Gavin Extence Quotes

#1. Acknowledging reality for myself was one thing. Having to explain what as happening - and what was going to happen - to another person was something else entirely. That would make it TOO real.

Gavin Extence

#2. In life, there are no true beginnings or endings.

Gavin Extence

#3. Even very low-probability events can, and indeed do, occur.

Gavin Extence

#4. I think a reading group should have a snappy name to attract members, don't you?'
Mr Peterson didn't ask about my snappy name, but I could tell his curiosity was piqued.
'The Secular Church of Kurt Vonnegut,' I said.
'Jesus F Christ,' said Mr Peterson.

Gavin Extence

#5. [ ... ] from what I'd been able to ascertain online, the Swiss were a reassuringly practical people. They had a long, proud history of staying out of wars, preferring to devote themselves to more constructive endeavours like science, secure banking and building extremely accurate clocks.

Gavin Extence

#6. Fear distorts the world. Fear sees demons where only shadows dwell.

Gavin Extence

#7. Sometimes words aren't needed.

Gavin Extence

#8. In the long history of human affairs, common sense doesn't have the greatest track record.

Gavin Extence

#9. I knew how many zeroes there were in a quintillion, but I thought that algebra lived in ponds.

Gavin Extence

#10. The first thing I learned that day was this: what you think you know about a person is only a fraction of the story.

Gavin Extence

#11. Because sometimes chance and circumstance can seem like the most appalling injustice, but we just have to adapt. That's all we can do.

Gavin Extence

#12. Apt and poetic though this was, it was simply too bleak to read at a funeral. Instead I settled on Rumfoord's farewell speech on page 2007, which starts: "I am not dying. I am merely taking my leave of the solar system," and ends: "I shall always be here. I shall always be wherever I've been.

Gavin Extence

#13. Funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the living.

Gavin Extence

#14. I tapped on the door, with all the power of a farting flea.

Gavin Extence

#15. Not all scars are bad, Alex. Some are worth hanging on to ...

Gavin Extence

#16. All these thoughts drifted like clouds through the virtual space of my mind's eye - tiny electrical and chemical signals that combined to create an entire world - but then, after a while, everything just kind of melted away. All that was left was a calm blue void. I felt very happy.

Gavin Extence

#17. I was half expecting it, but it still came as kind of a shock when the barrier stayed down. It's funny how some things can be so mixed up like that.

Gavin Extence

#18. Fucking hell, Woods!' squealed Decker. 'You really are retarded!' Or he squealed something similar. I was no longer listening. He now held the book aloft and was waving it around like the monkey with the bone at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Gavin Extence

#19. I'm saying that death is the easiest thing in the world. It's only dying that's terrible.

Gavin Extence