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Something Happened

Something Happened (1974) is a novel by Joseph Heller about a businessman who engages in a stream of consciousness narrative about his job, his family, his childhood, his sexual escapades, and his own psyche.

Quotes

 * Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.

 * I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly.

 * It's a real problem to decide whether it's more boring to do something boring than to pass along everything boring that comes in to somebody else and then have nothing to do at all.

"I think I'd rather die now." But I am making no plans to leave. I have the feeling now that there is no place left for me to go.
 * ...if you asked any one of them if he would choose to spend the rest of his life working for the company, he would give you a resounding No!, regardless of what inducements were offered. I was that high once. If you asked me that same question today, I would also give you a resounding No! and add:

 * Because Andy Kagle is good to me and doesn't scare me any longer, I despise him a little bit too.

 * Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)

 * Yesterday, I helped a blind man across the street and was surprised that I did not feel revolted when I took his arm.

Spare time is ruinous.
 * Sundays are deadly.

 * I don't know what else one can do with a hole in one except talk about it.

 * I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.

 * Sometimes when I'm asleep, I try to wake up and can't. Sleep has me in its grip, and that is my dream.

 * I think I'm in terrible trouble. I think I've committed a crime. The victims have always been children.

I don't want to lose him. I do.
 * I want my little boy back too.

 * No one understands that carrying on bravely was the easiest thing to do.

I was not there either. (I had never done that before.) It made me sad to hear that.
 * I asked for me.

 * Waking up is such a peculiar and extraordinary process that I'm surprised we are able to manage it successfully so many times while we are still half asleep.

 * But better wet and smelly, for my taste, than dry and perfumed. I hate those artificial, candy-store scents. I want to embrace human flesh with musky, natural odors, not a bar of soap.

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title: Something Happened


text:
Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English author of detective fiction.

Quotes

 * I have given them life instead of death, freedom instead of the cords of superstition, beauty and truth instead of corruption and exploitation. The old bad days are over for them, the Light of the Aton has risen, and they can dwell in peace and harmony freed from the shadow of fear and oppression.
 * Akhenaten, as portrayed in Akhnaton (1937); Christie later revised the play slightly in 1972, and it was published in 1973.

 * Oh dear, I never realized what a terrible lot of explaining one has to do in a murder!
 * Spider's Web (1956)

 * I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.
 * LIFE magazine (14 May 1956)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

 * This is the first story featuring "Hercule Poirot".

 * The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as “The Styles Case” has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.
 * Captain Arthur Hastings, first paragraph

 * The fellow is an absolute outsider, anyone can see that. He's got a great black beard, and wears patent leather boots in all weathers!

 * “Ah!” Poirot shook his forefinger so fiercely at me that I quailed before it. “Beware! Peril to the detective who says: ‘It is so small — it does not matter. It will not agree. I will forget it.’ That way lies confusion! Everything matters.”

 * Blood tells — always remember that — blood tells.

 * Ah, my friend, one may live in a big house and yet have no comfort.

 * You give too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

 * Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory — let the theory go.

 * “Tcha! Tcha!” cried Poirot irritably. “You argue like a child.”

 * Now there is no murder without a motive.

 * Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all.

 * Two is enough for a secret.

 * See you, one should not ask for outside proof — no, reason should be enough. But the flesh is weak, it is consolation to find that one is on the right track.

 * “This affair must all be unravelled from within.” He tapped his forehead. “These little grey cells. It is ‘up to them’ — as you say over here.”
 * Hercule Poirot

 * Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend.
 * Hercule Poirot

“Good heavens Poirot!” I cried. “What is the matter? Are you taken ill?” “No, no,” he gasped. “It is — it is — that I have an idea!”
 * For Poirot, uttering a hoarse and inarticulate cry, again annihilated his masterpiece of cards and putting his hands over his eyes swayed backwards and forwards, apparently suffering the keenest agony.

 * I am not keeping back facts. Every fact that I know is in your possession. You can draw your own deductions from them.
 * Hercule Poirot

 * I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself.
 * Hercule Poirot

 * The happiness of one man and one woman is the greatest thing in all the world.

 * "Nothing", I said sadly. "They are two delightful women!" "And neither of them is for you?" finished Poirot. "Never mind. Console yourself, my friend. We may hunt together again, who knows?"

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

 * Understand this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.
 * Hercule Poirot

 * I have no pity for myself either. So let it be veronal. But I wish Hercule Poirot had never retired from work and come here to grow vegetable marrows.
 * Doctor Sheppard

The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)

 * "Eh bien, Mademoiselle, all through my life I have observed one thing — 'All one wants one gets!' Who knows?" His face screwed itself up comically. "You may get more than you bargain for."
 * Hercule Poirot

 * I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.
 * Hercule Poirot

George was an intensely English, rather wooden-faced individual. “Yes, sir. I was here two years ago when I was in the service of Lord Edward Frampton.” “And to-day,” murmured his master, “you are here with Hercule Poirot. How one mounts in the world!”
 * “You have been to the Riviera before, Georges?” said Poirot to his valet the following morning.

 * Men are foolish, are they not, Mademoiselle? To eat, to drink, to breathe the good air, it is a very pleasant thing, Mademoiselle. One is foolish to leave all that simply because one has no money — or because the heart aches. L´amour, it causes many fatalities, does it not?
 * Hercule Poirot

 * I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.
 * Miss Viner

"With the police?" "No," said Poirot drily, "With the Press — a much more deadly weapon."
 * "I saw a particular personage and I threatened him — yes, Mademoiselle, I, Hercule Poirot, threatened him."

"Why?" "Because the train gets to its journey's end at last, and there is a proverb about that in your language, Mademoiselle." "'Journeys end in lovers meeting'" Lenox laughed. "That is not going to be true for me." "Yes — yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it".
 * "Life is like a train Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so."

Peril at End House (1932)

 * I like to inquire into everything. Hercule Poirot is a good dog. The good dog follows the scent, and if, regrettably, there is no scent to follow, he noses around — seeking always something that is not very nice.
 * Hercule Poirot

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

 * 1.2 The Tokatlian Hotel

 * From a distance he had the bland aspect of a philanthropist.

 * Précisément! The body — the cage — is everything of the most respectable — but through the bars, the wild animal looks out.

 * 1.5 The Crime

“What can one do?” “You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle.”
 * She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

 * 1.7 The Body

 * See you, my dear doctor, me, I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash.

 * 1.8 The Armstrong Kidnapping Case

 * Tout de même, it is not necessary that he should be killed on the Orient Express. There are other places.

 * 2.4 The Evidence of the American Lady

 * “It makes me madder than a hornet to be disbelieved,” she explained.

 * 2.5 The Evidence of the Swedish Lady

 * “Me, I am convinced it is the truth,” said M. Bouc, becoming more and more enamoured of his theory.

 * 2.9 The Evidence of Mr. Hardman

“Yes, sir. The firm pays my travelling expenses.” He winked.
 * “Do you always travel first-class, Mr. Hardman?”

 * 2.10 The Evidence of the Italian

 * I have the little idea, my friend, that this is a crime very carefully planned and staged. It is a far-sighted, long-headed crime. It is not — how shall I express it? — a Latin crime. It is a crime that shows traces of a cool, resourceful, deliberate brain — I think an Anglo-Saxon brain.

 * 2.12 The Evidence of the German Lady's Maid

 * It was abominable — wicked. The good God should not allow such things. We are not so wicked as that in Germany.

 * 2.13 Summary of the Passengers' Evidence

 * The impossible cannot have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.
 * Hercule Poirot

 * 2.15 The Evidence of the Passengers' Luggage

 * Mon ami, if you wish to catch a rabbit you put a ferret into the hole, and if the rabbit is there he runs. That is all I have done.

 * 3.5 The Christian Name of Princess Dragomiroff

 * If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, they usually admit it — often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect.

 * 3.7 The Identity of Mary Debenham

 * “I like to see an angry Englishman,” said Poirot. “They are very amusing. The more emotional they feel the less command they have of language.”

 * Exactly! It is absurd — improbable — it cannot be. So I myself have said. And yet, my friend, there it is! one cannot escape from the facts.
 * Hercule Poirot

Death in the Clouds (1935)

 * Ch. 11 The American
 * But how much are the delicate convolutions of the brain influenced by the digestive apparatus? When the mal de mere seizes me I, Hercule Poirot, am a creature with no grey cells, no order, no method — a mere member of the human race somewhere below average intelligence!

 * ‘Yes, my friend,’ he said. ‘It is so easy to be an American — here in Paris! A nasal voice — the chewing gum — the little goatee — the horned-rimmed spectacles — all the appurtenances of the stage American…’

 * Ch. 13 At Antoine's
 * An Englishman thinks first of his work — his job, he calls it — and then of his sport, and last — a good way last — of his wife.

 * Ch. 15 In Bloomsbury
 * Yes, a private investigator like my Wilbraham Rice. The public have taken very strongly to Wilbraham Rice. He bites his nails and eats a lot of bananas. I don't know why I made him bite his nails to start with — it's really rather disgusting — but there it is. He started by biting his nails, and now he has to do it in every single book. So monotonous.

 * Ch. 16 Plan of Campaign
 * ‘If one approaches a problem with order and method there should be no difficulty in solving it — none whatever,’ said Pirot severely.

 * Ch. 21 The Three Clues
 * There is no such thing as muddle — obscurity, yes — but muddle can exist only in a disorderly brain.

 * Ch. 22 Jane Takes a New Job
 * Ah, but it is incredible how often things force one to do the thing one would like to do.

 * Poirot twinkled at her gently.

