Quotes

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

-- Hanlon's Razor

Seriously, I don't want to die just yet. I don't care how good-looking they are, I! don't! want! to! die!

-- Megazone, Undocumented Features 1

Innovation is hard to schedule.

-- anon.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.

-- JRR Tolkien

It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.

-- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513

The object-oriented model makes it easy to build up programs by accretion. What this often means, in practise, is that it provides a structured way to write spaghetti code.

--Paul Graham

Don't worry about where to land -- by the time you get to it, it will be flat.

-- concering Orion landing procedures

Do you really think your threats mean anything to me? 'Do this, or you're a dead man.' Death: been there, done that.

-- John Sheridan

Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander, daughter of Andrei and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth. I am Death incarnate, and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me.

-- Susan Ivanova

Bring a stick to a fistfight. Bring a knife to a stick fight. Bring a gun to a knife fight. Stay out of a gunfight.

-- Redneck

There is only one human who has ever attacked a Minbari warship and survived. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.

-- Delenn

"Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."

-- from Lionel Lauer's .sig

"We thought you were dead!"

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

-- unidentified soldier and Ellen Ripley 8

Trust Ivanova. Trust yourself. Anybody else, shoot 'em.

-- Susan Ivanova

Could you please not eat my gun?

-- Mihoshi

Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly. It just happens to be very selective about who its friends are.

-- Kyle Hearn

The government which fears arms in the hands of it's people ... should.

-- unknown

There are some days I just love this job.

-- Michael Garibaldi

If you are going to kill me then do so. Otherwise, I have considerable work to do.

-- Lennier

The law is not meant to protect the idiots.

-- unknown French judge

We won, didn't we? Cope!

-- Mimi, Reality Check #8

Collin was right. Never give a virus a missile launcher.

-- Erk, Reality Check #8

I wanted respect. Instead, I have turned into a wishing-well with legs.

-- Londo Mollari

There is a style of design I call "wishful thinking engineering." It starts with something like "pigs can fly if you feed them enough beans" and develops utopian plans such as like having everyone commute to work riding on personal pigs, and along the way ignores minor details such as the consequent rain of the non-gaseous byproducts.

-- Vernon Schryver in n.a.n-a.e

The quiet ones are the ones that change the Universe, Luc Deradi. The loud ones only take the credit.

-- Londo Mollari

To Mess with people's minds is natural. To really screw their minds over... Well, that requires JMS or Anno Hideaki...

-- from the .sig of Micah D. Potasnik

If I employed software developers and they gave me something like this, I'd shoot them.

-- Abby Franquemont

I've found that nurturing one's Zen nature is vital to dealing with technology. Violence is pretty damn useful too.

-- Lionel Lauer

I'm not a violent man, but I really do think I'm going to have to kill someone here.

-- Bentley, "Masterminds"

By the looks of it, this guy couldn't reproduce himself if he had an installation wizard.

-- Andreas "Buzh" Skau

Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.

-- Linus Torvalds

You'd be suprised by what you can live through.

-- The Genie

You'd be suprised by what you think you can live through, but actually can't.

-- General Rune

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

-- R.P. Feynman

Nothing is as annoying as a species that refuses to get out of bed.

-- Prof. Waxman

Do you really think I'd let some evil alien race come in, conquer Earth and enslave the human race? That's my job.

-- A. Bester, B5, roughly

Microsoft is a cross between The Borg and the Ferengi. Unfortunately, they use Borg to do their marketing and Ferengi to do their programming.

-- Simon Slavin in a.s.r

It's not my job to teach you how to read or to think. If you have a critical failing in either of those abilities, you will find yourself in situations where you will look foolish because of it.

-- Sean K. Reynolds

God, root, what is difference?

-- Pitr, User Friendly

All I want out of the Universe is 10 minutes with the source code and a quick recompile.

-- unknown

If it's a hobby for me and a job for you, why are you doing such a shoddy job of it?

-- Linus Torvalds

My group's mission statement: You want what? By WHEN?

-- Simon Burr

From the IS Survival Guide column:

ManagementSpeak: This person is a loose cannon with our system.

Translation: This person actually tries to really use the technology.

-- Martin Butzen

If you'll excuse me - I have fifteen things fighting for my attention, all of them annoying.

-- Susan Ivanova

The meek shall inherit the Earth; the rest of us, the Universe.

Safety hint, dude ... never, ever get up to go to the john at night unless you can actually feel your body.

-- Sonya Marie Gildencrantz

We lift off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

-- Cpl. Hicks

When a bomb starts talking about itself in the third person, I get worried.

-- Paris

I'm a science officer. It's my job to have a better idea.

-- Dax

Why is everybody trying to shoot me today?

-- Paris

Assimilate this.

-- Worf

death.net: because for some problems there's only one solution.

Magic, probability and your lifespan are all related to each other. Those Mages who forget this simple relation are easy to identify because they leave behind large craters filled with their remains (if any).

-- Kalindra nas Kan

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

It may be great to soar with the eagles, but weasels don't get sucked into jets.

I don't know whether I should be scared or really turned on.

-- Onyx, Skunkworks

Wipe them out. All of them.

-- Darth Sidious

My God, it worked! I must have done something wrong!

-- Windows, any version

If violence isn't solving your problems, you're just not using enough of it.

-- Misato Katsuragi

I guess I'm just an old-fashioned sentimentalist at heart. I refuse to accept a no-win scenario. I hate the thought of a universe without justice. If the maneuverings of dark powers can't be exposed and defeated by the pure of heart, then there's no point in anything. I can't believe that.

-- Gryphon

NOW can I kill him?

-- Leela

Rule #3 from the Official Dom's Handbook says, "Never do anything to a sub that might squick YOU."

