Quotes from John Scalzi

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

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

I support gay marriage because I support marriage.

But individuals are not precise mirrors of their nations. And

The failure mode of clever is 'asshole.

But whether it truly exists or not, humans need the idea of Hell, whether it be to scare us into a moral life, comfort the smug ones who believe everyone else is going there, or simply to remind us that the actions of our lives, good or ill, live beyond those lives themselves, and the accounting of them may occur past the day we ourselves happen to stop.

It's not too bad. I'll live." "Can you walk?" Sagan asked. "As long as I'm not required to like it

That's aging's trump card; they still can't replace brains.

if you're only reading books because you have to, it becomes much less fun.

Alan hasn't lost it," I said. "And he's been in as long as I have." "That's true," Keyes said. "What's your answer to that, Rosenthal?" "I'm a seething cauldron of disconnected rage on the inside, Lieutenant.

I could be happy never talking about tiny skin mites ever again," I said. "They come out when you sleep, you know." "I do now, thanks for that.

Imagine if every species named itself after its greatest flaw. We could name our species arrogance.

Or, to put it more succinctly: Writing professionally is a business. If you want to write professionally, you have to approach writing in a professional manner—which is to say, you have to approach it with the intent of actually making money doing it. This means: One: It takes work. Lots and lots and lots of work. Two: Sometimes, work sucks. Three: But you do it anyway because that's your job. The previous three rules, incidentally, work

How quickly the creepy becomes commonplace.

Confidence is about knowing you can make it right.

I'm a 'the glass is half-empty and filled with poison' kind of guy, actually," Wilson said.

at the moment, the number of fundamentally selfish and self-interested people that human civilization could tolerate, particularly in the social tranche that could actually have an impact on the fate of humanity, had shrunk considerably

When one is in the presence of our particular defiled god, as I often am, it is meet and appropriate to remind the creature that it is, in fact, defiled, and a slave, and bound to obey my commands.

It was the black jellybeans that did it.

John Scalzi "I want you to know there was some discussion about whether to make the pizza. Because it's a Hawaiian pizza? Yeah. We have a new employee who makes the pizzas. He considers pineapple on a pizza against the laws of God and Nature. She held out the pizza.

So, the kaiju have far too much volume, their muscles would snap, their lungs couldn't give them enough oxygen, they couldn't feed themselves enough energy, their nervous systems would run too slowly to move them around, their bones would tear out of their bodies, and by all known physical laws, they would lie groaning in their own pile of meat until they died.

Making peace is often a simple thing, but simple isn't the same thing as easy.

Pensé que había muerto y estaba en el cielo. Como estaba oficialmente difunto en la Tierra y volaba por el sistema solar en una nave espacial, supongo que no andaba muy desencaminado.

It was risky," Wilson said. "But the alternative was worse." "You mean us breaking off our diplomatic relationship with you," said the other Icheloe. "Well, I was actually thinking of a dead dog," Wilson said. "But yes, that, too.