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What did a fictional character say that stuck with you?
Always loved some of the quotes from Harry Potter - Sirius Black and Dumbledore having the better ones.
"If you want to know what a man’s like, judge him on the way he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
— Sirius Black
"It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose"
-Jean Luc Picard
It's hard to deny the importance of this statement, or many others from star trek. Sometimes it just doesn't work out through no fault of your own, and a failure is no excuse to give up.
Thank you for reminding me of this.
I think I need to add this to my conscious list of "things I learned from TV".
I have two:
"He that would keep a secret must keep it secret that he hath a secret to keep." by Sir Humphrey Appleby in 'Yes, Minister' (one of the best television shows ever made). In other words, if you've got secret information, you don't merely keep the information itself secret, but you don't even hint at the fact that you have a secret. Don't give people a reason to even suspect you're hiding something. This has served me well (in ways which I'm obviously not going to even hint at!).
"Do you know how smart I am in Spanish?" by Gloria Pritchett in 'Modern Family'. This quote reminds me that a lot of our so-called intelligence is revealed when we communicate it. Take away that ability to communicate, and even the most intelligent person can seem stupid. Those people serving us in take-away shops with their broken English could be doctors where they came from (and some of them are!). Never judge a book by its cover.
One modern practical example of this is that everything should be encrypted, regardless of whether or not it is important or private.
If you encrypt only the things that are important to keep secret, you have already given away which things those are.
So, what's your secret ;)
I like this one a lot. Can relate to it with my surroundings in Canada, not specifically the Spanish part, but the amount of new Canadians who had to leave their accredited experiences behind in their old homes.
I went to uni for post-graduate studies a while ago (before 'Modern Family' even existed). There were a lot of international students in the course. In some classes, there were only three or four locals, with the majority of the class being temporary residents.
For one assignment, we were randomly assigned to groups. My group of five included one young woman from China who barely spoke English, two lazy young students from elsewhere, and two mature professionals (myself and a migrant from India). Us two "adults" tried to include the Chinese woman, but it didn't work. If we spent forever trying to communicate with her, she was actually intelligent and had worthwhile contributions to make. But she couldn't speak English well enough to understand the work, or share her contributions, so we had to exclude her like we excluded the two lazy students. It was a shame.
That's who I remember when I think of Gloria's quote: that woman who was smart in Chinese, but not in English.
It's also quite old. It's 40 years old. That makes it ancient. Not many people watch ancient shows. Only us older folks who watched them when we were younger.
But it is hilarious and intelligent.
There was a recent-ish series which was described as a modern version of 'Yes, Minister': 'The Thick of It'. I tried watching it, but I only lasted one episode. It was just wrong. It was coarse and rushed and nasty, and felt nothing like 'Yes, Minister'.
Another youngster who watched The Thick of It and loved it reporting in!
Well, I only picked it up because of Veep, and I'm neither american nor british. Iannucci is a fantastic director and In the Loop is one of my favorite comedy movies ever.
Uh oh! Too late. Now we already know.
All joking aside, it is amazing the number of people who share secrets online, and then get doxed or recognized.
The internet makes a poor confessional booth.
There's more to life than the internet. I've followed Sir Humphrey's advice in many contexts.
As a corollary, every now and then people who seemed perfectly normal end up having the most outrageously spectacular hidden lives.
Makes me wonder how many outrageous secrets are out there, and if I am not anywhere near as interesting as I might like to think.
Not quite a character, but the narrator. I always think about this when I hear people say "X can't possibly be done"
“It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. A person ignorant of the possibility of failure can be a half-brick in the path of the bicycle of history.”
--Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites
Maybe this was inspired by a quote from Mark Twain?
"They did not know it was impossible, so they did."
I like one that is the opposite.
"They did not know it was impossible, so they tried... And now they know"
Just a joke. There's been a surge of non-inspirational quotes on failure in my country that are really funny.
Beautiful.
There are a lot of them by the author Mark Z. Daniellewski. The quotes I'm going to post are a lot darker than some of the things here. But House of Leaves was the first time I felt like I saw a character or author write about sadness, hopelessness, and depression in ways that I actually felt. It made me feel less alone in how I was feeling and weirdly brought a lot of comfort to me. So while these are dark quotes, I think they stuck with me for positive reasons.
“Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.” I've always read this and related it to how exhausting being depressed is. Because I do that all the time. There are days where you just stay in bed starring at the wall. Not thinking, not daydreaming, maybe you sleep, maybe you don't. But you just kill time doing nothing and that's time you'll never get back.
There are a lot of quotes of his from House of Leaves I love, its my favorite book of all time for a reason. I'll put a couple more below, but you should check out the book or read about how cool the formatting is on wikipedia or just read some more dope quotes from the book here
Other quotes that have stuck with me:
Thanks for reminding me that I need to reread this book. I'd forgotten a lot of great qoutes like that.