 * Ch. 25 ‘I am Afraid’
 * One has occasionally to pocket one's pride and readjust one's ideas.

 * Ch. 26 After Dinner Speech
 * I have, perhaps, too professional a point of view where deaths are concerned. They are divided, in my mind, into two classes — deaths which are my affair and deaths which are not my affair — and though the latter class is infinitely more numerous — nevertheless whenever I come in contact with death I am like the dog who lifts his head and sniffs the scent.

The ABC Murders (1936)

 * Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.
 * "This is M. Hercule Poirot," I said. Megan Barnard gave him a quick, appraising glance. "I've heard of you," she said. "You're the fashionable private sleuth, aren't you?". "Not a pretty description - but it suffices," said Poirot.
 * Hercule Poirot once taught me in a very dramatic manner that romance can be a by-product of crime.
 * Captain Arthur Hastings

Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

 * I don't pretend to be an author or to know anything about writing. I'm doing this simply because Dr Reilly asked me to, and somehow when Dr Reilly asks you to do a thing you don't like to refuse.
 * Amy Leatheran

 * That was the worst of Dr Reilly. You never knew whether he was joking or not. He always said things in the same slow melancholy way — but half the time there was a twinkle underneath it.
 * Amy Leatheran

 * Believe me, nurse, the difficulty of beginning will be nothing to the difficulty of knowing how to stop. At least that's the way it is with me when I have to make a speech. Someone's got to catch hold of my coat-tails and pull me down by main force.
 * Dr Reilly

 * God bless my soul, woman, the more personal you are the better! This is a story of human beings — not dummies! Be personal — be prejudiced — be catty — be anything you please! Write the thing your own way. We can always prune out the bits that are libellous afterwards!
 * Dr Reilly

 * I don't think I shall ever forget my first sight of Hercule Poirot. Of course, I got used to him later on, but to begin with it was a shock, and I think everyone else must have felt the same! I don't know what I'd imagined — something like Sherlock Holmes — [...] Of course, I knew he was a foreigner, but I hadn't expected him to be quite as foreign as he was, if you know what I mean. When you saw him you just wanted to laugh! He was like something on the stage or at the pictures. [...] He looked like a hairdresser in a comic play!
 * Amy Leatheran

 * I felt that the murderer was in the room. Sitting with us — listening. one of us
 * Amy Leatheran

 * Oh, dear, it's quite true what Dr. Reilly said. How does one stop writing? If I could find a really good telling phrase... Like the one M. Poirot used. In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate... Something like that.
 * Amy Leatheran

Death on the Nile (1937)

 * “Darling,” she drawled, “won’t that be rather tiresome? If any misfortunes happen to my friends I always drop them at once! It sounds heartless, but it saves such a lot of trouble later!”

 * How true is the saying that man was forced to invent work in order to escape the strain of having to think.

Poirot said dryly: “Quite frequently they do. That is even more upsetting!”
 * “There’s no reason why women shouldn’t behave like rational beings,” said Simon stolidly.

 * But to succeed in life every detail should be arranged well beforehand.

 * It was a very British and utterly unconvincing performance.

 * “You do well. Method and order, they are everything,” replied Poirot.

 * I'm used to that. It often seems to me that's all detective work is — wiping out your false starts and beginning again.

“No, and a good thing too. Education has devitalised the white races. Look at America — goes in for an orgy of culture. Simply disgusting.”
 * “That’s all very well — they’re not educated, poor creatures.”

 * Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition--and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do--clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth--the naked shining truth.
 * Hercule Poirot

 * “It’s so dreadfully easy — killing people… And you begin to feel that it doesn’t matter… That it’s only you that matters! It’s dangerous — that.”

 * And Mr. Burnaby said acutely: "Well, it doesn't seem to have done her much good, poor lass." But after a while they stopped talking about her and discussed instead who was going to win the Grand National. For, as Mr. Ferguson was saying at that minute in Luxor, it is not the past that matters but the future.

Murder for Christmas (1939, Holiday for Murder, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas)

 * Pilar sat squeezed up against the window and thought how very odd the English smelt.

 * “Pilar — remember — nothing is so boring as devotion.”

 * “Yes, Mr. Lee.” Superintendent Sugden did not wast time on explanations. “What’s all this?”

 * The character of the victim has always something to do with his or her murder.

 * He is like a cat. And all cats are thieves.

 * “Yes. I like to see people get angry. I like it very much. But here in England they do not get angry like they do in Spain. In Spain they take out their knives and they curse and shout. In England they do nothing, just get very red in the face and shut up their mouths tight.”

 * “I agree with you. It is here a family affair. It is a poison that works in the blood — it is intimate — it is deep-seated. There is here, I think, hate and knowledge…”

 * The crime is now logical and reasonable.

Sad Cypress (1940)
Elinor was still staring at this missive, her plucked brows drawn together in distaste, when the door opened. The maid announced, "Mr Welman," and Roddy came in. Roddy! As always when she saw Roddy, Elinor was conscious of a slightly giddy feeling, a throb of sudden pleasure, a feeling that it was incumbent upon her to be very matter-of-fact and unemotional. Because it was so very obvious that Roddy, although he loved her, didn't feel about her the way she felt about him. The first sight of him did something to her, twisted her heart round so that it almost hurt. Absurd that a man - an ordinary, yes, a perfectly ordinary young man - should be able to do that to one! That the mere look of him should set the world spinning, that his voice should make you want - just a little - to cry. Love surely should be a pleasurable emotion - not something that hurt you by its intensity. One thing was clear: one must be very, very careful to be off-hand and casual about it all. Men didn't like devotion and adoration. Certainly Roddy didn't.

N or M? (1941)

 * Ch. 1
 * There is always something about conscious tact that is very irritating.

 * Is it coding — or code breaking? Is it like Deborah's job? Do be careful, Tommy, people go queer doing that and can't sleep and walk about all night groaning and repeating 978345286 or something like that and finally have nervous breakdowns and go into homes.

 * Ch. 4
 * ‘I have often noticed that being a devoted wife saps the intellect,’ murmured Tommy.

 * Ch. 6
 * ‘Truth of it is,’ said Commander Haydock, steering rather erratically round a one-way island and narrowly missing collision with a large van, ‘when the beggars are right, one remembers it, and when they’re wrong you forget it.’

 * Ch. 7
 * Flattery, in Tuppence's opinion, should always be laid on with a trowel where a man is concerned.

Albert looked slightly taken aback and reverted to a more natural form of speech. ‘I was listening to a very interesting talk on pond life last night,’ he explained.
 * Ch. 11
 * ‘You’re frightfully BBC in your language this afternoon, Albert,’ said Tuppance, with some exasperation.

 * Ch. 12
 * Like most Englishmen, he felt something strongly, and proceeded to muddle around until he had, somehow or other, cleared up the mess.

The Moving Finger (1942)

 * Ch. 1
 * I could think of nothing more insufferable than members of one's own gang dropping in full of sympathy and their own affairs.

 * Ch. 4
 * Freckles are so earnest and Scottish.

 * Ch. 5
 * Quite absurd, because Caleb has absolutely no taste for fornication. He never has had. So lucky, being a clergyman.

 * Ch. 6
 * Work, Mr. Burton. There's nothing like work, for men and women. The one unforgivable sin is idleness.

 * Ch. 7
 * “Jerry had an expensive public school education, so he doesn’t recognize Latin when he hears it,” said Joanna

 * Ch. 10
 * To commit a successful murder must be very much like bringing off a conjuring trick.

“Sincerity has that effect,” said Miss Marple.
 * Ch. 12
 * “It makes her rather alarming,” I said.

 * Ch. 14
 * Miss Marple twinkled at me.

Towards Zero (1944)

 * Last time I had my hands on you, you felt like a bird - struggling to escape. You'll never escape now...
 * MacWhirter

(1945)

 * Because, Renisenb, it is so easy and it costs so little labour to write down ten bushels of barley, or a hundred head of cattle, or ten fields of spelt - and the thing that is written will come to seem like the real thing, and so the writer and the scribe will come to despise the man who ploughs the fields and reaps the barley and raises the cattle - but all the same the fields and the cattle are real - they are not just marks of inks on papyrus. And when all the records and all the papyrus rolls are destroyed and the scribes are scattered, the men who toil and reap will go on, and Egypt will still live.
 * Hori

Renisenb stared. "Yes, of course." "Well, people are like that too. They create a false door - to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority - and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves. They think, and everybody thinks, that they are like that. But behind that door, Renisenb, is a bare rock … And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth - their true self reasserts itself."
 * "You know that in all tombs there is always a false door?"

 * "It is the kind of thing that happens to you when you are stupid," said Esa. "Things go entirely differently from the way you planned them."

 * Courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen.

 * Fear is incomplete knowledge.

 * The rottenness comes from within.

 * Let us think only of the good days that are to come.

 * It's as easy to utter lies as truth.

 * Men are made fools by the gleaming limbs of women, and, lo, in a minute they are become discolored carnelians. A trifle, a little, the likeness of a dream. And death comes as the end.

 * Proof must be solid break walls of facts.

 * Handsome, strong, gay ... She felt again the thro and lilt of her blood. She had loved Kameni in that moment. She loved him now. Kameni could take the place that Khay had held in her life. She thought: "We shall be happy together - yes, we shall be happy. We shall live together and take pleasure in each other and we shall have strong, handsome children. There will be busy days full of work … and days of pleasure when we sail on the River...Life will be again as I knew it with Khay...What could I ask more than that? What do I want more than that?"

