Scalzi's Quotes

#1. I have seen John Scalzi's pose-off picture. There are no words. There is only inarticulate whimpering.

Jim C. Hines

#2. Mom, I remember Lizzie," Hart said. "She's really not my type." "She has a brother," Wes said, from his lounge. "He's not my type, either," Hart said.

John Scalzi

#3. Oh, God," I said. "Thank you so very much for the mental image of Dad as a teenage sack of hormones. That's the sort of image that takes therapy to get rid of.

John Scalzi

#4. And before that, there was, oh, I don't know, editors experiencing demonic possessions and devouring lagging midlist writers. It's always something.

John Scalzi

#5. The way that I write novels in particular is I don't usually outline; I just write. Part of the fun is discovering what's happening in the story as I'm going along.

John Scalzi

#6. Stop whining like a fucking child." "You could have just said, 'I need your help.'" "All right. I need your help. Stop whining like a fucking child." "That's not better.

John Scalzi

#7. Well, that's science fiction television for you, though," Abnett said. "Someone's got to be the red shirt.

John Scalzi

#8. I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.
Visiting Kathy's grave was the less dramatic of the two.

John Scalzi

#9. It's a hell of a thing to say good-bye to your whole life.

John Scalzi

#10. I didn't mind getting old when I was young. It's the being old now that's getting to me.

John Scalzi

#11. The three rules of writing: 1. It's Work. 2. It's Work. 3. Surprise! It's Work.

John Scalzi

#12. In general there should be gay characters in YA because a) surprise, there are gay folks everywhere and b) in my opinion as a father, there's not a damn thing wrong with my child encountering gay folks in her literature, because see point a).

John Scalzi

#13. If your flirting strategy is indistinguishable from harassment, it's not everyone else that's the problem.

John Scalzi

#14. People start panicking because they think it's the end of everything. But the fact is, you know, books survived movies; books survived TV. Books are surviving manga and anime. Books will always be there in one form or another. You just have a larger palette of entertainment options.

John Scalzi

#15. Remember that the plant wants to eat you," the groundskeeper said. "It's not going to let you get away. Don't fight it. Let yourself be eaten." "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm finding your advice to be less than one hundred percent helpful,

John Scalzi

#16. Every creature has a survival instinct. It looks like fear but it's not the same thing. Fear isn't the desire to avoid death or pain. Fear is rooted in the knowledge that what you recognize as yourself can cease to exist. Fear is existential.

John Scalzi

#17. The part of Cardenia's brain in charge of gestalting slammed everything together and shoved it into her consciousness.

John Scalzi

#18. I've always liked swimming, so long as my head's above water.

John Scalzi

#19. It's not a bad idea." "It's a terrible idea," Oi said. "It just has the advantage of being better than the other option.

John Scalzi

#20. If you're the best that the Earth has got to offer, it's time we bend over and get a tentacle right up the ass.

John Scalzi

#21. For as much as I hate the cemetery, I've been grateful it's here, too. I miss my wife. It's easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she's never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.

John Scalzi

#22. It's not whether she tells everyone," Huma said. "It's whether they believe her." "It's the truth." "Oh, my daughter," Huma said, and smiled. "Don't tell me you don't know how little that actually means.

John Scalzi

#23. It's hard to sell the official story to people who can see things for themselves.

John Scalzi

#24. By the time I'm 75 and I have a new hip, and my eyes are laser cleaned of cataracts, I wont think I'm a bionic man. I think that's just how technology works. The posthuman future of humanity will not announce itself; it will just creep up on us.

John Scalzi

#25. Colonization is the key to our race's survival. It's as simple as that. We must colonize or be closed off and contained by other races.

John Scalzi

#26. That as far as I can tell," Jenkins said, "it's not actually a very good show.

John Scalzi

#27. I felt vibration as my shield began to plow through Coral's upper atmosphere; Asshole rather unhelpfully chimed in that we had begun to experience turbulence.

