#humour (57 quotes)
Think of it as an eight-dimensional onion.’ Justine straightened her back and gave her father an exasperated look. ‘Thanks, Dad. That’s helpful. I always think in those terms, it really helps a lot.
— , The Temporal Void I’m a bespoke DJ. Custom micro-music. Nano-ambience.
— , Hopeland In the end, no matter how cool he is, your dad is still your dad.
— , Stonemouth Stop fucking around with the kickdrum and make some music.
— , The Aesthetic of Machinery Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and wilfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable of contriving to give one an utterly unambiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but they never lie. Perish the thought.
— , Look to Windward The anger rose up, joyfully. ‘Yes! I’m me! I am careful and logical and I look up things I don’t understand! When I hear people use the wrong words I get edgy! I am good with cheese. I read books fast! I think! And I always have a piece of string! That’s the kind of person I am!’
— , The Wee Free Men People who say things like ‘may all your dreams come true’ should try living in one for five minutes.
— , The Wee Free Men The girl’s hands darted over the keyboards and the air was filled with the tones of that most ancient of Japanese instruments: the synthesizer.
— , Schismatrix Plus Almost anything carried to its logical extreme becomes depressing, if not carcinogenic.
— , The Left Hand of Darkness ‘What?’ they’d say. ‘You don’t want this unpleasant circumstance we’re forcing on you? Then you’re obviously in favour of this absurdly exaggerated opposite we’ve just invented.’
— , Alien Clay Even the most devoted sadist needs a business model, or he will have to get a real job.
— , Red Team Blues One of our signature flaws as a species: we will risk almost anything to avoid looking stupid.
— , The Glass Hotel Some problems were generational; you just had to wait for the relevant elders to die off and be replaced with more progressive types. With luck.
— , Surface Detail The Dutch are posthuman already.
— , Beyond the Hallowed Sky “When people don’t know anything,” Amos said, “they love having meetings to talk about it.”
— , Leviathan Falls Where there’s a will there’s a won’t.
— , New York 2140 Quoting Ambrose Bierce.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
— , New York 2140 Quoting Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary.
Always plan for the worst, child; that way, all your surprises will be pleasant ones.
— , The Dragon Reborn Lord Acton said power corrupts, but PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
— , The Delirium Brief Well, here I am on the floor, he thought. Is life so much worse here than it would be on the bed, or even in a totally different location? No, life is exactly the same. Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.
— , Normal People The internet: always proving that you’re not quite as special as you suspected.
— , Sourdough There are plans that come off the rails as soon as they start moving, and plans that get you frightened because they seem to be going too well, too smoothly, picking up a scary speed…
— , Revenger We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.
— , Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Son, all you need to wear a hat is attitude.
— , Anansi Boys No good ever came from meetings: the Russian Revolution was just a meeting that got out of hand.
— , Thatcher Stole My Trousers