Top 300 John Scalzi Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “The supply transport’s on autopilot most of the way down anyway. I’m just on board so that if it crashes, they can say someone died.”

— John Scalzi

102. “The universe isn’t going to be conquered by legions of geriatrics. No offense.”

— John Scalzi

103. “Having Monday be Pizza Day subverts the natural order of things.”

— John Scalzi

104. “I am also aware that ideals are hard to practice, especially when they are new.”

— John Scalzi

105. “This is what happens when the Narrative takes over. Things quit making sense. The laws of physics take a coffee break. People stop thinking logically and start thinking dramatically.”

— John Scalzi

106. “They were the only people in all the universe who were not conscious. Although every creature could think and reason, it could not know itself as every other intelligent creature could know itself. The creatures lacked awareness of who they were as individuals, even as they lived and thrived and grew on the face of the moon of the planet.”

— John Scalzi

107. “I’m trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. A nice thing to wonder about when you’re thirty.”

— John Scalzi

108. “Danielle Lowen: How are you? I am fine. The group that destroyed Earth Station and made it look like the Colonial Union did it is now planning to nuke the surface of your planet until it glows, and frame the Conclave for it. Hope you are well. Looking forward to rescuing you in space again soon. Your friend, Harry Wilson.”

— John Scalzi

109. “Conservatives: Self-hating moral relativists, unless you can convince me that an intellectual class that publicly praises family values but privately engages in sodomy, coke and trophy wives is more aptly described in some other way.”

— John Scalzi

110. “I do have a sense of adventure,” I said. “It’s overawed by my sense of self-preservation.”

— John Scalzi

111. “Well, I’m sorry you might possibly be out a bit of money, Jack,” Isabel said. “Jesus, Isabel,” Holloway said. He opened the door. “A bit of money? Try at least a couple billion credits. That’s billion, with a b. Saying that’s a bit of money is like saying a forest fire is a nice way to roast some marshmallows.”

— John Scalzi

112. “Are we there yet?” I asked Joshua. “No,” Joshua said. “Are we there yet?” I said. “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “Yes,” Joshua said. “Stop the car.”

— John Scalzi

113. “Teenagers can be idiotic and stupid, but teenagers also model their behavior from the signals they get from adults.”

— John Scalzi

114. “Trust your weapon, it is almost certainly smarter than you are. Remember this and you may yet live.”

— John Scalzi

115. “This brings me back to my question about my karma,” Wilson said. “You probably set kittens on fire,” Schmidt said. “And the rest of us were probably there with you, with skewers.”

— John Scalzi

116. “I love her more than I actually express in words – an irony for a writer – and am every day genuinely amazed I get to spend my life with her.”

— John Scalzi

117. “We buy time where we may.” “You bought yourself time,” Oi agreed. “I don’t think it’s of very good quality.”

— John Scalzi

118. “Moeller also immediately discounted insults about competence, as the incompetent never question their competence about anything.”

— John Scalzi

119. “Damn real live people, getting in the way of peaceful ideals.”

— John Scalzi

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120. “It’s a cat,” I said. “If Donut wants to spend time with you he’ll show up in your room and sit on your important things.”

— John Scalzi

121. “Not that I expected him to know; he didn’t exactly have the “programmer” look to him, if you know what I mean. He’d be the programmer’s boss. The one they hated. The one who made them work on holidays.”

— John Scalzi

122. “You’re all so busy tending to your own personal tree that you don’t look around to see that the forest is on fire.”

— John Scalzi

123. “Anyone can be a prophet. You just have to say that what you’re talking about is a reflection of God. Or of the gods. Or of some divine spirit. However you want to put it. Whether those things come true isn’t one way or another about it.”

— John Scalzi

124. “The answer to that is complicated.” “Give me the short version.” “The short version is ‘Yes, but.’ The slightly longer version is ‘No, and.’ Which version would you like?”

— John Scalzi

125. “The half-life between story of the century and not even the story of the day is quicker than you would ever guess.”