 * When you were a child, I loved you. I loved your grave face and the confidence with which you came to me, asking me to mend your broken toys. And then, after eight years' absence, you came again and sat here, and brought me the thoughts that were in your mind. And your mind, Renisenb, is not like the minds of the rest of your family. It does not turn in upon itself, seeking to encase itself in narrow walls. Your mind is like my mind, it looks over the River, seeing a world of changes, of new ideas - seeing a world where all things are possible to those with courage and vision...
 * Hori

 * She broke off, unable to find words to frame her struggling thoughts. What life would be with Hori, she did not know. In spite of his gentleness, in spite of his love for her, he would remain in some respects incalculable and incomprehensible. They would share moments of great beauty and richness together - but what of their common daily life?

 * "I have made my choice, Hori. I will share my life with you for good or evil, until death comes..." With his arms round her, with the sudden new sweetness of his face against hers, she was filled with an exultant richness of living.

The Hollow (1946)

 * I must have a talk with you, David, and learn all the new ideas. As far as I can see, one must hate everybody but at the same time give them free medical attention and a lot of extra education, poor things! All those helpless little children herded into schoolhouses every day — and cod liver oil forced down babies' throats whether they like it or not — such nasty-smelling stuff.
 * Lucy Angkatell

 * John, forgive me... for what I can't help doing.
 * Henrietta Savernake

 * And if you cast down an idol, there's nothing left.
 * Henrietta Savernake

A Murder is Announced (1950)

 * I think perhaps it wasn't a good idea to read aloud Gibbon to me in the evenings, because if it's nice and hot by the fire, there's something about Gibbon that does, rather, make you go to sleep.

 * It's so messy bleeding like a pig.

 * He could have shot her from behind a hedge in the good old Irish fashion and probably got away with it.

 * “I am not very clever about Americanisms — and I understand they change very quickly.”

 * Perhaps a little of Trollope, but not to drown in him.

 * “I always feel that the young doctors are only too anxious to experiment. After they’ve whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.”

 * “No,” said Miss Marple. “Murder isn’t a game.

 * Weak and kindly people are often very treacherous. And if they’ve got a grudge against life it saps the little moral strength that they may possess.

 * One forgets how human murderers are.

 * It all came together then, you see — all the various isolated bits — and made a coherent pattern.

After the Funeral (1953)

 * What any woman saw in some particular man was beyond the comprehension of the average intelligent male. It just was so. A woman who could be intelligent about everything else in the world could be a complete fool when it came to some particular man.

 * Any medical man who predicts exactly when a patient will die, or exactly how long he will live, is bound to make a fool of himself. The human factor is always incalculable. The weak have often unexpected powers of resistance, the strong sometimes succumb.

 * There were to be no short cuts to the truth. Instead he would have to adopt a longer, but a reasonably sure method. There would have to be conversation. Much conversation. For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away...

 * How averse human beings were ever to admit ignorance!

 * Men always tell such silly lies.

 * It shows you, Madame, the dangers of conversation. It is a profound belief of mine that if you can induce a person to talk to you for long enough, on any subject whatever, sooner or later they will give themselves away.

A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)

 * The tear rose in Miss Marple's eyes. Succeeding pity, there came anger - anger against a heartless killer. And then, displacing both these emotions, there came a surge of triumph - the triumph some specialist might feel who has successfully reconstructed an extinct animal from a fragment of jawbone and a couple of teeth.

The Burden (1956)

 * Written under the pen name Mary Westmacott.

 * “A dog,” said Mr. Baldock, in his lecture-room style, which was capable of rousing almost anybody to violent irritation, “has an extraordinary power of bolstering up the human ego.”

“They’re beautiful,” said Laura politely. “On the whole,” said Mr. Baldock, “I prefer them to human beings. They don’t last as long for one thing.”
 * “Here are my roses. Like ’em?”

 * Children and one's social inferiors never know when to say good-bye. One has to say it for them.

 * They have, all of them, such wonderful good manners. Not taught good manners — the natural thing. I could never have believed till I came here that natural courtesy could be such a wonderful — such a positive thing.

Dead Man's Folly (1956)

 * I can imagine anything! That's the trouble with me. I can imagine things now — this minute. I could even make them sound all right, but of course none of them would be true.
 * Ariadne Oliver

 * It would be difficult Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.

The Pale Horse (1961)

 * Ch. 1
 * What else will you have? Nice banana and bacon sandwich?

 * Ch. 4
 * How convenient if you could ring up Harrods and say ‘Please send along two good murderers, will you?’

 * Ch. 24
 * What beats me — it always does — is how a man can be so clever and yet be such a perfect fool.

A Caribbean Mystery (1964)

 * I have a certain experience of the way people tell lies.
 * Miss Marple

At Bertram's Hotel (1965)

 * "Well", said Miss Marple. "Are you going to let her get away with it?" There was a pause, then Father brought down his fist with a crash on the table. "No", he roared — "No, by God I'm not!" Miss Marple nodded her head slowly and gravely. "May God have mercy on her soul," she said.

Surprise! Surprise! (1965)

 * Where There's a Will

 * The reason he liked attending rich patients rather than poor ones was the he could exercise his active imagination in prescribing for their ailments.

 * Greenshaw's Folly

 * She came in with coffee and biscuits at half-past eleven with her mouth pursed up very prunes and prisms, and would hardly speak to me.

Third Girl (1966)

“No, I haven’t really. It was a pure accident. I mean, I walked into a small café place and there the girl was, just sitting there.” “Ah. You had the good fortune then. That is just as important.”
 * Ch. 8
 * “Aha? You have been very clever, madame.”

 * The old, you must remember, though considered incapable of action, have nevertheless a good fund of experience on which to draw.

 * Ch. 11
 * It merely confirmed in him his long-held belief that you should never believe anything anyone said without first checking it. Suspect everybody, had been for many years, if not his whole life, one of his first axioms.

 * Ch. 14
 * Mrs. Oliver in her own opinion was famous for her intuition. One intuition succeeded another with remarkable rapidity, and Mrs. Oliver always claimed the right to justify the particular intuition which turned out to be right!

 * Ch. 15
 * It was the technique of a man who selected thoughts as one might select pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In due course they would be reassembled together so as to make a clear and coherent picture. At the moment the important thing was the selection, the separation.

“I am sitting in this char,” said Poirot. “Thinking,” he added. “Is that all?” said Mrs. Oliver. “It is the important thing,” said Poirot.
 * Ch. 18
 * “Well, what are you doing? What have you done?”

 * “Tout de même,” said Poirot, “since I cannot find anything, eh bien, then the logic falls out of the window.”

Endless Night (1967)

 * In my end is my beginning — that's what people are always saying. But what does it mean? And just where does my story begin? I must try and think...
 * Michael Rogers (the narrator)

The Labours of Hercules (1967)

 * Forward
 * Without interest (hers not the type to wonder why!) but with perfect efficiently, Miss Lemon had fulfilled her task.

 * Take this Hercules — this hero! Hero, indeed! What was he but a large muscular creature of low intelligence and criminal tendencies!

“Afraid?” “Yes, it’s difficult for a gentleman to understand, I expect. But you see, I’m not a clever woman at all, and I’ve no training and I’m getting older — and I’m so terrified for the future. I’ve not been able to save anything — how could I with Emily to be cared for? — and as I get older and more incompetent there won’t be any one who wants me. They’ll want somebody young and brisk. I’ve — I’ve known so many people like I am — nobody wants you and you live in a one room and you can’t have a fire or any warmth and not very much to eat and at last you can’t even pay the rent on your room … There are Institutions, of course, but it’s not very easy to get into them unless you have influential friends, and I haven’t. There are a good many others situated like I am — poor companions — untrained useless women with nothing to look forward to but a deadly fear…”
 * Ch. 1 The Nemean Lion
 * “I — I don’t regret what I did. I think that you are a kind man, Mr. Poirot, and that possibly you might understand. You see, I’ve been so terribly afraid.”

 * Ch. 2 The Lernean Hydra
 * Even the sensible and the competent have been given tongues by le bon Dieu — and they do not always employ their tongues wisely.

 * Ch. 3 The Arcadian Deer
 * He had not remembered her name, but he had seen her dance — had been carried away and fascinated by the supreme art that can make you forget art.

 * Ch. 4 The Erymanthian Boar
 * On the seat opposite him was an American tourist. The pattern of his clothes, of his overcoat, the grip he carried, down to his hopeful friendliness and his naïve absorption in the scenery, even the guidebook in his hand, all gave him away and proclaimed him a small town American seeing Europe for the first time. In another minute or so, Poirot judged, he would break into speech. His wistful dog-like expression could not be mistaken.

“Stick ’em up.” They swerved around. Schwartz, dressed in a peculiarly vivid set of striped pyjamas stood in the doorway. In his hand he held an automatic. “Stick ’em up, guys. I’m pretty good at shooting.” He pressed the trigger — and a bullet sang past the big man's ear and buried itself in the woodwork of the window. Three pairs of hands were raised rapidly.
 * And then, startling in its crisp transatlantic tones, a voice said:

 * Ch. 5 The Augean Stables
 * Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts — not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase — that is to say the phrase that falls soothingly on the ear and is quite empty of meaning.

 * Ch. 6 The Stymphalean Birds
 * Harold Waring, like many other Englishmen, was a bad linguist.

Poirot said: “So unhappy that he has forgotten what happiness means. So unhappy that he does not know he is unhappy.” The nun said softly: “Ah, a rich man…”
 * Ch. 11 The Apples of the Hesperides
 * “Is he then an unhappy man?”

 * Ch. 12 The Capture of Cerberus
 * It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women.

