I’ve had a rough week. I was originally going to do an author profile of one of favourite science fiction authors, but I don’t have the energy or brain power. Instead, I am going to share some of my favorite science fiction book quotes. Most are profound. Some are just ridiculous.

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”
      ~ Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“There is no end to what the living world will demand of you.”
~ Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong – faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.”
     ~ Frank Herbert, Dune

“I don’t know what I want. I said that at some point, I think. But it isn’t that, it’s that I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me.”
~ Martha Wells, All Systems Red

“The thin girl was gulping down one of Richard’s bananas in what was, Richard reflected, the least erotic display of banana-eating he had ever seen.”
     ~ Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere*

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
~ Frank Herbert, Dune

“Twenty-seven minutes was more than enough time for me to do something stupid.” 
     ~ Martha Wells, Exit Strategy 

“Is it good? Well, It ain’t Shakespeare, but Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus. You tell me.”
~ John Scalzi, Redshirts

“It’s like a family of racoons hotboxed themselves to death in a dumpster and someone distilled their fermented remains.”
     ~ John Scalzi, The Kaiju Preservation Society

“If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater.”
~  Margaret Weis, Dragons of Winter Night*

““A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.””
     ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.”
~  Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

“He pretends to be less special than he is, because the world has punished him for loving himself.”
     ~  N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became

“People who live in glass houses should shut the fuck up.”
     ~ Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

“The popular stereotype of the researcher is that of a skeptic and a pessimist. Nothing could be further from the truth! Scientists must be optimists at heart, in order to block out the incessant chorus of those who say “It cannot be done.”
     ~ Michael Ely, Centauri Dawn

“We’ll never know exactly why we are, what we are, and so on. All you can do is follow your path all the way to the wilderness, and then you continue along because that’s what must be.”
~ Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

*Yes, I know, these are from fantasy books. They are still good quotes. It’s also 3:00am and my brain is asleep.