— John Scalzi

126. “Imagine a migraine, on top of a hangover, while sitting in a kindergarten of thirty screaming children, who are all taking turns stabbing you in the eye with an ice pick.”

— John Scalzi

127. “The Yherajk were a less immediate but infinitely more complicated problem – alien globs who want to befriend a humanity that, if asked, would probably prefer to be befriended by something with an endoskeleton.”

— John Scalzi

128. “A library is not information; it is a means of preserving information. In every case, before memory or information can be stored, someone must decide what must be stored. Someone must choose. Someone must curate.”

— John Scalzi

129. “You do what you have to do to give people closure; it makes them feel better and it doesn’t cost you much to do it. I’d rather apologize for something I didn’t really care about, and leave someone on Earth wishing me well, than to be stubborn and have that someone hoping that some alien would slurp out my brains. Call it karmic insurance.”

— John Scalzi

130. “If you’re the best that the Earth has got to offer, it’s time we bend over and get a tentacle right up the ass.”

— John Scalzi

131. “Hide’ isn’t a word we like to use,” Cassaway said. “‘Perform alternative tasks’ is the preferred term.”

— John Scalzi

132. “The Jenna Situation, as you recalled it now, had been fraught with fraughtiness.”

— John Scalzi

133. “Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.”

— John Scalzi

134. “If your social consciousness seems stuck in 1975, 2014 is gonna be a rough ride.”

— John Scalzi

135. “How did you get here, anyway?” “It’s classified.” “I’m close enough to stab you with a fork.”

— John Scalzi

136. “I thought this was a matter of some urgency, Harry.” “It is,” I said. “But I fell from the sky today. I could use a couple of waffles.”

— John Scalzi

137. “At least one tribe, the Geln, strongly opposed attacking the Colonial Union, since humans were reasonably strong, distressingly tenacious and not especially principled when they felt threatened.”

— John Scalzi

138. “Look,” I said. “Something that needs your attention. Over there. Away from here.”

— John Scalzi

139. “I don’t care whether I really exist or don’t, whether I’m real or fictional. What I want right now is to be the person who decides my own fate. That’s something I can work on. It’s what I’m working on now.”

— John Scalzi

140. “Oh for God’s sake how divine can I be? My feet hurt, I have gas and I need to pee.”

— John Scalzi

141. “When a lie has negative consequences, people dislike it. But otherwise? They move on, and eventually the lie as a lie is forgotten, or in this case, codified as the foundation of religious practice and buffed and sanded into something prettier and more congenial.”

— John Scalzi

142. “Are we agreed that the goal here is survival, not a win?”

— John Scalzi

143. “Realborn go for years without the slightest clue what they’re going to do with themselves. From what I understand, some of them never actually figure it out. They just walk through life in a daze and then fall into their graves at the end of it.”

— John Scalzi

144. “I live the life I live, and it’s the only life I have. No one else is out there in the universe living my alternate lives, and even if they were, I wouldn’t be worrying about them because I have my life to live here, now.”

— John Scalzi

145. “Well, I miss my wife, you know,” I said. “But I also miss the feeling of, I don’t know, comfort. The sense you’re where you’re supposed to be, with someone you’re supposed to be with.”

— John Scalzi

146. “Praise is always a good thing, especially in a crisis.”

— John Scalzi

147. “If they can work out the kinks, it could revolutionize space travel.” “ ‘Work out the kinks’?” Jared said. “I’m about to use this thing. Kinks are bad.”

— John Scalzi

148. “But we get to live as long as we’re useful. And that is a rare privilege.”

— John Scalzi

149. “Well, that’s science fiction television for you, though,” Abnett said. “Someone’s got to be the red shirt.”

— John Scalzi

150. “Hickory clicked something to Dickory in their native tongue; Dickory clicked back. Hickory responded, and Dickory replied, it seemed a bit forcefully. And then, God help me, Hickory actually sighed.”

— John Scalzi