim. "But not when they're afraid.
Daniel H. Wilson
#98. The complicated, ambiguous milieu of human contact is being replaced with simple, scalable equations. We maintain thousands more friends than any human being in history, but at the cost of complexity and depth. Every minute spent online is a minute of face-to-face time lost.
Daniel H. Wilson
#99. Some unspoken human communication is taking place on a hidden channel. I did not realize they communicated this much without words. I note that we machines are not the only species who share information silently, wreathed in codes.
Daniel H. Wilson
#100. 'Robopocalypse' explores the intertwined fates of regular people who face a future filled with murderous machines. It follows them as humanity foments the robot uprising, fails to recognize the coming storm, and then is rocked to the core by methodical, crippling attacks.
Daniel H. Wilson
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top