Top 100 Scott Meyer Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “He tried to come up with a word that meant “witch,” that didn’t have any insulting or demeaning overtones. He couldn’t. In fact, after some thought, he couldn’t think of a word that meant female that men hadn’t imbued with some belittling shade of meaning. Finally, after a much longer silence than he had intended, he simply said, “I can understand why.”

— Scott Meyer

52. “It’s amazing how quickly we get used to weirdness when it’s our own weirdness.”

— Scott Meyer

53. “The guard was clearly puzzled and was trying to solve the puzzle by the time-honored method of frowning about it.”

— Scott Meyer

54. “See, kids, back in Phil’s and my day, if you made a good movie, you took that success and made a different movie, not the same movie over again.”

— Scott Meyer

55. “The spider was a little over ten feet tall and at least thirty feet across, with long, spindly legs and a body covered with thick black fur. It cast away the roof of its burrow as easily as a man in a sauna casts off his towel, and like the other men in the sauna, the wizards instantly wished it hadn’t.”

— Scott Meyer

56. “You’ll either learn that you like him or you’ll learn that you don’t. Either one of those is good to know.”

— Scott Meyer

57. “They couldn’t prove themselves right, so they channeled their energies into proving the other side wrong.”

— Scott Meyer

58. “He was alone in his cubicle, but that’s not really being alone. It’s just private enough to lure you into a false sense of security, and get you caught scratching yourself somewhere you shouldn’t.”

— Scott Meyer

59. “He was the type of person who mistook being large for being tough, being tough for being strong, and being strong for being smart.”

— Scott Meyer

60. “The first thing Martin always did when he found some new data file was to search for his own name. It may seem egocentric, but Martin wasn’t worried about that. He had spent a lot of time thinking about himself, and had come to the conclusion that he was definitely not self-absorbed.”

— Scott Meyer

61. “Sorry. If I tell you what the trials entail, you’ll only concentrate on those parts of the training, and it’s never a good idea to teach to the test.”

— Scott Meyer

62. “It wasn’t that Gary wasn’t smart. His brain was as good as anyone’s. He just chose to use it sparingly.”

— Scott Meyer

63. “Milburn the Mad and his vile viceroy took the canary to Castle Cragganmore. It appears our author is agog for alliteration.”

— Scott Meyer

64. “The eight of us have been killed a combined total of sixty-seven times,” Jeff said. “This strikes me as a problem.”

— Scott Meyer

65. “Before the new night could begin, the old day had to end, and it was grinding slowly to a halt. Birds were singing, quietly. Rabbits were mating, tiredly. People were doing their work, half-heartedly.”

— Scott Meyer

66. “The fact that wristwatches weren’t invented yet made it difficult to look impatient, but he managed.”

— Scott Meyer

67. “They’re smarter than I am.” “Are they smarter, or do they just know more?” Martin asked, “Is there a difference?”

— Scott Meyer

68. “Faint wear tracks traced the routes from the bed to the bathroom to the kitchen to the computer to the couch.”

— Scott Meyer

69. “They’re algorithms, created automatically by another algorithm to accomplish who knows what for we don’t know who!”

— Scott Meyer

70. “He noticed that the two men shared three eyebrows and three working eyes between them, but the distribution was not uniform.”

— Scott Meyer

71. “One cannot create a superior future self without rejecting and destroying their inferior past self. All acts of self-improvement are acts of self-destruction.”

— Scott Meyer

72. “So, if he doesn’t act with subtlety, what on earth made you think he would react to subtlety?”

— Scott Meyer

73. “One voice at the back said something about her weighing the same as a duck, but nobody was in the mood.”

— Scott Meyer

74. “Here was a group of guys that would look right at home at a table in the cafeteria of the Googleplex, the Microsoft Redmond campus, or a science fiction convention, but they were in Medieval England, dressed as wizards, and they were all looking at Martin.”

— Scott Meyer

75. “It was a room imbued with the kind of simplicity that the rich could afford and the poor saved up to get rid of.”

— Scott Meyer

76. “That concludes the official message. I’m adding this last part because I know the two of you won’t be satisfied if I don’t.” Gwen turned so that both Martin and Phillip could see her in profile. She took a deep breath, put the hood up on her cloak. She looked from side to side in an exaggerated pantomime of fear, then said, “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi; you’re my only hope.” With that, she bent at the waist, mimed putting a card into a slot, then disappeared.”

— Scott Meyer

77. “The beauty of capital punishment,” he continued, “is that you only have to do it once to make your point.”

— Scott Meyer

78. “Yes sir, he thought, I’ll just lay low. First step: find a bunch of people and convince them I have magic powers.”

— Scott Meyer

79. “Jimmy said, “I’d rather you called me his greatest enemy, instead of his worst. Worst implies low quality. You could argue that Gary’s his worst enemy.” Phillip said, “Gary’s my friend.” “Which shows how bad at being an enemy he really is.”

