James Nicoll Quotes

#1. There is no useful thing which may not be turned to an injurious purpose.

Ovid

#2. Never bring a gun to a fight where the other guy has a time-machine and tomorrow's newspapers.

James Nicoll

#3. Keep the golden mean between saying too much and too little.

Publilius Syrus

#4. [Elizabeth Moon's] antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.

James Nicoll

#5. So after a while, if people won't accept your excuses, you stop looking for them.

Ben Carson

#6. I think once you start eating people you should stop claiming to be a vegetarian, even if you only eat bad people.

James Nicoll

#7. What I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn't you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed.

Beth Henley

#8. About Antrax by Terry Brooks: I wonder if he's planning a book called SRS? Or F'lu?

James Nicoll

#9. I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface.

James Nicoll

#10. Have a clear plan or strategy to translate your success philosophy into desired results. Adopt an effective work ethic, with a laser-focus and requisite execution strategies to produce results.

Archibald Marwizi

#11. It's bad to wake up and see a large cat in mid-leap from the rough vicinity of the ceiling.

James Nicoll

#12. Romeo and Juliet *died*. I always liked that in a teen romance story.

James Nicoll

#13. Ben Bova seems to work very hard at working in new discoveries into his Glum Future but alas, his future is glum and not that well written.

James Nicoll

#14. I believe that I have now experienced the lifetime maximum exposure to bottom spanking in fantasy novels.

James Nicoll

#15. I have hated every Kress I read, especially this one, but the Bear is a standard Bear and if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like.

James Nicoll

#16. My father once discovered that one cannot "walk off" gangrene.

James Nicoll

#17. You may have trouble getting permission to aero or lithobrake asteroids on Earth.

James Nicoll

#18. About First Landing by Robert Zubrin: Someday I'd like to read a story about competent people on Mars.

James Nicoll

#19. He pondered, having many disjointed and unconnected brooding thoughts; they swam through him like silvery fish. Fears, and mild dislikes, and apprehensions. And all the silvery fish recirculating to begin once more as fear.

Anonymous

#20. Most of my scars are not fire-related and I no longer say "I know what I am doing" at critical moments.

James Nicoll

#21. Edward leaned close and whispered in my ear so that Olaf would think he was whispering sweet nothings, but what he what he actually said, was, We aren't the good guys, Anita. We're the necessary guys.

Laurell K. Hamilton

#22. Whores do sometimes break up with their johns.

Annie Sprinkle

#23. Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isn't the epitaph I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located".

James Nicoll

#24. There will be a time very shortly that I just might not be in front of the camera at all, and I might just be behind the scenes. I love doing television, though. I don't necessarily love being in front of the camera.

Brody Jenner

#25. Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts

James Nicoll

#26. Manitoba ... Not sure what to do about them. Restock the province with megafauna and encourage tourism, I think. How quickly can we breed back the saber-toothed cats?

James Nicoll

#27. Darrell is really good in the studio. I mean, he has a real working knowledge of how the process works, and what sounds good coming back over tape, and how the stuff works together.

Guy Clark

#28. English doesn't borrow from other languages. english follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

James Nicoll

#29. Call me an extremist but killing a few hundred million people seems like the sort of method that might have unintended consequences.

James Nicoll

#30. My grandfather for example only died twice, once during the war and once in the 1980s.

James Nicoll

#31. We should burn all libraries and allow to remain only that which everyone knows by heart. A beautiful age of the legend would then begin.

Hugo Ball

#32. I can't help but notice that everytime I fly somewhere, other people's planes fall out of the sky.

James Nicoll

#33. After enough concussions the head injuries blur together.

James Nicoll

#34. The Renaissance of Europe did not take place in the 15th century. Rather it began when Europe learned from the culture of the Arabs. The cradle of European awakening is not Italy. It is the Muslim Spain.

Robert Briffault

#35. I love the vastness of the ocean. I love its serenity, tranquility, humility, and purifying power.

Debasish Mridha

#36. Deadly nightshade is the only plant I have ever been able to get to grow for me.

James Nicoll

#37. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

James Nicoll