# Needed: Science Fiction and Fantasy Quotes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 23, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616 "2012-09-23T19:07:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/81 "2012-09-24T21:44:31Z")
"The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.” “How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf?” “For two hundred and fifty years the kzinti had not attacked human space. They had nothing to attack with. For two hundred and fifty years men had not attacked the kzinti worlds; and no kzin could understand it. Men confused them terribly.” All from Larry Niven. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/82 "2012-09-24T22:16:44Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > “The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t have steak.” — Robert Heinlein No. Heinlein was quoting Mark Twain. * * * And, for the great Quote that set all this in motion: > [@](#): > > No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/83 "2012-09-24T22:30:29Z")
“It’s a dangerous business, going out your front door.” “The vorpal blade went snicker-snack” “The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed” ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/84 "2012-09-24T23:23:05Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > OP, are you looking more for classic/famous quotes, or for witty ones? Classic ones. But they can be witty, too. Short and punchy, too, if it can be done. Something the viewer can take it quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/85 "2012-09-24T23:42:33Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > No. Heinlein was quoting Mark Twain. _Cite?_ In fact, most of the sources I’ve seen note that the quote is often _attributed_ to Twain, but that the only known print source is Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold the Moon." p. 188, if my sources are correct. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/86 "2012-09-24T23:43:49Z")
“Beam me up” is a classic. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/87 "2012-09-25T03:01:43Z")
“I have no mouth. And I _must_ scream.” “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ said the TickTockMan.” “The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of the future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.” --Babylon 5 ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/88 "2012-09-25T03:19:23Z")
Classics: “May the Force be with you.” -duh! “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” -Planet of the Apes “Gentleman, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.” -Six Million Dollar Man “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” -The Incredible Hulk “Dodge this.” Or, “Wake up Neo. The Matrix has you.” -The Matrix “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!” -Lost ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/89 "2012-09-25T03:23:07Z")
“There’s a man on the wing of this plane!” -The Twilight Zone ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/90 "2012-09-25T03:32:50Z")
“Last night, Darth Vader came down from the planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn’t ask out Loraine, he’d melt my brain!” -Back to the Future ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/91 "2012-09-25T03:33:57Z")
“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/92 "2012-09-25T04:46:14Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > “We are star-stuff.” -Delenn, _Babylon 5_ Much as I love Delenn, she was quoting Carl Sagan. Who may have been quoting someone else. “You will do it because I ask you to. Because you value the good of our people above your own personal ambition. And because I have poisoned your drink.” Londo Mollari. _Babylon 5._ “A zygote is a gamete’s way of making another gamete. This may be the purpose of the Universe.” Heinlein, _Time Enough for Love_. [Why nobody knows much about wizard’s duels] “The winner is not giving away any secrets. The loser is dead, at least.” Larry Niven, "What Good is a Glass Dagger?’ “Normal? There’s a word with no meaning! Every human being who ever lived, from Jojo the caveman down to the culmination of civilization, namely me, was as eccentric as a pet coon once you caught him with his mask off!” Heinlein, _The Rolling Stones._ “Precedence . . . is the assumption that someone else, in the past with less information, nevertheless knows better than the man on the spot. Tradition means doing things in the same grand style as your predecessors. It does not mean doing the same things.” Heinlein, _Space Cadet._ [After killing a bad guy named Melkin] “In the mirrors of many judgements, my hands are the color of blood. I sometimes fancy myself an evil that exists to fight other evils. I destroy Melkins when I find them, and on that day of which the prophets speak, but in which they do not truly believe, when the world is completely cleansed of all evil, then I, too, will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. But until that day, I will not wash my hands, nor let them stand idle.” Roger Zelazny, _The Guns of Avalon._ ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/93 "2012-09-25T04:51:57Z")
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/94 "2012-09-25T14:44:10Z")
OK, these here are the ones that have made the first cut. Apologies to those who gave longer ones but I decided that shorter, choppy ones would suit the project best. And what do you all think of using multiple lines from individual authors/works? > [@](#): > > “You see, I had this space suit.” > > “He says his name is Ruth!” > > “History will call us wives.” > > “My God. It’s full of stars.” > > Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. > All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die > > “This was a hobbit hole. And that meant comfort.” > > “Whoso pulleth out this sword from this stone and anvil is rightwise King born of all England.” > “Curiouser and curiouser.” > > Make it so. > > It was a pleasure to burn. > > intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, > > “If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended” > > "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. > > To crush your enemies, drive them before, and hear the lamentation of their women. > > “Hammerfall!” > > "This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off. " > > Think of it as evolution in action. > Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. > > The enemy’s gate is down. > > He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing. > > You made a time machine? Out of a Delorean? > > Does the rolling help? > > If it bleeds, we can kill it. > > Ray, is someone asks if you are a god, you say yes! > > As you wish. > > It’s a cookbook! > > Klaatu barada nikto. > > In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming > > Jane! Stop this crazy thing! > “The vorpal blade went snicker-snack” > > Soylent Green is People! > > You maniacs! You blew it all up! > > He’s not a tame lion. > > “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ said the TickTockMan.” > > “There’s a man on the wing of this plane!” > > “Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Doom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Dr\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/95 "2012-09-25T14:48:49Z")
“Do, or do not. There is no try.” “My mind is going. I can feel it.” “Come with me if you want to live.” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/96 "2012-09-25T15:03:10Z")
“You’re so slick you’d slide out of your own coffin.” - Garret PI series “Eternity is relentless, Raziel.” - Kain “There’s no God. No side of the angels. There’s just me.” - Kane “We’re the law. Scary, isn’t it?” - Hawk & Fisher series ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/97 "2012-09-25T15:05:46Z")
Winter is coming. ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/98 "2012-09-25T15:18:02Z")
“I’ve got bad feeling about this.” “I find your lack of faith…disturbing.” “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” “I’d rather kiss a Wookie!” “I’ll never join you. I am a Jedi, like my Father before me.” “Use the Force, Luke!” (Just off the top of my head.) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/99 "2012-09-25T15:38:25Z")
“And this world’s smartest man means no more to me than does its smartest termite.” - Doctor Manhattan “Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.” - Rorschach “None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with _you_. You’re locked up in here with _me_.” - Rorschach “We gave you everything you are; and now, _we take it back_.” - A Hylden “The Engine. It’s not me. It’s my Engine.” - Felix, _Armor_. “The citizens do not need to know what the cost is. They need only to know that the mission has been accomplished.” - a Bolo “I know that my God is coming back. I’m going to be waiting for Him with a shotgun, and I’m saving the last shell for myself.” - The Fuller Memorandum “Kharak is Burning…” - Homeworld ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616/100 "2012-09-25T16:19:39Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Much as I love Delenn, she was quoting Carl Sagan. Who may have been quoting someone else. In that particular piece of the quote, she was. The rest of the line is slightly different, though very similar in theme. I left out the longer part because I figured **Jonathan** would want the short version for his purposes. Regardless of who said it first, it’s a good line. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/needed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-quotes/635616.md?page=6)