Hallowe'en Party (1969)

 * I know there’s a proverb which says, “To err is human” but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.
 * Ariadne Oliver

Hercule Poirot’s Early Cases (1974)

 * The Lost Mine
 * But when investing money, keep, I beg of you, Hastings, strictly to the conservative.

 * The Plymouth Express
 * They are so busy knocking that they do not notice that the door is open!

 * The Chocolate Box
 * Remember, he was a fanatic, and there is no fanatic like a religious fanatic.

 * Never mind. I knew — that was the great thing.

 * “Mademoiselle,” I said, “it is sometimes difficult for a dog to find a scent, but once he has found it, nothing on earth will make him leave it! That is if he is a good dog! And I, mademoiselle, I, Hercule Poirot, am a very good dog.”

 * Double Sin
 * Never do I deceive you, Hastings. I only permit you to deceive yourself.

 * Wasps' Nest
 * “The English are very stupid,” said Poirot. “They think that they can deceive anyone but that no one can deceive them.”

 * The Veiled Lady
 * You have an excellent heart, my friend — but your grey cells are in a deplorable condition.

Curtain - Poirot's Last Case (1975)

 * Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?
 * First line

 * Not if the butcher had become a butcher simply in order to have a chance of murdering the baker. One must always look one step behind, my friend.

 * I aroused Judith's contempt by asking what good all this was likely to do to mankind? There is no question that annoys your true scientist more.

 * This, Hastings, will be my last case. It will be, too, my most interesting case — and my most interesting criminal.
 * Hercule Poirot

 * I have no more now to say. I do not know, Hastings, if what I have done is justified or not justified. No — I do not know. I do not believe that a man should take the law into his own hands... But on the other hand, I am the law! As a young man in the Belgian police force I shot down a desperate criminal who sat on a roof and fired at people below. In a state of emergency martial law is proclaimed.

 * I have always been so sure — too sure... But now I am very humble and I say like a little child: "I do not know..."
 * Hercule Poirot

 * We shall not hunt together again, my friend. Our first hunt was here — and our last ... They were good days, Yes, they have been good days...
 * Hercule Poirot

Sleeping Murder (1976)

 * Ch. 1 A House
 * Plymouth, Gwenda thought, as she moved forward obediently in the queu for Passports and Customs, was probably not the best of England.

 * Ch. 4 Helen?
 * Well, of course, Gwenda dear, you can always do that when you've exhausted every other line of approach, but I always think myself it's better to examine the simplest and most commonplace explanations first.

 * It's not impossible my dear. It's just a very remarkable coincidence — and remarkable coincidences do happen.

 * These little things are very significant.

 * Ch. 5 Murder in Retrospect
 * Murder isn't — it really isn't — a thing to tamper with lightheartedly.

 * Ch. 25 Postscript at Torquay
 * It really is very dangerous to believe people. I never have for years.

An Autobiography (1977)

 * Life seems to me to consist of three parts: the absorbing and usually enjoyable present which rushes on from minute to minute with fatal speed; the future, dim and uncertain, for which one can make any number of interesting plans, the wilder and more improbable the better, since — as nothing will turn out as you expect it to do — you might as well have the fun of planning anyway; and thirdly, the past, the memories and realities that are the bedrock of one's present life, brought back suddenly by a scent, the shape of a hill, an old song — some triviality that makes one suddenly say "I remember…" with a peculiar and quite unexplainable pleasure.
 * Foreword

Two years have passed and I am sitting on my grandmother's lap, being solemnly trussed up as a chicken just arrived from Mr Whiteley's, and almost hysterical with the wit of the joke. Just moments — and in between long empty spaces of months or even years.
 * What governs one's choice of memories? Life is like sitting in a cinema. Flick! Here am I, a child eating éclairs on my birthday. Flick!
 * Foreword

I am today the same person as that solemn little girl with pale flaxen sausage-curls. '''The house in which the spirit dwells, grows, develops instincts and tastes and emotions and intellectual capacities, but I myself, the true Agatha, am the same. I do not know the whole Agatha. The whole Agatha, so I believe, is known only to God.'''
 * We never know the whole man, though sometimes, in quick flashes, we know the true man. I think, myself, that one's memories represent those moments which, insignificant as they may seem, nevertheless represent the inner self and oneself as most really oneself.
 * Foreword

'''I like living. I have sometimes been wildly despairing, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.'''
 * To be part of something one doesn't in the least understand is, I think, one of the most intriguing things about life.
 * Foreword

Looking back I feel that our house was truly a happy house. That was largely due to my father, for my father was a very agreeable man.
 * One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy childhood. I had a very happy childhood. I had a home and a garden that I loved; a wise and patient Nanny; as father and mother two people who loved each other dearly and made a success of their marriage and of parenthood.
 * Part I: Ashfield, §I

 * The quality of agreeableness Is not much stressed nowadays. People tend to ask if a man is clever, industrious, if he contributes to the well-being of the community, if he ‘counts’ in the scheme of things.
 * Part I: Ashfield, §I

 * Servants, of course, were not a particular luxury–it was not a case of only the rich having them; the only difference was that the rich had more.
 * Part I: Ashfield, §III

 * We had three servants, which was a minimum then.
 * Part I: Ashfield, §IV

 * I don't think necessity is the mother of invention — invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.
 * Part III: Growing Up, §II

 * Looking back, it seems to me extraordinary that we should have contemplated having both a nurse and a servant, but they were considered essentials of life in those days, and were the last things we would have thought of dispensing with. To have committed the extravagance of a car, for instance, would never have entered our minds. Only the rich had cars.
 * Part V: War, §IV

Disputed

 * An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.
 * Christie denied having made this remark, which had been attributed to her by her second husband Sir Max Mallowan in a news report (9 March 1954); according to Nigel Dennis, "Genteel Queen of Crime: Agatha Christie Puts Her Zest for Life Into Murder", Life, Volume 40, N° 20, 14 May 1956, she was quoting "a witty wife"; Quote Investigator reports on "An Archaeologist Is the Best Husband a Woman Can Have" as of uncertain origin.

Misattributed

 * It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.
 * This is in fact something an admirer said, which Christie quoted with disapproval in LIFE magazine (14 May 1956), p. 98

Quotes about Agatha Christie

 * I loved mysteries and read all of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle.
 * Isabel Allende Interview

 * Alongside politicians and the press, writers of fiction picked up the theme of a sinister Communist threat, a theme that drew on the intelligence wars between the Soviet Union and the West. John Buchan, a Scottish novelist who had served in intelligence during World War One before becoming an MP, saw the hidden hand of a Communist plot to take over the world. In her novel The Big Four (1927), Agatha Christie, a successful British novelist, referred to ‘the world-wide unrest, the labour troubles that beset every nation, and the revolutions that break out in some’. The sense of menace played an important role in imaginative fiction. It took forward the pre-war strand of spy fiction, but added a theme of social disorder. There was also frequently a racial dimension, with a tendency to depict hostile figures as Slav and Jewish, frequently in league with sinister elements in British (or French or American) society. This theme drew on a broader hostility to Jews that was given renewed energy by the association of the Russian Revolution in hostile eyes with them. Russian émigrés spread this assessment. In turn, there was similar material in the Soviet Union about Western plots to overthrow the Revolution, a theme that long continued.
 * Jeremy Black, The Cold War: A Military History (2015)

 * It is well-known that Agatha Christie was not so much a novelist as the inventor of a novelty, a peculiarly intricate and entertaining type of puzzle. All the complexity and originality she could muster went into the construction of the story; her characters, apart from a handful of principals, are rarely more than cyphers.
 * Patricia Craig and Mary Cadogan, The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction (1986), p. 166

 * Until about 1957, Agatha Christie's plots were ingeniously composed of interlocking segments. This was the area in which she excelled; her tone and style have always been less satisfactory. The former is often whimsical or sententious, the latter unremittingly bland. She was involved in the delineation of a world of safety and complacence where the precise moment of a misdeed could be established by reference to an unfailing custom.
 * Patricia Craig and Mary Cadogan, The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction (1986), p. 167

 * If Agatha Christie the detective writer can be said to have taken characters out of a box, here in a few pages she shows how deftly she could bring individuals to life.
 * Jacquetta Hawkes, 'Introduction' to Agatha Christie, Come, Tell Me How You Live (1983), p. 11

 * Above all she is a literary conjuror who places her pasteboard characters face downwards and shuffles them with practised cunning.
 * P. D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction (2009), p. 98

 * Perhaps her greatest strength was that she never overstepped the limits of her talent. She knew precisely what she could do and she did it well... Her prime skill as a storyteller is the talent to deceive.
 * P. D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction (2009), pp. 98-99

 * On vacations, I will take a giant stack of Agatha Christie novels and read one every day. I never remember who this killer is, even when I've read it before, and I always have to stay up to finish because I HAVE TO FIND OUT. I don’t know how she does it.
 * Celeste Ng interview (2022)

 * I do not know anyone who has, in such a supreme degree, what I would call Mrs. Christie's despatch. She wields her humane-killer with a butcher-like indifference to life; her murders are clean, explicit, feline. "But above the ear was a tiny hole with an incrustation of dried blood round it." That is the typical Christie sentence for such occasions. It was almost Websterian. Her pistols seem poetic toys, the knives are surgical instruments; there is a housewifely neatness in the slaughterhouse. The very style is cut to pattern... She is neither too short nor too long, too tough nor too tender; she is energetic, decisive, and slightly catty where women are concerned.
 * Herbert Read, 'Blood Wet and Dry', Night and Day (23 December 1937), quoted in Christopher Hawtree (ed.), Night and Day (1985), p. 269