It's not a great philosophical quote, it's not profound, and it's not a great speech. It's just Sam having a moment in the dark of Moria after hearing Gimli sing this song. For a few minutes he's transported by the music, and it's something that as a musician I can empathise with so much: the desire to learn a great piece of music, and be a part of the story that it tells.
This is from Babylon 5, from one of the pivotal moments in the series, where B5 decides that it's own government on Earth has betrayed it's colonies by declaring martial law. In doing so Sheridan effectively isolates the station from the rest of humanity and stands alone, vulnerable. And in that moment when all seems lost, one of the leaders of the alien race that was at war with Earth less than a decade ago steps between B5 and the Earth ships attempting to subdue then, stares then straight in the eye and says "no". It still gives me chills when I watch it.
Also from B5, later in the series Sheridan leads the fight to retake Earth. After they've turned the tide in the final battle and the corrupt government has fallen, the president initiates a scorched earth protocol. Up until this point, Delenn and the other alien races have stayed out of the fight by request. But in that moment, it no longer matters, billions of people are about to die. So Sheridan turns with a haunted, desperate look and:
And she replies:
Also gives me chills every time.
This always stuck with me as a horribly pessimistic view of the world or certain situations, but an outlook that many share. Often (not always) when I am beyond discouraged with a problem, this comes to mind and I try to consider how the problem might be rigged if it were, and how I could manipulate / maneuver my way around it.
I most often think of this when negotiating something when I am up against someone or a system that has the 'it's always done this way' or 'that's impossible' approach. It often leads to me offering a compromise where they hit their core objective and I end up with more money / time / savings.
From Bojack Horseman
Also from Bojack Horseman:
[SPOILERS] From Spec Ops: The Line
spoilers
Walker: "I...I didn't mean to hurt anybody..."Konrad, matter-of-factly: "No-one ever does."
From Ender's Game:
From an older Dutch novel, afaik it was never translated:
Something that's lost in this translation is that the verb commonly used for "hatching" in Dutch, "uitkomen", can also mean "come true"
One from Bojack that I like (paraphrased).
“It gets easier - every day it gets a bit easier. But you gotta do it everyday, that’s the hard part.”
From one of my favorite so-bad-it's-good movies, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory:
Reminder that at the heart of everything that goes wrong is an assumption that turned out to be inaccurate, and that questioning our assumptions, or at least making them clear to other people involved, is one of the best ways to avoid fuckups.
I can't remember the character anymore, and I'm pretty sure it was originally said by a real person:
Ah! Thanks for remembering! Ringworld is one of my favorite books, been a while since I read it though.
I haven't read them yet! I was curious where it came from and did some google-fu. I've been meaning to go through the series, though. Everybody I know who has read them is absolutely in love with them. It's perfect timing for my queue.
I'll second @Omnicrola's opinion of the Ringworld series: the first book is amazing, but each sequel is worse than its predecessor. It's almost a geometric progression, where each book is half as good as the book before it.
I read them first in my middle teenage years. The first one is mind bending, and the second is pretty good. After that i don't think it hold up that well.
Yes!!! You and @Algernon_Asimov are great. I hate prepping for a series only to be let down under halfway.
I really appreciate it.
'Ringworld' was originally written as a stand-alone novel (although it shares a background with Niven's other works). You can read this one novel, have your mind blown, never read any of the sequels - and not miss anything (except for Niven's growing fascination with sex or "rishathra" as the Ringworld natives call it).
yeah, I think I'll do the first and quit while I'm ahead. I just realized that there's a new Star Wars Thrawn book out, too (Thrawn: Treason.)
I'm trying to jump between pulpy detective stories, non-fic, sci-fi / fantasy -- so far so good. I went through ~14 Quarry (Max Allen Collins) books in a row and kind of burned out a bit. It didn't help that I did nearly 22 Star Wars books before that.
I really liked the Lilith's Brood trilogy (Butler) -- its probably the deepest into sci-fi I've gone outside of the goofier stuff. This will be a welcome addition to the library.
I have no way to truly express my gratitude for this heads up.
Some day, years ago, I was zapping and caught this film already halfway. There was a man talking to a young boy and he said this sentence. I stopped watching it after this scene, don't remember why. So I never watched the film nor have I read the original book, but for some reason this few seconds of the film got stuck in my head.
What's a "schvantz"? I don't get this quote at all.
So you're scared of looking like you're sucking a penis (which, I can tell you from personal experience, looks and feels nothing like sucking a straw!). Isn't that a bit homophobic? :P
As I'm reading, I'll occasionally throw things that resonate with me in a Google Note®.
Let's see...
From Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore: "To go from an iniquitous den to a practice room is a respite given to us by God." pg. 125
From Something Will Happen, You'll See by Christos Ikonomou: "‘If you’re down or have something on your mind,’ he said, ‘just turn on the television. It's the best medicine, just take it from me. TV. For people like us, for poor people, there is no other medicine.'" pg. 195
From Pattern Recognition by William Gibson: "My God, don't they know? This stuff is simulacra of simulacra of simulacra. A diluted tinture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row, flavoring their ready-to-wear with liberal lashings of polo knit and regimental stripes. But Tommy surely is the null point, the plack hole. There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul. Or so she hopes, and doesn't know; but suspects in her heart that this in fact is what accounts for his long ubiquity." pg. 18
From Self-Help by Lorrie Moore: "Plots are for dead people, pore-face" pg. 119
Not fiction, but from For the Time Being by Annie Dillard: "Work, work! Just dress in old clothes, eat simple food...feign ignorance, appear inarticulate." pg. I-don't-remember
and..probably quite a bit from The Karamazov Brothers that I can't recall.
This quote from Naruto
Loyalty is a virtue that is very important to me, and I heard this quote at an impressionable age. To me it means that sometimes that rules are bullshit or not applicable, and you should be able to stand by your friends if they really are your friends and are breaking the rules for a good reason. Maybe their actions make you reflect on your own values, or maybe their actions are really ill-advised and you need to stop them. Regardless, I like to believe that I choose my friends because they're people I can rely on, so when the time comes I need to be there for them.
"The mighty are only mighty because the oppressed are divided" by Atlan da Gonozal, Perry Rhodan Sidestory Series "Altan", Issue 151.
It's quite a powerful statement really.
"Leave the gun, take the cannoli".
Always appreciate the little things.
Was that line only in the game, or in any of the movies? So much time I lost to that game, and it's fun to think it's been almost a decade...
It's in the first Godfather movie.
Are you referring to the Playstation Godfather game? If so, it was pretty good. The graphics were impressive for the time. I wish I played more.
Oh, missed that line, obviously. Thanks. I played the PC version a lot. It's a simple game, and I really like simple games.
Honestly, there are entirely too many but I'll try to narrow down a few of my favorites that guide my every day life.
"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule"- Gandalf, The Return of the King
An eloquent way of saying "You can't control everything but the things you can control, leave it better than you found it so the next generation has a good chance too". It's really guided my political thought processes with regards to the future.
"Anger clouds the mind. Turned inward, it is an unconquerable enemy"- Splinter, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(first, and best, film)
-This is one I've kept in my head ever since I was a child. When I was losing my temper, usually with my siblings(3 brothers, 2 sisters), this quote would often help calm me down. It is now a staple of my daily routine.
"Until the possible becomes actual, it is only distraction. Be mindful of what is, not what might be", Obi Wan Kenobi/Qui Gon Jinn, Revenge of the Sith novelization
-Star Wars and it's wisdom has been a key part of my life since I was a child and Master Yoda first enlightened me. It was hard to narrow down just one Star Wars quote to use because there are quite a few but this one has stuck with me, more than most, since I first read the lines. Reminds me to keep things in perspective and keep focused on the moment at hand and not let all the possibilities and the "what ifs" cloud my judgment
La casa in collina (lit. The House on the Hill), Cesare Pavese. Original quote (because the above is an original translation): "---Sei sempre lo stesso---bisbigliò Cate.---Per non farle, ti rendi impossibili le cose."
Sessiz Ev (lit. Silent House), Orhan Pamuk. This is one of my favourite sentences ever in a literary work. Technically, this belongs to the narrator. In 1926 Turkey switched from the Ottoman calendar, which was based on the Islamic calendar and thus started counting from the Hijrah onwards (622, if I'm not mistaken), to the Gregorian calendar. This sentence illustrates so beautifully how abrupt the revolutions of Ataturk were. It's really awe-inspiring how much change he brought about in his short life of 57 years; and this sentence always makes me think of how people felt back then as many of these revolutions came back to back, how different sorts of people reacted to them, and how these actions and reactions are related to today's affairs.
"Never trust a stranger."
Pastor Oats: There are so many shades of grey...
Granny Weatherwax: Nope. There's no greys, only white that's got grubby... And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.
Pastor Oats: It's a lot more complicated than that—
Granny Weatherwax: No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they mean they're worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts.
— Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett
“Frodo: 'It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the chance.'
Gandalf: 'Pity? It's a pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends.'
-Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
How could I have forgotten this one?!?!
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." by Salvor Hardin in 'Foundation' (by Isaac Asimov).
The meaning should be obvious.
“We will win — because we have to!”
— some random guy from the Squadron 42 trailer. I like that quote because it’s basically me whenever I face tough exams/classes/whatever. I may not like it, but I have to do it.