John Scalzi

#28. It's not spam if you agree to it," Tony said. "They just won't have much of a choice.

John Scalzi

#29. The supply transport's on autopilot most of the way down anyway. I'm just on board so that if it crashes, they can say someone died.

John Scalzi

#30. Because every time I think of starships skipping across the galaxy, I imagine Albert Einstein in a policeman's uniform, writing up a ticket.

John Scalzi

#31. Although, honestly, watching authors fistfight is like watching geese play Jeopardy. There's a lot of honking and squawking but no one ever gets to what they're supposed to be doing.

John Scalzi

#32. There's nothing like sharing menarche with a billion hermaphrodites. I think it was everyone's first time.

John Scalzi

#33. Oh for God's sake how divine can I be? My feet hurt, I have gas and I need to pee.

John Scalzi

#34. I seem to be good at speaking the politicians' language," Szilard said. "Apparently there's an advantage around here to being mildly socially retarded, and that's the Special Forces for sure.

John Scalzi

#35. Other science fiction shows had science advisers and consultants," Hanson pointed out.
"It's science fiction, " Weinstein said. "The second part of that phrase matters too."
"But you're making it bad science fiction," Hester said. "And we have to live in it.

John Scalzi

#36. This is the last time I would ever visit the cemetery or my wife's grave, but I didn't want to expend too much effort in trying to remember it. As I said, this is the place where she's never been anything but dead. There's not much value in remembering that.

John Scalzi

#37. If there's one thing that distinguishes the human species, it is a pathological need to stay connected. The fact your people will interrupt sex to answer your communicators is a scandal across the entire Common Confederation.

John Scalzi

#38. Maybe it's just that no one knows how to conduct a real literary feud anymore, online or otherwise.

John Scalzi

#39. I have to tell him that the sheep we're looking for is a woman who runs a pet store," Creek said. "I think telling him his younger brother's been resurrected as a computer program might be a little much for one day." Archie

John Scalzi

#40. This is the same Lizzie Chao who I went to high school with," Hart said. "I believe so," Isabel said. "She's married," Hart said. "She's separated," Isabel said. "Which means she's married with an option to trade up," Catherine said.

John Scalzi

#41. If memory serves, the last time we met there were also exploding starships," I said, to Wilson. "That's odd," Lowen said. "The last time I saw Harry, there were exploding starships, too." "It's coincidental," Wilson said, looking at Lowen and then at me.

John Scalzi

#42. My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid. I miss that sort of security, and that sort of connection with someone.

John Scalzi

#43. I'm going to go pee. If the universe is bigger and stranger than I can imagine, it's best to meet it with an empty bladder.

John Scalzi

#44. I don't think food safety laws are going to protect you from a third carnitas burrito," Hanson said. "That's not about food safety. It's about pork fat overload.

John Scalzi

#45. If you have any questions, your PDA can port into the Henry Hudson information system and use the AI interface to assist you; just use your stylus to write the question or speak it into your PDA's microphone.

John Scalzi

#46. Well, let's start with the big one," Creek said. "You're your own nation." Robin considered that for a moment. "For your sake, that had better not be a comment about the size of my ass," she said. The

John Scalzi

#47. But imagine you're a tapeworm, and then suddenly you're Goethe. It's like that.

John Scalzi

#48. There's always been a little bit of tension between the writers of science fiction literature and then science-fiction televised shows or movies, partly because they have a different dynamic.

John Scalzi

#49. It's better to be a dog in peace, than a man in war.

John Scalzi

#50. It's war, you jackasses," Keyes snapped. "I'm sorry it's not terribly convenient or comfortable for you.

John Scalzi

#51. Which is why Mom, when she's being indiscreet, refers to the trophy room as the "vet's office." Because that's where Dad brings people to take their balls.