 * Will Agatha Christie plays stand the test of time like those of Somerset Maugham or Noel Coward? They may date, as indeed have Murder at the Vicarage, which has now been running for two years at the Savoy, and The Mousetrap, in its twenty-sixth year at St. Martin's. But they do recall a visual nostalgia for a middle-class way of life that will never return to England. Of spacious chintzy country houses, cultivated morning-room talk, impeccable servants, bowls of potpourri, croquet on the lawn, Earl Grey tea poured from Georgian silver, and wafer-thin brown bread cucumber sandwiches. Perhaps this is what many of us are longing for.
 * Gwen Robyns, The Mystery of Agatha Christie (1979), pp. 219-220

 * The people in Agatha Christie's books look back, more than those of any other modern writer, to the world of her childhood and adolescence, that time when social life was settled and people knew their places in it. Her love for Ashfield, the sizeable villa in Torquay where she grew up, is responsible for the many country houses in her books. She reflected late in her life that one of the things she would miss most, if she were a modern child, would be the absence of servants, and there are dozens of servants in her stories; butlers and housekeepers, housemaids and under-housemaids, gardeners and odd-job men... She was looking back always to a style of behaviour that had ended in 1914.
 * Julian Symons, Critical Observations (1981), p. 142

 * Such was England as represented by Mayhem Parva. It was, of course, a mythical kingdom, a fly-in-amber land. It was derived in part from the ways and values of a society that had begun to fade away from the very moment of the shots at Sarajevo; in part from that remarkably durable sentimentality which, even today, can be expressed in the proposition that every church clock has stopped at 14.50 hours and honey is a perpetual comestible at vicarages. It offered not outward escape, as did books of travel, adventure, international intrigue, but inward – into a sort of museum of nostalgia.
 * Colin Watson, Snobbery with Violence: Crime Stories and Their Audience (1971), p. 171

title: Agatha Christie


text:
Titanic (1997 film)

Titanic is a 1997 American film about two fictional young lovers aboard the ill-fated RMS Titanic during her maiden voyage in 1912. It won eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 1997.
 * Written and directed by James Cameron.

Collide with Destiny. (Taglines)

Jack Dawson

 * I'm the king of the world!
 * Note: this exchange is ranked #100 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.
 * I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's gonna happen, or who I'm gonna meet, where I'm gonna wind up. Just the other night, I was sleeping under a bridge, and now, here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figured life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You never know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you... To make each day count.
 * ROSE!!! ROSE, OVER HERE!

Old Rose

 * [looks at back of salvaged mirror] This was mine. How extraordinary! And it looks the same as it did the last time I saw it. [turns mirror over] The reflection has changed a bit.
 * It was the ship of dreams to everyone else. To me, it was a slave ship taking me back to America in chains. Outwardly, I was everything a well-brought up girl should be. Inside, I was screaming.
 * [narrating] I saw my whole life as if I already lived it. An endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared or even noticed.
 * 1,500 people went into the sea when Titanic sank from under us. There were 20 boats floating nearby and only one came back. One. 6 were saved from the water, myself included. 6... out of 1,500. Afterward, the 700 people in the boats had nothing to do but wait. Wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution that would never come.
 * [About Cal] That's the last time I ever saw him. He married, of course, and inherited his millions, but The Crash of '29 hit his interests hard, and he put a pistol in his mouth that year...or so I read.

Others

 * Benjamin Guggenheim: [after being offered a lifebelt] No, thank you. We are dressed in our best, and are prepared to go down as gentlemen. But we would like a brandy!!!
 * Colonel Astor: I am looking for my damned dog. Madeleine asked me to look for the dog...
 * Cosmo Gordon: [after being asked to go back to pick up more people] It's out of the question!!!
 * Quartermaster Hichens: It's our lives now, not theirs.
 * Hichens: And there'll be one less on this boat, if you don't SHUT THAT HOLE IN YOUR FACE!!!
 * Frederick Fleet: [to Reginald Lee] If that's what it takes for us two to get warm, I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you, alright?
 * Fleet: Bugger me!
 * Fleet: Pick up, you bastards!
 * Fleet: ICEBERG, RIGHT AHEAD!!!
 * Fleet: Why ain't they turning?!
 * Fleet: Oy, that was a close shave weren't it?
 * Reginald Lee: [to Frederick Fleet] Smell ice, can ya? Bleedin' Christ.
 * Hartley: Right, boys, like the Captain said. Nice and cheery; so there's no panic. Wedding dance!
 * Hartley: Well, they don't listen to us at dinner, either. Come on, let's play. It will keep us warm. Orpheus!
 * Hartley: Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you tonight.
 * Andrews: About half, actually. I installed these new welin type davits which can take an extra row of boats here...but it was thought, by some, that the deck would look too cluttered, so, I was over-ruled. But you can sleep soundly, young Rose. I have built a ship strong, safe and true. She is as unsinkable as it is possible to make a ship, and she can handle a collision impressively. If the ship ever is sinking, just remember what I told you about these lifeboats. You must decide to get in.
 * Andrews: The ship will sink. In an hour, or so...all of this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.
 * Andrews: I'm sorry I couldn't build you a better ship, young Rose.
 * E Deck Steward: What do you think you're doing? You'll have to pay for that y'know. That's White Star Line property!!!!
 * Gate Steward 2: Go back down the main stairwell like I told you!!!
 * Steward: Miss, you shouldn’t be here right now!
 * Lewis Bodine: [narrating an animation of the Titanic sinking] Okay here we go; she hits the ‘berg on the starboard side, right? She kinda bumps along punching holes like Morse code ‘deet-deet-deet’, along the side, below the water line. Then the forward compartments start to flood. Now as the water level rises it spills over the watertight bulk heads which unfortunately don’t go any higher than E Deck, so now as the bow goes down, the stern rises up. Slow at first then faster and faster until finally she’s got her whole ass is sticking up in the air, and that’s a big ass, we’re talking 20-30,000 TONS. And the hull’s not designed to deal with that pressure so what happens? “KEEG” she splits. Right down to the keel and the stern falls back level. Then as the bow sinks it pulls the stern vertical then finally detaches. Now the stern section kinda bobs there like a cork for a couple of minutes, floods, then finally goes under about 2:20 A.M., 2 hours and 40 minutes after the collision. The bow section planes away landing about half a mile away going 20-30 knots when it hits the ocean floor, “BOOM”. Pretty cool, huh?

Dialogue

 * Lovett: Louis XVI wore a fabulous stone that was called the Blue Diamond of the Crown, which disappeared in 1792, about the same time old Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the crown diamond was chopped too... recut into a heart-like shape that became known as the Heart of the Ocean. Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond.
 * Old Rose: It was a dreadful, heavy thing. I only wore it this once.
 * Lizzy: [looking at Rose's drawing] You actually believe this is you, Nana?
 * Old Rose: It is me, dear. Wasn't I a dish?
 * Lovett: I tracked it down through insurance records. An old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Can you tell me who the claimant was, Rose?
 * Old Rose: I should imagine someone named Hockley.
 * Lovett: Nathan Hockley, that's right. Pittsburgh steel tycoon. The claim was for a diamond necklace his son, Caledon, bought his fiancée. You. A week before he sailed on Titanic. It was filed right after the sinking, so the diamond had to have gone down with the ship. See the date?
 * Lizzy: "April 14, 1912".
 * Bodine: Which means, if your grandmother is who she says she is, she was wearing the diamond the day the Titanic sank.
 * Lovett: [to old Rose] And that makes you my new best friend.

 * Old Rose: It's been 84 years...
 * Lovett: It's okay. Just try to remember anything, anything at all.
 * Old Rose: Do you want to hear this or not, Mr. Lovett? It's been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the 'Ship of Dreams," and it was. It really was.

 * Rose: I don't see what all the fuss is about. It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania.
 * Cal: You can be blasé about some things, Rose, but not about Titanic. It's over a hundred feet longer than the Mauretania and far more luxurious. Your daughter is far too difficult to impress, Ruth.
 * Ruth: So this is the ship they say is unsinkable.
 * Cal: It is unsinkable. God himself could not sink this ship!

 * Molly: Hey, uh, who thought of the name "Titanic?" Was it you, Bruce?
 * Bruce: Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size; and size means stability, luxury, and, above all, strength.
 * Rose: Do you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismay? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you.
 * [Molly and Thomas Andrews chuckle]
 * Ruth: [whispering] What's gotten into you?
 * Rose: Excuse me. [rises and leaves]
 * Ruth: I do apologize.
 * Molly: She's a pistol, Cal. Hope you can handle her.
 * Hockley: Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on. Won't I, Mrs. Brown?
 * Bruce: Freud? Who is he? Is he a passenger?

 * Rose: Look, I know what you must be thinking, "Poor little rich girl, what does she know about misery?"
 * Jack: No! No, that's not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was, "What could've happened to this girl to make her think she had no way out?"
 * Rose: It was everything. It was my whole world and all the people in it. And the inertia of my life: plunging ahead and me powerless to stop it. [shows Jack her engagement ring]
 * Jack: God, look at that thing! You would've gone straight to the bottom.

 * Bruce: So you've not yet lit the last four boilers?
 * Captain Smith: No, I don't see the need. We are making excellent time.
 * Bruce: The press knows the size of Titanic. Now I want them to marvel at her speed, too. We must give them something new to print. This maiden voyage of Titanic must make headlines!

 * Ruth: Tell us about the accommodations in steerage, Mr. Dawson. I hear they are quite good on this ship.
 * Jack: The best I've seen, ma'am. Hardly any rats.

