Steven > Steven's Quotes

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
― David Foster Wallace

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.

Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.”
― Stephen Fry

“I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.”
― Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.”
― Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who's been pinching my beer?
And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye. ”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth: Stage Adaptation

“Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth: Stage Adaptation

“If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“I rarely ask for suggestions, because, when I do, people tend to make them.”
― K.J. Parker, Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

“There's a palace in your head, boy. Learn to live in it always.”
― Grant Morrison, The Invisibles, Volume 1: Say You Want a Revolution

“You're broke, eh?"
I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

“honesty is hard work.”
― Spider Robinson, Callahan's Lady

“You can’t win unless you try to win, but you can lose by trying not to lose.”
― Jack Campbell, Relentless

“I need to stop getting into situations where all my options are potentially bad.”
― Jack Campbell, Dauntless

“Journalism is just a gun. It’s only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that’s all you need. Aim it right, and you can blow a kneecap off the world.”
― Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street

“When in doubt, choose to live.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“I like to let them talk things out, but fact isn’t a democratic process; if a thing isn’t true it isn’t true, even if everybody votes that it is.”
― K.J. Parker, Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

“A wise man once said, it’s not the despair that destroys you, it’s the hope.”
― K.J. Parker, Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

“Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“You listen not for the purpose of judging, criticizing or analyzing. You listen only to help the other person to express himself and find some relief from his suffering.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“See, to appreciate a woman you have to appreciate a woman’s right to change. And to appreciate a woman’s right to change, you have to realize that she’ll do it with maddening frequency, usually just to confuse you so that you’ll never see her coming when she decides to rip your throat out and drink your blood.”
― Sam Sykes, The City Stained Red

“The easiest way to do anything is properly.”
― K. J. Parker, The Proof House

“He turned away, and suddenly she thought about the old children's story, where the stupid girl opens the box that God gave her, and all the evils of the world fly out, except Hope, which stays at the bottom; and she wondered what Hope was doing in there in the first place, in with all the bad things. Then the answer came to her, and she wondered how she could've been so stupid. Hope was in there because it was evil too, probably the worst of them all, so heavy with malice and pain that it couldn't drag itself out of the opened box.”
― K.J. Parker, Sharps

“Telling lies is a bit like tiling bathrooms - if you don't know how to do it properly, it's best not to try.”
― Tom Holt, Falling Sideways

“Human beings can get used to virtually anything, given plenty of time and no choice in the matter whatsoever.”
― Tom Holt, Open Sesame

“Just when you’ve squared up to the solemn realisation that life is a bitch, it turns round and does something nice, just to confuse you. - Emily Spitzer, The Better Mousetrap”
― Tom Holt

“ The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council