John Scalzi

#52. You'll notice that the Intrepid's inertial dampeners don't work as well in crisis situations, Dahl remembered Jenkins telling them. The ship could do hairpin turns and loop-de-loops any other time and you'd never notice. But whenever there's a dramatic event, there goes your footing.

John Scalzi

#53. Occam's razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone's ass was usually the correct one.

John Scalzi

#54. There's a saying: "May you live in interesting times." To begin, it's a curse. "Interesting" in this case uniformly means "Oh god, death is raining down upon us and we shall all perish wailing and possibly on fire.

John Scalzi

#55. Well, isn't that just like religion for you, Archie," he said. "One day it's a nice way to spend your weekends and the next you're in the middle of a righteous theological clusterfuck.

John Scalzi

#56. I could not personally care less about whether JT Leroy turns out to be fictional or not. I find fictional people writing fiction no more or less objectionable than real people writing fiction, because it's fiction,

John Scalzi

#57. I both love and am terrified by Greg Van Eekhout's vision of Los Angeles. I already want to go back.

John Scalzi

#58. Now if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I need to play Russian roulette with our planet's future with the bullet you've so thoughtfully provided. I hope you don't mind if I don't see you out.

John Scalzi

#59. Whether you're an extra or the hero, this story is about to end. When it's done, whatever you want to be will be up to you and only you. It will happen away from the eyes of any audience and from the hand of any writer. You will be your own man.

John Scalzi

#60. Look," he said. "We'd like you to return the salary." "Oh, is that all?" I said. "Heck. That's easy. The answer is no." "What?" "No." "No?" "What part of that two-letter word don't you understand, Brad?" I asked. "Was it the vowel that threw you, or the consonant ?

John Scalzi

#61. What's messed up here isn't that this guy thinks we're on a television show. What's messed up here is that as far as I can tell, at this point, it's the most rational explanation for what's going on.

John Scalzi

#62. There's a difference between the fact that the universe is inherently unfair on a cosmic level, and the fact that life is unfair because people are actively making it so.

John Scalzi

#63. Some planets evolved genetic structures roughly similar to Earth's, incorporating some if not all the nucleotides involved in terrestrial genetics (perhaps not coincidentally, the intelligent species of these planets have been known to consume humans from time to time;

John Scalzi

#64. Humor is rare in science fiction ... there's so little of it that it automatically reminds you of other heroes with that acerbic humor when you find it.

John Scalzi

#65. I mean that you and I know that in this universe, God is a hack," he said. "He's a writer on an awful science fiction television show, and He can't plot His way out of a box. How do you have faith when you know that?

John Scalzi

#66. Yes, he's an equal opportunity asshole," Szilard said. "And he's aware of it, which he thinks means it's okay.

John Scalzi

#67. He decided he'd rather die as a fundamentally decent human being than live as the sort of asshole who'd tear out someone's liver to get into an escape pod.

John Scalzi

#68. It's not exactly surprising that staying sane is useful when trying to hit performance markers.

John Scalzi

#69. Making people change because you can't deal with who they are isn't how it's supposed to be done. What needs to be done is for people to pull their heads out of their asses. You say 'cure.' I hear 'you're not human enough.

John Scalzi

#70. Listen to me or don't. But if you don't, you'll be dead. And then where will you be? Dead, that's where.

John Scalzi

#71. I would say I'm a medium-sized 'Star Trek' fan. I love the universe that it's created.

John Scalzi

#72. The assumption that simple = stupid. But it's not true; indeed, I find from personal experience that the stupidest writers are the ones whose writing is positively baroque in form.

John Scalzi

#73. The reality is more complicated, but as with most humans, the people on Earth prefer the simple answer.

John Scalzi

#74. My characters were ... rebelling against something ... My own bad writing. I wouldn't do for my characters what they needed for me to do - be courageous enough in my writing to make them interesting.

John Scalzi

#75. But define 'completely ridiculous shit,'" Duvall said. "Does space travel count? Contact with alien races? Does quantum physics count? Because I don't understand that crap at all. As far as I'm concerned, quantum physics could have been written by a hack.