 * Jack: Rose...you're no picnic. All right? You're a spoiled little brat even. But under that, you're the most amazingly, astounding wonderful girl -- woman, that I've ever known.
 * Rose: Jack, I--
 * Jack: No, let me try and get this out. You're ama... I'm not an idiot. I know how the world works. I've got ten bucks in my pocket. I have nothing to offer you and I know that. I understand. But I'm too involved now. You jump, I jump, remember? I can't turn away without knowing you'll be all right. That's all that I want.
 * Rose: Well, I'm fine. I'll be fine. Really.
 * Jack: Really? I don't think so. They've got you trapped, Rose. And you're gonna die if you don't break free. Maybe not right away because you're strong, but sooner or later that fire that I love about you, Rose, that fire is gonna burn out.
 * Rose: It's not up to you to save me, Jack.
 * Jack: You're right. Only you can do that.
 * Rose: I'm going back. Leave me alone.

 * Rose: Hello, Jack. I changed my mind.
 * Jack: Give me your hand. Now close your eyes. [...] Now, step up onto the rail. [...] Do you trust me?
 * Rose: I trust you.
 * Jack: Open your eyes.
 * Rose: I'm flying, Jack.

 * Jack: Is it a sapphire?
 * Rose: A diamond. A very rare diamond. Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls. Wearing this.
 * Jack: All right.
 * Rose: Wearing only this.

 * [while the ship is sinking, Jack and Rose break out of a room, damaging the door]
 * Steward: What do you think you're doing?! You'll have to pay for that, y'know. That's White Star Line property!
 * Jack and Rose: SHUT UP!!

 * [Chaos is starting to form around the stern aft lifeboats. Officer Lowe and Officer Lightoller struggle to hold the crowd back. Suddenly, a woman is accidentally knocked off the ship by a panicking man and nearly falls into the water, leaving her screaming and dangling from the side of lifeboat.]
 * Lightoller: [Yelling to the passengers below deck] Hold on to her! Quick! Pull her in!
 * [The passengers on the promenade deck below grab her and help her back aboard the Titanic before she can fall into the sea. The crowd of men continues panicking, starting to fight with the officers over Lifeboat seats. Lightoller snaps, and whips out a revolver from his coat pocket and points it directly at the crowd.]
 * Lightoller: GET BACK I SAY OR I'LL SHOOT YOU ALL LIKE DOGS!!! KEEP ORDER HERE!
 * [The shocked crowd calms down and backs off.]
 * Lightoller: Keep order, I say.

 * Cal: [to Rose] Where are you going?! To him?! What, to be a whore to a… gutter rat?!
 * Rose: I'd rather be his whore than your wife.
 * [spits in Cal's face]

 * [Cal chuckles]

 * Lovejoy: [to Cal] What could possibly be so funny?

 * Cal: I put the diamond in the coat. And I PUT THE COAT ON HER!

 * [Quartermaster Robert Hichens is arguing with Molly Brown about whether or not to go back and rescue more passengers, panicking and slowly freezing to death in the water]
 * Hichens: You don't understand. If we go back, they'll swamp the boat!! They'll pull us right down, I'm tellin' ya!
 * Molly: Knock it off. You're scarin' me. Come on, girls! Grab an oar, let's go!
 * Hichens: Are you out of your mind?! We're in the middle of the North Atlantic!! Now do you people wanna live or do you wanna DIE?!?!
 * [Molly looks back at the rest of the people aboard the lifeboat, including Ruth and Frederick Fleet, who stare on, terrified, neither knowing what the right thing is to do anymore.]
 * Molly: I don't understand a-one of ya! What's the matter with ya?! It's your men out there!
 * [Some of the women in the boat begin crying.]
 * Molly: There's plenty of room for more!
 * Hichens: And there'll be one less on this boat… if you don't SHUT THAT HOLE IN YOUR FACE!!
 * [Molly stares in disgust at Hichens, Ruth covers her ears so that she doesn't hear the screams of the dying passengers in the water.]

 * [Rose is on top of a door in the water and Jack is hanging off the side, shivering]
 * Rose: It's getting quiet.
 * Jack: It's gonna take a couple of minutes to get the boats organized. I don't know about you, but I intend to go write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about all this.
 * Rose: I love you, Jack.
 * Jack: Don't you do that. Don't you say your good-byes. Not yet, do you understand me?
 * Rose: I'm so cold.
 * Jack: Listen, Rose. You're gonna get outta here, you're gonna go on, and you're gonna make lots of babies, and you're gonna watch ‘em grow. You're gonna die an old… an old woman warm in her bed, not here, not this night. Not like this, do you understand me?
 * Rose: I can't feel my body.
 * Jack: Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me… it brought me to you. And I'm thankful for that, Rose. I'm thankful. You must do me this honor. You must promise me that you'll survive, that you won't give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. Promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise.
 * Rose: I promise.
 * Jack: Never let go.
 * Rose: I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go.

 * [As the Carpathia arrives in New York, Rose stands in the rain, staring at the Statue of Liberty.]
 * Carpathia Steward: Can I take your name, please, love?
 * Rose: Dawson. Rose Dawson.
 * Steward: Thank you.
 * [The scene returns to the present day.]
 * Old Rose: Can you exchange one life for another? A caterpillar turns into a butterfly. If a mindless insect can do it, why couldn't I? Was it any more unimaginable than the sinking of the Titanic?
 * Bodine: We never found anything on Jack. There's no record of him at all.
 * Old Rose: No, there wouldn't be, would there? And I've never spoken of him until now. Not to anyone. [to Lizzy] Not even your grandfather. A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson, and that he saved me in every way that a person can be saved. I don't even have a picture of him. He exists now only in my memory.

Taglines

 * Collide with Destiny.
 * Nothing on Earth could come between them.
 * [from trailer] Take a journey back in time, in search of a mystery locked beneath the sea. This December, you will be given the key.
 * [from TV spot] On December 19th, the most incredible event that ever happened will happen to you.
 * [from TV spot] It is everything you've imagined. It is everything you've dreamed. It is nothing you expect.

Cast

 * Leonardo DiCaprio - Jack Dawson
 * Kate Winslet - Rose DeWitt Bukater
 * Gloria Stuart - Old Rose (Rose Dawson Calvert)
 * Billy Zane - Caledon Hockley
 * David Warner - Spicer Lovejoy
 * Frances Fisher - Ruth DeWitt Bukater
 * Kathy Bates - Margaret "Molly" Brown
 * Bernard Hill - Captain Edward J. Smith
 * Jonathan Hyde - J. Bruce Ismay

 * Victor Garber - Thomas Andrews
 * Danny Nucci - Fabrizio De Rossi
 * Suzy Amis - Lizzy Calvert
 * Bernard Fox - Colonel Archibald Gracie IV
 * Bill Paxton - Brock Lovett
 * Eric Braeden - Colonel John Jacob Astor IV
 * Ewan Stewart - First Officer William Murdoch
 * Ioan Gruffudd - Fifth Officer Harold Lowe
 * Rochelle Rose - Noel-Leslie Martha, Countess of Rothes

title: Titanic (1997 film)


text:
The Lord of the Rings (movies)

These articles have quotations from film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings and related works:

 * The Lord of the Rings
 * J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1978)
 * The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
 * The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
 * The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
 * The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)
 * related works
 * The Hobbit (1977)
 * The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
 * The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
 * The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

About

 * Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time. The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away. They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25.
 * Christopher Tolkien, Le Monde, as quoted in "Why JRR Tolkien’s Son Hates What Peter Jackson Has Done" by Devin Faraci, Birth.Movies.Death. (9 January 2013)

title: The Lord of the Rings (movies)


text:
Talk:Titanic (1997 film)

Freud
Just a personal nit-pick at the movie here, as well as a note for those passing by: Rose mentions Freud's theory of obsession of size, but that theory was published in On Narcissism- which was published in 1914, two years after Titanic sank! --AK-17 18:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Titanic (1997 film)


text:
The Offspring

The Offspring is a popular American band from Orange County which formed in 1984.

Members

 * Dexter Holland - Vocals & Guitars
 * Noodles - Lead Guitars
 * Greg K. - Bassist
 * Ron Welty - Drums (retired in 2003)
 * Atom Willard - Drums (joined in 2003 after Ron Welty's departure)
 * Pete Parada - Drums (joined in 2007 after Willard's departure)

Ignition

 * Don't know how it got this way, I don't know how long she's gonna stay. But every week it's the same, in her room and that's why I came.
 * Session
 * Pull the shades, razor blades. You're so tragic, hate you so, love you more, I'm so elastic. The things you say, the games you play.
 * Dirty Magic

Smash
That happens more than I'd like to admit Late at night she knocks on my door She's drunk again and looking to score Oh I know I should say no but It's kind of hard when she's ready to go I may be dumb, but I'm not a dweeb I'm just a sucker with no self esteem Such attitudes But when I show my piece Complaints cease Something's odd Feel like I'm god You stupid dumbshit goddamned motherfucker!
 * You gotta keep 'em separated
 * Come Out And Play
 * Now I'll relate this little bit
 * Self Esteem
 * Drivers are rude
 * Bad Habit
 * Smash is the way you feel all alone, Like an outcast you're out on your own. Smash is the way you deal with your life, Like an outcast you're smashing your strife
 * Smash
 * Head over heels I've fit in before, Now I don't wanna do it no more, I wanna be who I wanna be, I guess it's hard for others to see
 * Smash

