Top 100 John Ringo Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Most of them related to no hitting, biting, scratching or kicking the other guy in the balls. The Marines wear a cup. It’s like Aussie Rules football. The first rule of jungleball is ‘No weapons.’ There’s seven more.”

— John Ringo

52. “I did not meet the psychological profile. Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Basically, I have a hard time taking orders from idiots.”

— John Ringo

53. “I pulled in shots from The Gangs of New York, talking about how “multicultural” it had once been when Italians and Irish and “American” Americans couldn’t talk to each other and didn’t trust each other and therefore killed each other in such droves that the Army had, way back then, had to do a “Detroit” on New York City itself.”

— John Ringo

54. “If I had that information it would be privileged military communication and you would have to obtain clearance, sir,” Argus replied. “What if we already stole it?” Tyler asked. “We’ve got an intelligence department.” “Oh, look, here it is,” Argus said. “You could have just gone there, Argus,” Tyler said.”

— John Ringo

55. “But at that point, the media was the military’s worst enemy. They were the enemy, no more and no less. They never reported anything straight and always took the side of whoever was shooting at us.”

— John Ringo

56. “Maxim Four:” Faith said, dropping out of the track. “Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.”

— John Ringo

57. “You’re in the Humvee. And not as gunner.” “I liked the old Corps,” Faith said, frowning. “Board the boat, kill the zombies, get chow.” “Did we have our apple juice this morning, ma’am?” “Yes, we did, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, taking a deep breath.”

— John Ringo

58. “Sophia “Seawolf” Smith was one of the founding members of the Wolf Squadron. As such, despite being fifteen, she was a shareholder and not a minor one, as well as being a member of the Captain’s Board as skipper of the thirty-five-foot Worthy Endeavor. The boat had gotten beaten up by nearly six months at sea, not to mention the zombies that took it over, but it was still her boat.”

— John Ringo

59. “Zombies don’t bother me, sir,” Faith said, dimpling cutely. “They’re insane, hungry, angry animals. They won’t kill me from professional courtesy, sir.”

— John Ringo

60. “You really should do some research for a change instead of just listening to the voices in your head.”

— John Ringo

61. “Now we’re drifting in space,” Colonel Ishives pointed out. “I know that, Colonel.” There were times when the captain dearly wished it was the good old days when you could simply shoot subordinates and not worry about the paperwork.”

— John Ringo

62. “That feeling you have, that sort of pulling in your brain, is cognitive dissonance. It’s when your knowledge set is suddenly challenged by new information.”

— John Ringo

63. “That is actually what government is for, Ernest,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Enforcement of contract law. That is, at base, pretty much its entire purpose. Everything else just gets ladled on by idiots.”

— John Ringo

64. “Was in the One-Oh-One in Vietnam,” Mr. Haselbauer said. “Know all about screwed up orders, Lieutenant. Gonna pray.” “Yes, sir,” the officer said, waving at his men to bow their heads. Most of them were from Christian backgrounds and didn’t need to be prompted. Khalid was polite enough to just pretend.”

— John Ringo

65. “Mohammed the OCD also included precise instructions for how wives and daughters, any women, were to be “instructed” using a cane “no more than the width of a man’s thumb.” At the time and society, this was actually enlightened like a lot of Islamic law.”

— John Ringo

66. “Bits and pieces were still raining down when the last gun stopped firing. “We seriously need more adult supervision,” Faith said, picking a severed arm up off the deck of the amtrack and tossing it over the side with a slightly nervous flick. “They let lieutenants make these decisions?”

— John Ringo

67. “Fort Lonesome! Security situation is in degradation mode and headed for sucky!”

— John Ringo

68. “Calm yourself, Commander,” the captain said. “Everyone dies. We are dead. Our lives are an Emperor’s, who, I’m also given to understand, can barely speak in coherent sentences anymore.”

— John Ringo

69. “If we sunder ourselves internally, if we accept the false divisions, then we bring with those false divisions all their ills, all their blood of centuries. Where then, can we find trust?”

— John Ringo

70. “Army general back in the Civil War said a soldier who won’t engage in sexual relations will not engage in combat relations, if you get my drift. Shorter than that.”

— John Ringo

71. “And as the resident mad scientist, while I personally didn’t want you to go fully into abnormal neural condition, the opportunity to study it would have been useful.” “I love you too, Doc.” “What is it about ‘mad scientist’ you don’t understand?”

— John Ringo

72. “It doesn’t matter. As long as the government pretends it’s a secret, the pretense, no matter how thin, gives it certain advantages. Or it thinks it does. Politics is weird that way.”

— John Ringo

73. “That’s the way to get the chicks for free. And getting the chicks for free is the only true pursuit for a grown-up male. Before puberty, of course, it’s avoiding them like the plague.”

