Top 300 John Scalzi Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “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

152. “When you control communication, you can hide anything you want.”

— John Scalzi

153. “Let’s just say that I anticipated that when I needed to leave Ponthieu, it would be suddenly, and that I might be chased. And that those chasing me might prefer that if I couldn’t be caught, that I should be rendered into very small pieces.”

— John Scalzi

154. “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

155. “Because this is what I learned about myself that first day: My body is my body. I don’t want anyone else in it. I don’t want someone else controlling it, or trying to. It’s my own little space in the world and the only space I have. And to have someone else in it, doing anything to it, sends me into a panic.”

— John Scalzi

156. “And also because I know if I’ve figured it out, someone else has too, because there’s always someone else smarter out there, who may not have ethics.”

— John Scalzi

157. “Pope was aware there were other ways to get more diplomatic respect than bigger guns, of course. But while other diplomatic maneuvers sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, ultimately a big damn gun always commanded respect.”

— John Scalzi

158. “Then: “What time is it in Arizona?” “It’s two hours behind here, so about eight thirty,” I said. “Maybe. Arizona is weird about time zones.”

— John Scalzi

159. “What is it like when you lose someone you love?” Jane asked. “You die, too. And you wait around for your body to catch up.”

— John Scalzi

160. “It takes a certain kind of dog to willingly demote himself from alpha dog, and that dog was Carl. Holloway would have to speak to him about it, for what little good it would do, Carl being a dog and all.”

— John Scalzi

161. “Hey, you know what, basing an entire system of social, political and economic control on the vague, all-too-easily misinterpreted words of a single person claiming divine inspiration is probably not actually all that smart, now, is it.”

— John Scalzi

162. “I don’t think it matters what age you are when you figure it out,” Brous said. “I think the important thing is to figure it out before someone else tells you what you want to be, and they get it wrong.”

— John Scalzi

163. “I both love and am terrified by Greg Van Eekhout’s vision of Los Angeles. I already want to go back.”

— John Scalzi

164. “But everyone knows you need fireworks to make independence official.”

— John Scalzi

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

— John Scalzi

166. “That’s the human brain,” Attavio VI said. “It creates patterns when there aren’t any. Imagines causality when there is none. Imagines a narrative where none exists. It’s in the design of the brain itself. It’s primed to lie.” “And primed to believe the lie.”

— John Scalzi

167. “Yes, death by away team. Very effective on this ship,” Jenkins said.”

— John Scalzi

168. “I don’t have a problem with treason,” I said. “I can stop anytime.” I.”

— John Scalzi

169. “Yes. The one advantage we had, which is a thing I brought to the enterprise, was the understanding that the plan was not the goal. The goal was the goal, and we were going to get to it however we could. And if it meant changing our plans, sometimes in the middle of executing them, then we would.”

— John Scalzi

170. “Listen to me or don’t. But if you don’t, you’ll be dead. And then where will you be? Dead, that’s where.”

— John Scalzi

171. “How much did you love her?” Jane asked. “Your wife. Kathy. When people are married for a long time, maybe they stay together out of habit.” “Sometimes they do,” I said. “But I loved her very much. All the time we were married. I love her now.”

— John Scalzi

172. “Is it painful?” the groundskeeper asked. “I am asking for science.”

— John Scalzi

173. “It’s not whether she tells everyone,” Huma said. “It’s whether they believe her.” “It’s the truth.” “Oh, my daughter,” Huma said, and smiled. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how little that actually means.”

— John Scalzi

174. “There was general agreement that Brahe was correct, until Gell-Man taught the squad to swear in Arabic.”

— John Scalzi

175. “Again I ask permission to be blunt.” “Ambassador Abumwe, at this point I cannot imagine you being otherwise.”

— John Scalzi

176. “I looked at Fowler, who had had a bullet applied directly to her forehead.”

— John Scalzi

177. “Don’t discount that part of who he was just because you didn’t know it. None of us are all of who we are to any one person.”

— John Scalzi

178. “Weren’t we having a mutiny?”

— John Scalzi

179. “What’s messed up here isn’t that this guy thinks we’re on a television show. What’s messed up here is that as far as I can tell, at this point, it’s the most rational explanation for what’s going on.”

— John Scalzi

180. “Lovely,” Wilson said, looking at the display. “And by ‘lovely,’ I mean ‘Oh, crap.”

— John Scalzi

181. “I’m sorry,” the groundskeeper said. “Usually the kharhn we feed to the kingsflower are already dead. I never get to see anything live fed to it. This is exciting for me.”

— John Scalzi

182. “Wes is Wes,” Alastair said. “One in every family. I love him, but I think of him as a sarcastic pet.”

— John Scalzi

183. “When I was a kid I watched a documentary about the movie Planet of the Apes. The first one, with Charlton Heston. They were talking about how they would make up all the extras as various types of apes, like chimps and gorillas and orangutans, and then the extras would go to lunch and they would segregate. All the people made up like gorillas would sit with other gorillas, all the chimps would sit with chimps.”

— John Scalzi

184. “While the elite of the Interdependency were making their plans to abandon the common people to their fate, the common people of the Interdependency were beginning to come to grips with what, exactly, that fate actually was.”

— John Scalzi

185. “It’s war, you jackasses,” Keyes snapped. “I’m sorry it’s not terribly convenient or comfortable for you.”

— John Scalzi

186. “It worked because on a social level, apparently enough people wanted it to, and because at the heart of it, billions of humans living in fragile habitats prone to mechanical and environmental breakdowns and degradation, and with limited natural resources, were better off relying on each other than trying to go it alone. Even without the Interdependency, being interdependent was the best way for humanity to survive.”

— John Scalzi

187. “Part of me was once someone you loved – she sent. I think that part of me wants to be loved by you again, and wants me to love you as well. I can’t be her. I can just be me. But I think you could love me if you wanted to. I want you to. Come to me when you can. I’ll be here.”

— John Scalzi

188. “Sometimes in life you’re going to win and sometimes you’re going to lose. But just because you lose doesn’t mean the other guy needs to win.”

— John Scalzi

189. “His progress was more lateral than forward.”

— John Scalzi

190. “Well, ‘explode’ maybe isn’t the most accurate term. What actually happens is much more interesting.”

— John Scalzi

191. “Really really really difficult,” Tony allowed. “But theoretically possible because, hey, it’s a quantum physics universe.”

— John Scalzi

192. “Life goes on even when Jenkins’ ‘Narrative’ is supposed to apply.”

— John Scalzi

193. “Mom, I remember Lizzie,” Hart said. “She’s really not my type.” “She has a brother,” Wes said, from his lounge. “He’s not my type, either,” Hart said.”

— John Scalzi

194. “Who are you and what medications aren’t you taking?”

— John Scalzi

195. “Even without the Interdependency, being interdependent was the best way for humanity to survive.”

— John Scalzi

196. “One of Harvey’s guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down.”

— John Scalzi

197. “The diagnostic said there was nothing wrong with the threep, which may have meant there was something wrong with the diagnostic.”

— John Scalzi

198. “Fear enters the room and sits down in a chair and with a polite smile asks to open negotiations.”

— John Scalzi

199. “It is sort of remarkable to me how much grief can well up when a pet dies, until one remembers that they are in fact people, who just happen not to be human.”

— John Scalzi

200. “There’s nothing like sharing menarche with a billion hermaphrodites. I think it was everyone’s first time.”

— John Scalzi