Ixnay On The Hombre
Yea it feels like Heaven's so far away And it stings Yea it stings now The world is so cold Now that you've gone away.
 * Me and my old lady sit and sip on wine. And when she says she loves me, well, I say that love is blind.
 * Me & My Old Lady
 * It's cool to hate! I don't like nothing, and I like that fine.
 * Cool To Hate
 * I just don't want to be controlled, that's all I want!
 * All I Want
 * And it feels
 * Gone Away

Americana

 * Have you ever walked through a room/But it was more like the room passed around you
 * Have You Ever
 * Have you ever felt like there was more/Like someone else was keeping score/And what could make you whole was simply out of reach
 * Have You Ever
 * When the truth walks away, everybody stays/'Cause the truth about the world is that crime does pay
 * Have You Ever
 * 'Cause I'd like to think the world is a better place/I'd like to leave the world as a better place/I'd like to think the world...
 * Have You Ever
 * Give it to me baby, uh-huh, uh-huh
 * Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
 * And all the girlies say I'm pretty fly for a white guy
 * Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
 * Everything he lacks, he makes up in denial
 * Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
 * There's more to livin' than only survivin'/Maybe I'm not there, but I'm still tryin'…
 * Staring at the Sun
 * Chances thrown/ Nothing's free/ Longing for what used to be/ Still it's hard/ Hard to see/ Fragile lives, shattered dreams
 * The Kids Aren't Alright
 * Where culture's defined by the ones least refined/And you'll be left behind if you don't fit in/It's all distorted in Americana my way/Well fuck you!
 * Americana
 * My right are denied by those least qualified/Trading profit for pride/But it's OK
 * Americana
 * My nightmare has come true/My nightmare has come true/Yeah, it's all coming true
 * Americana
 * The Man is making little bets/Playing with our lives
 * Pay the Man
 * Look at you and your struggle for freedom/But you ain't nothing/We all pay the Man for living
 * Pay the Man
 * Shut up, you talk too much/Pay the Man
 * Pay the Man

Splinter
We are right We won't be pushed aside We'll go on We will fight We will not Compromise We will never lose to you We will never lose to you We will never lose to you We will never lose to you Everybody's gettin' with, I say Consequences are a lot, but hey That's the way it That's the way things go And I need - I've taken all I can stand And I fall - But I am running a race Against myself, In front of me Heaven up above, with a shove Abandons me And even though I try I fall in the river of you You manage to bring me down too
 * We are strong
 * Neocon
 * I know you wanna hit that, I know you wanna hit that, hit that
 * Hit That
 * And I want - I've tried as hard as I can
 * Race Against Myself
 * Somewere in the night, there's a light
 * (Can't Get My) Head around You

Greatest Hits

 * Life goes on, come of age, can't hold on, turn the page, time rolls on, wipe these eyes, yesterday laughs, tomorrow cries"
 * Can't Repeat

Defy You - from the Orange County soundtrack

 * You cannot stop us, You cannot bring us down, Never give up, We go on and on, You'll never break us, Never bring us down, We are alive!
 * Defy You

title: The Offspring


text:
James Nicoll

James Davis Nicoll (born March 18, 1961) is a Canadian freelance game and reviewer, former role-playing game store owner, and also works as a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club.

1990s

 * The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
 * , updated in
 * (This observation is extensively quoted even outside of Usenet, and has appeared in textbooks. It has also been misattributed, in part and in whole, to Booker T. Washington, to Ambrose Bierce, to Terry Pratchett, and, in one case, to the painter James Nicoll (1846–1918).)

 * Look, I tried the cat experiment. On the third trial, the cat was dead. On each of the subsequent 413 trials, it remained dead. Am I doing something wrong?

 * Romeo and Juliet *died*. I always liked that in a teen romance story.

 * [F]olks would better off dipping their heads in a bucket of liquid [nitrogen] and battering them against a tree very very hard than reading Baxter's Titan. It would not surprise me if reading that book causes birth defects.

 * This is the sort of book that justifies fatwahs. If WWIII occurred right now, we could die happy knowing Baxter would never write again. If a dinosaur killing asteroid was headed for Earth and I knew Baxter had another book coming up, I would campaign for letting the rock hit, since it is obviously the work of a benevolent deity trying to save us from another Titan.

 * I can't help but notice that everytime I fly somewhere, other people's planes fall out of the sky.

 * A lot of my stories end with "And when I regained consciousness, there was a crowd standing around looking at me."

2000s

 * You may have trouble getting permission to aero or lithobrake asteroids on Earth.

 * Before it exploded one night, I went to a four grade, two room schoolhouse and we had textbooks from the 1940s.

 * John Barnes is incredibly variable. Pete's Rule (Never buy a Barnes with sodomy in it) is a good one but unfortunately the publisher does not put that kind of stuff on the cover.

 * Aha! The Alien Planet Canada series, where the planet the characters are marooned on seems to be Manitoba. Bad bad world building.
 * ibid.: About Genellan: Planetfall by Scott Gier:

 * I have hated every Kress I read, especially this one, but the Bear is a standard Bear and if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like.
 * Compare "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like." (attributed to ).
 * Compare "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like." (attributed to ).

 * After enough concussions the head injuries blur together.

 * Hell, Chuck Yeager could do it in his sleep while on fire, I'm sure.

 * I find this varies considerably from near-death experience to near-death experience. For example, having a wandering loonie break down the door of my game store to look for women was so funny the entire concussion and pools of blood thing was a minor footnote. Being sucked out into the Atlantic by an undertow was deeply irritating.  Having a snowba[n]k collapse on me was alarming because of the claustrophobia issue. The car wreck was over almost before I had time to realise what was happening.
 * To which Ian York replied, in :
 * Don't get the wrong idea here, people. Even for James that was a busy day.
 * Don't get the wrong idea here, people. Even for James that was a busy day.

 * I think once you start eating people you should stop claiming to be a vegetarian, even if you only eat bad people.

 * My grandfather for example only died twice, once during the war and once in the 1980s.

 * "Nothin'g sa'ys q'uality fantas'y l'ike misuse'd apos'tro'phes."
 * , About James Clemens's Wit'ch Storm:

 * All gone. Zelazny was one of the first times I looked at something I had had familiarity with to find the spot where the memory should have been empty, replaced by a scrawled "Moved South for the Fishing" sign. Calculus was another loss. It was quite upsetting to reach for a skill and find nothing.

 * Someday I'd like to read a story about competent people on Mars.
 * : About First Landing by Robert Zubrin:

 * I wonder if he's planning a book called SRS? Or F'lu?
 * ibid. : About Antrax by Terry Brooks:

 * Yes, I was surprised how easy it was to cut the door off my cat.

 * In point of fact, the meteor was something like 30 km when it exploded. It was over north Waterloo and I was north of St Agatha. Two spherical clouds, and two explosions. Unfortunately, I was dealing with a goat that was trying to eat an oil truck's fuel line, goats having this optimistic 'Well, maybe it has become edible since they last time I tried this' worldview, and I missed seeing the explosions.

 * As I've often said, I'm a fan of hard SF. No, it's more like I am addicted to it, even the stepped-on 20 times and cut with pow[d]ered milk and rat-poison sort of hard SF. This gets us to Stephen Baxter's Mayflower II, published last year in a limited edition from PS Publishing. In one of the great tragedies of publishing, it was not a limited enough edition and so I have read it.

 * It's true that the average human in the Xeelee universe can't eat Jell-O with a straw without accident[al]ly removing an eye but these particular humans start off no stupider than than any other human of their era and proceed to breed themselves into imbecility. Well, farther into imbecility.

 * We discovered at one point that the brick wall of the pillar would hold up a sock pretty well. This led to sorting socks by putting them on the wall, which in turn led to mosaics built entirely of socks. Mission drift is a hazard in all pursuits, including doing the laundry.

 * Tor is the hard one. They employ a lot of editors, whose tastes vary. They don't always indicate who has edited what (on the choice of the editor, I think) so editor stalking can be more difficult with Tor. Ear-tagging works but is rather surprisingly illegal.

 * Manitoba... Not sure what to do about them. Restock the province with megafauna and encourage tourism, I think. How quickly can we breed back the saber-toothed cats?

 * Ben Bova seems to work very hard at working in new discoveries into his Glum Future but alas, his future is glum and not that well written.

 * I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface.
 * Livejournal post (2005)

 * Until recently baby production was largely dependent on slave labour; as soon as women are allowed to answer the question "Would you like to squeeze as many objects the size of a watermelon out of your body as it takes to kill you?" they generally answer "No, thank you." This leads to falling birthrates everywhere women are not kept enslaved and ignorant of the alternatives.

 * Most of my scars are not fire-related and I no longer say "I know what I am doing" at critical moments.

 * If there's a stack [of novels to review], the unpromising stuff goes at the top and the promising stuff goes at the bottom. That way, I am eager to finish Overwrought Romantic Mary Sue Fantasy because I know that will let me read Niche Product That Only the Author, James and Some Guy at JPL Likes.

 * [H]umans hate to admit error even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a cigarette in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the remains of a sign that once read 'DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES'

 * It would let me protect the Earth from asteroids. In fact, for a small fee I would protect the Earth on a monthly basis, locating rocks that could be steered into the Earth and then not doing it if the cheque didn't bounce.
 * We could finally commodify sunlight. A large solar collector at the Earth Sun L1 would block all the light that otherwise falls on the unworthy and could be sold to those that deserve it (Litmus test is the same as with Operation Nice Planet You Have, Shame If Anything Were To Happen To It).
 * Livejournal comment

 * Call me an extremist but killing a few hundred million people seems like the sort of method that might have unintended consequences.

 * Goodkind is noted for subtle allegories the same way Mt Kilimanjaro is known for floating weightlessly.