John Scalzi

#76. Is it painful?" the groundskeeper asked. "I am asking for science.

John Scalzi

#77. John Scalzi is a fresh and appealing new voice, and Old Man's War is classic SF seen from a modern perspective - a fast-paced tour of a daunting, hostile universe.

Robert Charles Wilson

#78. The problem with aging is not that it's one damn thing after another - it's every damn thing, all at once, all the time.

John Scalzi

#79. I tell people the first time I decided to write a novel I was in my mid-20s, and it was, 'Well, it's time to see if I can do this.' I basically flipped a coin to see if I was going to write science fiction or if I was going to do a crime novel. The coin toss went to science fiction.

John Scalzi

#80. The Scooby gang doesn't travel because they are looking for crimes to solve. They travel because they're one step ahead of the deprogrammers. Somehow, Fred's got them all snookered. It probably has something to do with the Scooby Snacks.

John Scalzi

#81. But I have always found that there's an inverse relationship between the number of people in a room and the amount of useful work that can be done.

John Scalzi

#82. That's what I'd ask you to do: Hope for peace. Because I know that I would love to be able to lay down my weapon and get to being a colonist. Just like you are. Just like I want to be.

John Scalzi

#83. It's like Wednesday morning at the world's biggest Denny's,

John Scalzi

#84. For two years, all you have to do is go where they tell you, stay behind your rifle, and kill and not be killed. It's simple, but simple isn't the same as easy.

John Scalzi

#85. Sani's family lived in a well-kept double-wide in an otherwise less-than-spiff trailer park outside of Sawmill.

John Scalzi

#86. He didn't exactly have the "programmer" look to him, if you know what I mean. He'd be the programmer's boss. The one they hated. The one who made them work on holidays.

John Scalzi

#87. It's just a reminder that war favors the rich. The ones who can leave, do. The ones who can't, suffer." Kiva was silent for a moment. Then, "Fuck you for having a conscience, Tomi.

John Scalzi

#88. Here's a quick rule of thumb: Don't annoy science fiction writers. These are people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they'll do to you.

John Scalzi

#89. Reddit is not a public utility or a public square; it's a privately owned space on the Internet.

John Scalzi

#90. How did you get here, anyway?" "It's classified." "I'm close enough to stab you with a fork.

John Scalzi

#91. Only Norway regularly sends colonists from Europe, and we all know of that country's ecological disasters.

John Scalzi

#92. It's not that Seaborg disliked Harvey, but after a couple of combat drops with the 2nd Platoon one got the sense that if you didn't like things to explode unnecessarily around you, you would want to stay well clear of Daniel Harvey.

John Scalzi

#93. There aren't a lot of humans who speak more than one dialect of Forshan. I know all four of the major ones.'

'Impressive,' Duvall Said.

'I'm good with my tongue,' Dahl said.

'Now who's being forward?' Duvall asked.

John Scalzi

#94. I find it difficult to believe that Redditors don't understand that anonymity online is merely a facade; indeed, it's probably one of the reasons that revealing the identity of pseudonymous Redditors is looked on as such a huge betrayal.

John Scalzi

#95. We buy time where we may." "You bought yourself time," Oi agreed. "I don't think it's of very good quality.

John Scalzi

#96. One of Harvey's guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down.

John Scalzi

#97. As a general rule when it's a city bus versus any biological creature, it's safe to bet on the bus.

John Scalzi

#98. That's a distinction that's going to make a lot of difference to the ninety percent of humanity that doesn't know the difference between astrology and astronomy,

John Scalzi

#99. No matter what, the Earth is fucked," Rigney said. "Excuse the language, but that's the gist of what I'm hearing from you.

John Scalzi

#100. I propose a toast. Here's to being right all the time. May God and history forgive us. They all clinked glasses to that.

John Scalzi