— John Ringo

74. “The only way to get generalized trust is to blend the societies and erase the differences.”

— John Ringo

75. “Now, and this is the one slightly tricky part, sir. Reach o-o-over the estimated heads of the zombies and the flailing arms and toss the grenade through the narrow gap into the other compartment, sir. Very important that it lands in the other compartment, sir. Really, really important, sir.” “This is insane,” Wilkes said, tossing the grenade. Into the other compartment.”

— John Ringo

76. “I care for all living beings except slow drivers in the left-hand lane, terrorists and pedophiles.”

— John Ringo

77. “She’s more worried about losing a sub than her own life,” Galloway said. “I am going to cover that girl in medals. So help me God.”

— John Ringo

78. “Any lie by anyone who hated the military was repeated endlessly. Any truth was ignored.”

— John Ringo

79. “Team Inara, commence Operation Joss-Whedon-Is-A-God.”

— John Ringo

80. “Mobs were mobs, whether they were called hooligans or activists or pundits. They just followed the latest fad, the latest mood. They never looked at the future. They feared the sky.”

— John Ringo

81. “Shall I show him in or tell him to go find a short and unpleasant route to hell?”

— John Ringo

82. “Sherman said it well: “If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world but I am sure we would be getting reports from hell before breakfast.”

— John Ringo

83. “What happened in the compartment, stays in the compartment.”

— John Ringo

84. “In every major disaster studied, response of random individuals in first moments was a key factor in initial recovery. “There’s never a cop when you need one.” By the same token, in a disaster during the first portion of recovery there is never a recovery worker when you need one.”

— John Ringo

85. “Alex de Touqueville spoke of this weirdness in his book Democracy in America way back in the 1800s. “Americans, contrary to every other society I have studied, form voluntary random social alliances.”

— John Ringo

86. “Keep moving forward until we find something better to do,” Hinchcliffe replied. “Maybe find the nursery for the dog-demons. I’d rather kill them stillborn.” “I didn’t know you were a Democrat, Staff Sergeant,” Berg said with a grin. “Don’t ask, don’t tell, Two-Gun.”

— John Ringo

87. “All CEOs don’t own megawatt orbital lasers,” Tyler said, grinning. “Warren Zevon got the order wrong. Bring lawyers, money, then guns.”

— John Ringo

88. “Strip my spine and put my head on a shelf.” “I’ll do that for you, Kap,” Durante said, mock sobbing. “I’ll put your head on my mantelpiece and toast you once a year on the anniversary of you becoming a zombie. I swear, man!” “Let’s load up,” Tom said, opening the door of the heavy emergency response vehicle. “Before you Yanks start kissing and stuff.”

— John Ringo

89. “Tyler said, taking a sip of Coke. He’d begun to notice a bit too much blood in his alcohol system lately.”

— John Ringo

90. “All the planetules and planetismals and all the rest seems to be people having to publish or perish and not having a good idea. ‘Wow! I’ll come up with a stupid name for stuff that’s already got names!’ And Pluto is a planet, damnit! Asteroid. Rocky thing. Comet. Icy thing. Nine planets. How damned hard does it have to be!” “Been trying to do research on our own, have we?” Dr. Foster said with a grin.”

— John Ringo

91. “Doors,” Januscheitis said. “Squirrel,” Faith replied. “Why are we playing word association games?”

— John Ringo

92. “Charity is one of the few things that Islamics get right.”

— John Ringo

93. “If a person wants to survive and tries to survive and is smart about it, I’m all good. I hope like hell they survive. I feel terrible about all the kids who are about to die. Kids can’t make their own choices. I really don’t give a damn one way or the other about the idiots.”

— John Ringo

94. “Forget trying to find an old bone or two, seek the damned Holy Grail! You may fail, probably will based on historical record, but you’ll fail grandly!”

— John Ringo

95. “To most people in a bureaucracy, the main thing is that they’ve got a steady paycheck, because who ever lays off a bureaucrat?”

— John Ringo

96. “Is it just me or is this like a bad TV sci-fi show?”

— John Ringo

97. “But the one rule of Zombieland I’d like to bring up is always have a way out. Preferably with a way to lock it behind you.”

— John Ringo

98. “If we choose, over and over again, as we have for so long, to choose the black choices because they are easier, to choose ‘me’ over ‘us,’ to choose division and strife over assimilation and trust, then we slowly slip into that black night.”

— John Ringo

99. “Curry,” Sophia said. “Doctor David ‘What is it about Mad Scientist you don’t understand?’ Curry.”

— John Ringo

100. “We’re not in vacuum,” Tyler said. “You’d know if we were in vacuum. I’m given to understand it smarts.”

— John Ringo