-- Serion Ironcroft, SSBB

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die.

-- Jim Davidson, alt.folklore.urban

"X is like pavement: once you figure out how to lay it on the ground and paint yellow lines on it, there isn't much left to say about it. The exciting new developments are happening in things that run ON TOP of the pavement, like cars, bicycles, trucks, and motorcycles."

-- Eugene O'Neil

You were right about one thing, Master. The negotiations were short.

-- Obi-wan Kenobi

I won't go postal. I'll go FedEx. When you absolutely, positively have to kill everyone overnight...

-- Marillion, FurryMUCK

Oops.

-- Shannon Foraker, Ashes of Victory

Man, if you were serious you wouldn't be pointing those things at someone with the power to give you double-D sized breasts just by clicking his nicotine-stained fingers.

-- The Doctor, Authority #15

It takes intelligence to appreciate wit, humor and sarcasm, but none to be offended by it.

-- Johnny Hart

I will meet the terminally clueless today, idiots, and those with hairballs for brains, and those whose ears need a good shredding before you can even get their attention. I do not have to be like them, even though I would dearly love to hit them hard enough to make the empty places in their heads echo...

-- Rhiow, Chief Gate Technician, Grand Central Station

There are mushrooms that can survive weeks, months without air or food. They just dry out and when water comes back, they wake up again. And call the helldesk about their password expiring.

-- Jens Benecke and Tanuki the Raccoon-dog

Remember: every member of your 'target audience' also owns a broadcasting station. These 'targets' can shoot back.

-- Michael Rathbun to advertisers, in n.a.n-a.e

Posting to ASR should be like juggling armed, impact-fused multi-megaton warheads. You really don't want to screw up.

-- Shalon Wood, a.s.r.

There's nothing wrong with the gene pool that a little chlorine won't fix.

-- unknown

Glad you're mending, but next time, shoot first. Why should I have to tell that to a Sicilian?

-- DonSideB, s.s.b.b

Oh good, my dog found the chain-saw.

-- Lilo

"You might say that. Or you might say that, as a tac officer, he needed four astro fixes, a hyper log, approach radar and a dirtside flight controller with full computer support just to find his backside with both hands. On a good day."

-- Adm. Honor Stephanie Harrington

Lex: Which tank is it, Doyt? I see four.

Doyt: Mine's the one whose barrel isn't tracking you guys right now.

-- Schlock Mercenary

Doyt: Jevee, could you pick off a hardened target cleanly, no collateral damage, at this range?

Jevee: Of course I could. Any weapon, any time. You know that.

Doyt: Next question: are you really so stuck on yourself that you think the guys I trained can't?

-- Schlock Mercenary

I really hate that girl.

-- The Annointed One, B:TVS

Well, I promised the Doc we'd take him alive. So when you blow him to Hell, save one of his legs so we can say we tried.

-- Marine CO, Jason X

Well, I will tell you something, kiddies: anybody so incredibly deluded and naive as to believe that the right to free speech equals a right to evade consequences or a right not to grow up has no business making fun of people who merely think that they're dragons.

-- postvixen, LiveJournal (edited for content)

I don't think of it as revenge. I think of it as expressing my gratitude by returning the favor.

Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival!

-- W. Edwards Deming (1900 - 1993)

He may not be a god, but on this ship I am.

-- Rommie

Leadership through following the right grunt. It's one more hallmark of a lieutenant who won't get shot by his own men.

-- Schlock Mercenary

Now can I work alone?

-- Abby Sciuto

Anybody else wanna negotiate?

-- Korben Dallas

So here's the part where you make a choice. What if you could have that power, now? In every generation, one Slayer is born, because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. [points to Willow] This woman... is more powerful than all of them combined. [Willow whimpers] So I say we change the rule.

-- Buffy Summers

If you ever find yourself in a fair fight, it's a sure sign you've screwed up your planning somewhere.

-- old Shin'a'in proverb

Friendly fire... isn't.

-- any sargent, any era

Duh! The magnets don't suck up the grass. The itty-bitty black hole they hold in place does that!

-- Scarlet, Amber, Jade and Violet

It helps to remember that being a well-liked and well-respected figure and being the Evil Overlord are not mutually exclusive.

Herding catssss is eassssssy. Jussssst use a can opener.

-- Ssethyri

I've tended bar at the White Hart. We got weirder things than that in asking about the free lunch.

-- Jeran ar'Katel

Don't play games with me! You just killed someone I like. That is not a safe place to stand! I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the Universe. Look me up.

-- The Doctor, Forest of the Dead

No, I'm not going to court-martial you. I'm going to do worse: I'm going to promote you. You're even getting a new command out of it. Command of a sensor monitoring outpost. On a moon so cold that occasionally, on the really hot summer days, it gets warm enough for the helium to turn to liquid, in a system so out of the way that the resupply ships are automated because pilots don't want to take the run. With a staff of a sargent and two privates. The sargent hasn't been sober since he was assigned there, and the privates are only sober because they haven't figured out how to get the liquid to pour out of the bottle. And you'd better pray you never get reassigned, because if you do it'll be because I've found somewhere even worse to stick you.

-- General Astrid Haarsdotter, to a lieutenant who really, truly fsck'd things up

The goal is not to damage the mobs. The goal is to kill the mobs. If the best way to kill them is for you to sit on your hands and do nothing, then you'll bloody well sit on your hands and do nothing! DO YOU READ ME CADET?!

-- Jrral Pagebane

Good men don't need rules. And today is not the day to find out why I've got so many.

-- The Doctor

If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.

-- #6, The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

You used what on who, why ?!

The only unfair advantage is the one the other guys have.