Top 30 Matthew Reilly Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “We didn’t come this far just to come this far.”

— Matthew Reilly

Featured in: Persistence Quotes

2. “There is no such thing as an “aspiring writer”. You are a writer. Period.”

— Matthew Reilly

3. “I have both held and beheld unlimited power and of it I know but one thing. It drives men mad.? – Alexander the Great.”

— Matthew Reilly

4. “The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself. – Friedrich Nietzsche.”

— Matthew Reilly

5. “A friend’s loyalty lasts longer than their memory. Over the course of a long friendship, you might fight with your friend, even get angry with them. But a true friend will forget that anger after a while, because their loyalty to their friend outweighs the memory of the disagreement.”

— Matthew Reilly

6. “The acquisition of knowledge, the sheer pleasure of finding things out, is the greatest gift in life.”

— Matthew Reilly

7. “You’d be surprised, you can do a lot more damage with your brains than with your fists.”

— Matthew Reilly

8. “Fairytales cleanse and sanitise what were once true stories. In fairytales, knights are chivalrous, clean-shaven and wear shining armour – when in truth they were swarthy, filthy rapists and thugs. Castles are bright and gay when in truth they were grim fortresses.”

— Matthew Reilly

9. “Come not between the dragon and his wrath. – William Shakespeare King Lear.”

— Matthew Reilly

10. “To anyone who knows a writer, never underestimate the power of your encouragement.”

— Matthew Reilly

11. “Human fears are very often irrational constructs of the mind.”

— Matthew Reilly

12. “What people do in the name of religion is not necessarily religious. It often has baser reasons behind it.”

— Matthew Reilly

13. “I don’t save the world for glory or power. I have neither and I don’t care for them. In fact, I quite like it that the world doesn’t know my name. I just do what I do for the people I love.”

— Matthew Reilly

14. “Yo. Salt-and-Pepper. The name is Go-Go or Mr Go-Go, okay?”

— Matthew Reilly

15. “Convincing someone to believe something that was inherently unbelievable often meant getting that person to make a quick and easy comparison to something they already knew.”

— Matthew Reilly

16. “Over twenty men died during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Dr Lynch. Does anyone regret that? No, all anyone sees is a marvel of its time, a great achievement in human ingenuity.”

— Matthew Reilly

17. “If dragons were real, then in all likelihood they were not graceful, high-chested, noble creatures; rather they would have been dirty, ugly, reptilian and mean.”

— Matthew Reilly

18. “He began to understand why some people feared the dark so much. The sheer helplessness of not knowing what was right in front of you was terrifying.”

— Matthew Reilly

19. “One of the things I have come up against time and again in my career is the notion that because a book is easy to read it was somehow easy to write.”

— Matthew Reilly

20. “Sometimes you had to make the animals perform.”

— Matthew Reilly

21. “When the President asks you to do something, you’d be surprised how keen you are to oblige,” Syme said.”

— Matthew Reilly

22. “A limitless supply of cheap labor might build you a new city every year, but it ultimately just makes you the factory floor for other countries’ companies.”

— Matthew Reilly

23. “In fact, the name ‘rook’ derives from ruhk, the Persian word for chariot. Pawns were footsoldiers, bishops were elephants, knights were mounted cavalry, and speeding along at the edges of the board were the swift and deadly chariots.”

— Matthew Reilly

24. “A monster movie is only as good as the monster in it.”

— Matthew Reilly

25. “In so many ways, Ascham thought, she was beyond her years – but in the presence of her father she became a little girl again. So confident and assured in private, now she moved with the stilted awkwardness of every twelve-year-old girl. Ascham’s heart went out to her.”

— Matthew Reilly

26. “Myths arise from actual events, remarkable events that get talked about precisely because they are remarkable and which then get embellished in the retelling.”

— Matthew Reilly

27. “Feels like we’re driving into Mordor,” Hamish muttered. “What’s Mordor?” Syme asked. “Never mind.”

— Matthew Reilly

28. “Lily just stared down in horror at Jack and Alby as they took off for the maze, fleeing from the advancing snake-headed warrior. THE.”

— Matthew Reilly

29. “The dragons are throwing cars at me!”

— Matthew Reilly

30. “The problem, as I see it, are the twin human creations of marriage and religion. It is marriage and religion that make copulation complex and hurtful. Marriage brings up notions of trust, cuckoldry and ownership, while religion makes certain kinds of intimacy sinful.”

— Matthew Reilly

31. “The zoo’s “image consultants” from New York had been very clear about this: establish your believability first, then go tabloid.”

— Matthew Reilly

32. “This is how great knowledge dies, on bookshelves in plain sight.”

— Matthew Reilly

33. “A civilization is judged by how it treats the vulnerable.”

— Matthew Reilly