— Scott Meyer

80. “Reality is inelegant,” Phillip huffed. “No,” Martin said definitively. “Reality is stunningly elegant. Our understanding of it is not.”

— Scott Meyer

81. “I must say,” Brit shouted at Roy’s back. “I simply cannot wait to watch our strapping he-man champion engage in the gentlemanly art of fisticuffs with those ill-mannered poodles! I bet he’ll slap them silly until they apologize!”

— Scott Meyer

82. “Martin wasn’t totally awake, but not totally asleep either. He was in that hazy, semiconscious state where the dreams of the night before dovetail with the reality of the day ahead. That time where you find yourself thinking how unfortunate it is that your lower half has been replaced with the body of a crab, and how difficult it will be to explain to your boss that you couldn’t come in to work because your pants are now impractical.”

— Scott Meyer

83. “Saying you were going to be something isn’t the same as being that thing.”

— Scott Meyer

84. “There was nothing remarkable about him at all, save for his eyebrows, which were noticeable from a surprising distance. They were chaotic thickets of tangled, wiry hairs, extending in every possible direction from his brow ridge. His eyebrows overshadowed and dominated the rest of him, as if he weren’t so much a man as an eyebrow delivery system.”

— Scott Meyer

85. “She swore me and Jimmy to secrecy because a female wizard is called a witch, and the locals have something of an attitude about witches.” Heads nodded in agreement. One voice at the back said something about her weighing the same as a duck, but nobody was in the mood.”

— Scott Meyer

86. “This plan is so idiotic, it kinda goes all the way around the horn to being smart.”

— Scott Meyer

87. “Like many middle-aged men, Todd was dressing like he thought cool young people dressed. That’s why cool young people change their looks so often. Because if they don’t, they’ll eventually end up dressing like an aging dork.”

— Scott Meyer

88. “Once, Brit had been amazed that Steve Jobs would allow a product to ship with such an obvious aesthetic flaw, but in time, she realized that Steve Jobs didn’t consider anything that would cause a customer to want to buy a newer computer a flaw.”

— Scott Meyer

89. “After a conspicuous silence, Eddie looked at her phone, noticing the logo on the back. “Apple? They’re still in business?” Jeff said, “You’re from the early nineties, aren’t you?” His portable, from just a few years after Martin’s time, appeared to be two sheets of glass glued together into a rectangle. The back sheet of glass was opaque; the front held the display. Martin didn’t see a logo, which probably meant it wasn’t made by Apple.”

— Scott Meyer

90. “Unfortunately, human nature dictated that anything, no matter how pleasant it is, can become hateful if you feel you must do it. Just ask anyone who’s ever entered a pie-eating contest.”

— Scott Meyer

91. “He had the gaunt frame and unhealthy demeanor of a man who had gotten far too much fresh air and exercise.”

— Scott Meyer

92. “His former supervisor smiled the smile equivalent of a middle finger. “Well, with an attitude like that, we don’t want you.”

— Scott Meyer

93. “Martin said, “A mixed metaphor is like a beautiful woman.” “How so?” “They can both make a guy look stupid.”

— Scott Meyer

94. “At this point in history, people didn’t know how to react to “Eddie, the mysterious wizard from the Orient.” They already had difficulty dealing with Eddie’s thick New Jersey accent.”

— Scott Meyer

95. “When everyone’s early the least early person is late, no matter what the clock says.”

— Scott Meyer

96. “Phillip had many other food choices he could produce, but a selection of specialized burritos is all the variety most men need.”

— Scott Meyer

97. “Phillip shook his head. “I understand all of these specs, but the numbers are all so large, I don’t know what any of it means. What on earth can a person do with four gigabytes of RAM?” “Upgrade it immediately,” Martin answered.”

— Scott Meyer

98. “I’m gonna win,” Phillip said. “I’m finally gonna beat him, and I’m gonna taste his defeat. Then I’m gonna chew his defeat. Then I’m gonna open my mouth wide and make him look at his gross chewed-up defeat, and he will be disgusted by it, as I am by him.” “Damn right!” Tyler added. “And I think I might kick him in the nuts.”

— Scott Meyer

99. “They were amazed to hear that Roy was from the year 1973, or as Gary put it, pre-Star Wars.”

— Scott Meyer

100. “Gwen decided it was time to speak up. “Tell me, has any woman ever laughed when you made the obvious joke?” “No,” Sid said, “but that’s just because women don’t really have a sense of humor.” Gwen asked, “What makes you say that?” Sid said, “I tell a lot of jokes, jokes my male friends think are hilarious, but women almost never laugh.” Brit nodded, and said, “Well, we can’t argue with that. Your logic is as strong as your wit.” Sid bowed more deeply, and said, “Thank you.”

— Scott Meyer