 * Let's step back and think about the likely outcome of a scenario that involves the words "James Nicoll", "a box of sharp needles" and "possibly without ever having achieved full consciousness" for a moment, shall we?
 * LiveJournal comment

 * [The cat] and I have an agreement: I leave her alone and don't make sudden moves when I wake up to find her perched on my chest, staring with an unblinking hostile gaze at my face and in return she rarely mutilates me.

 * It's bad to wake up and see a large cat in mid-leap from the rough vicinity of the ceiling.

 * Deadly nightshade is the only plant I have ever been able to get to grow for me.

 * I believe that I have now experienced the lifetime maximum exposure to bottom spanking in fantasy novels.

 * "Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isn't the epitaph I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located".

 * The number of times I have been declared dead is statistically insignificant,although admittedly non-zero.

 * My father once discovered that one cannot "walk off" gangrene.

 * Never bring a gun to a fight where the other guy has a time-machine and tomorrow's newspapers.

 * 's antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.

 * It takes a courageous Mormon to turn to archaeology to support their argument
 * LiveJournal post title (2006)

 * First rule of space programs in SF: no matter how successful or large they are by our standards, the people in the stories will always bitch about underfunding. This is probably realistic.
 * Review of Eyes of Amber and Other Stories by Joan Vinge, 2009

2010s

 * The thing about the Star Wars expanded universe that most impresses me is how the need for endless sequels has taken what was way back in the late Disco a fairly upbeat series where the good guys eventually prevailed and turned into a crapsack setting that's grimmer than the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Congo Wars I & II and the Mongol Conquests combined.
 * Bujold list message (2011)

 * At some point when I wasn't paying attention, comedic genocide just stopped working for me. This is a shame because so much fantasy and SF depends on genocide as positive plot element. This trifling oddity of taste must have robbed me of hours of morally equivocal entertainment.
 * Review of T. Kingfisher's Nine Goblins, 2013

 * A common issue with SF settings is that causally disconnected civilizations nevertheless are close enough in technological development that conflict is possible, rather than it being a matter of laser cannons against a thin film of single celled organisms.

 * This I (still) believe: Fire is not necessarily your friend. Neither are dogs. Things with lit fuses should not be held onto. Beware the savage croquet ball. If it is -30 out, put on a coat before you leave the house. Just because the snow keeps you from seeing other objects the objects do not cease to exist. Clotheslines are the enemy of the bicyclist. If you don't remember how you got on the ground or where the blood came from, don't get up right away. Gym teachers think it's funny to commit assault with a baseball so don't day-dream during PE even if they have you so far in the outfield there are DEW line posts on either side of you. All guns are loaded. So are many bows. Trebuchets are for outside use only...
 * Facebook post (2014)

 * The sharp side of the knife goes away from you. Pure reason does not trump brute force but suprisingly few people know what hot peppers look like when the teacher asks if you have enough to share with everyone. Never take the lid of a pressure cooker 'to see if it's done yet'. Even if you are careful with the picric acid that won't matter if you are careless with other items next to it. Move *away* from mysterious burglar alarms. Do not append 'you moron' to exposition directed at people who have just broken into your building. 'We need to talk' is overwhelmingly unlikely to precede good news. A rough brick wall may be used to sort socks or as a backdrop for sock-art (The Neglected Art). A silent cat is Up to Something. Lungs are unsuited for many possible atmospheres, including that of London, and anything with a high content of industrial cleaners. Youth will not save you from Newton's Laws. Or Darwin's.
 * Facebook post (2014)

 * Engineers and certified pilots may be expensive but talented young men with a teenager's grasp of risk are surprisingly affordable.
 * Reviewing Robert Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo
 * Reviewing Robert Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo

 * I didn't skip the smut. The author went to the trouble of writing it, after all. I did not feel to make notes for possible application later on but I also never wondered if the author was a virgin raised in an abandoned hentai warehouse, which is always a possibility for modern pornographers and erotica writers.
 * LiveJournal post (review of 'The Russians Came Knocking' by K.B. Spangler), 2014)

 * seems from all reports to have been a very pleasant fellow but he did have one huge blind spot, which is that he was as sexist as a giant ball of sexists wrapped in a dense layer of yet more sexists.
 * (review of 'The Lights Outside the Windows' by James White (collected in "Deadly Litter"), 2014

 * Alas, time and head injuries are stealing all my memories.
 * Review of Women of Wonder, anthology edited by Pamela Sargent, 2015

 * There's a rule I used to call The Niven Rule but which I just now have decided to call the Rusting Bridges rule. It came to me after reading Niven's “All The Bridges Rusting.” In this story, humans have by the early 21st century explored the Solar System and sent not just one but two crewed ships to Alpha Centauri ... despite which the characters moan endlessly about the dire state of the space program. “Eyes of Amber” would be another example of the Rusting Bridges [Rule]: No matter how much the space program you actually have has achieved, whether it's first contact with aliens or trips to nearby stars, it can never have achieved as much as the space programs you can imagine would have achieved in its place, given that imaginary programs aren't limited by issues of politics, funding, or engineering.
 * Review of “Eyes of Amber”, by Joan D. Vinge (as anthologized in New Women of Wonder, edited by Pamela Sargent, 2015

 * Atomic war is bad but you know what's even worse? Having had enough atomic wars that you can rank them in terms of horribleness.
 * Review of Voodoo Planet: Solar Queen, book 3 by Andre Norton, 2015

 * The one job that machines cannot do is be a cruel plutocrat. That's why humans are still needed.
 * Review of Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald, 2015

 * Thoughtful consideration has led me to decide that romance, involving as it does the highly complex interaction of human neurochemisty{sic} with cultural and technological factors, is hard SF. Very hard SF because romance is especially difficult to mentally simulate accurately, not easy-peasy like rocket science. Romance as hard SF may seem counterintuitive, but it's the counterintuitive results of modeling that are often the most interesting outcomes.
 * review of Don't Fear the Reaper, by Zen Cho, 2016

 * I wonder if every near-future SF series in which the US is not a brutal theocratic police state ruled by doctrinaire bigoted oligarchs and their boot-licking enablers became obsolete on ? Won't it be fun to find out together?
 * review of Brute Force, by K. B. Spangler, 2016

 * , who if I recall correctly is a veteran of the Korean conflict, does mention logistical details more often than I expect in MilSF. Not the fun kind of logistics, involving the production of a million zillion Squamoid Hypermissiles, but the mundane sort, like who gets to dig the latrines. Latrines are not romantic, but nobody wants a battle called off because the men all have dysentery and are too busy shitting blood to fight.
 * review of The Mercenary by Jerry Pournelle, 2016

 * Niven made a name for himself as a author, which is to say, someone whose SF provides enough technical detail that the reader can be certain that various mechanisms and events couldn't work the way the author has them working.
 * review of All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven, 2015

 * It's a sad thing that the march of time and evolution of mores can rob one of the ability to laugh at simple domestic abuse.
 * review of The Flying Sorcerers by David Gerrold and Larry Niven, 2016

 * It's very difficult to convey how alien and horrifying accounts of how American health care works sound to a Canadian. Seriously, if I didn’t know they were real — if, for example, I didn't know an American reviewer who died because she had to choose between paying her mortgage or having a doctor investigate her incapacitating chest pains — it would seem like something from a particularly silly and  Garbageman novel. About the only thing about the US that seems even less believable is the collective enthusiasm for frequent mass murders.
 * review of The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley, 2016

 * could extrapolate stories, entire worlds, from s.
 * review of Close to Critical, by Hal Clement, 2017

 * Creating stars in laboratories on the very planets you inhabit turns out to be a bad idea.
 * Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution on, January 29, 2018

 * Although no credible evidence exists that the speed of light can be exceeded, writers are willing to embrace the possibility that light might be outpaced somehow. Never underestimate the persuasive power of somehow.
 * Talkin’ ‘Bout My G-G-Generation (Ships) on, March 13, 2018

 * Just as people in zombie apocalypses seem never to have seen a zombie apocalypse movie, so people in novels about the pioneering days of time travel never seem to have read novels on the subject.
 * Review of One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor, 2018

 * I also do not recommend shopping with Cordelia Naismith—but I would watch that reality show.
 * "Six Characters with Whom You Should Never Ever Go Camping" on, August 20, 2018

 * There are no diplomatic efforts that cannot be successfully undermined by a few bigots in the field.
 * World States and Mega Empires in SF, on, November 12, 2018

2020s

 * The [item] that was stolen [in the 1975 novel The Whenabouts of Burr] was the physical artifact the American Constitution, which has tremendous historical and symbolic significance, and not the legal and political framework also known as the American Constitution, which is a quaint relic of no relevance to the modern world.
 * Review of The Whenabouts of Burr by Michael Kurland, June 14, 2020

About Nicoll

 * Nah, that's just the morphic field of the local environment compensating for a Nicoll Event. Do you recall having a mishap just before any of these sightings?
 * Del Cotter,
 * First recorded usage of the phrase "Nicoll Event" (however, the actual phenomena considerably predate this)
 * The point is that there isn't a canonical James Nicoll tale. The point is that whenever a discussion turns to some manner in which a human being can be menaced, injured, or potentially killed, it will turn out that James has already had it happen to him. No matter how funny, unlikely, wierd (sic)), or pedestrian. He hasn't said he has a scar on his arm from being attacked by aliens with laser swords, but I would be only mildly surprised if he did. And I'd believe him.
 * Ryk "Sea Wasp" Spoor,

title: James Nicoll


text:
User:Guaka

hi!

title: User:Guaka