We’re in the hands of infinite power and infinite sadism.
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy’s nemesis, Austin Powers
Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don’t you just kill him?
Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I’m going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.
“A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.”
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
I need somebody reliable, and I’m so very, very glad it’s you.
I settle disputes very quickly. I’m very good at it.
Two men enter - one man leaves.
Everyone always leaves me in the end.
Even one man alive is homage to the rest.
“They would turn me back into a dog,” said Towser.
“And me,” said Fowler, "back into a man.”
The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. They were animals—humanised animals—triumphs of vivisection.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you, but I get the feeling that you don’t like it.
“Tell them the People—all the People of this entire world—know who would protect them and who would slay them. We know how you and your clan have always loved and protected and shielded us from harm, Dances on Clouds. But the time has come for that to change, and we do not choose to be kittens forever. If you would guard us, then we will guard you, and if we die as Far Climber did, as Climbs Quickly almost did, as Laughs Brightly has almost died for you and you for him, then we will die. But we will not hide. We will not be children. If you will fight for all this world, for all of us, then we will fight for you.”
She was a girlygirl and they were true men, the lords of creation, but she pitted her wits against them and she won. It had never happened before, and it is sure never to happen again, but she did win. She was not even of human extraction. She was cat-derived, though human in outward shape, which explains the C in front of her name. Her father’s name was C’mackintosh and her name C’mell. She won her tricks against the lawful and assembled lords of the Instrumentality.
Tim that is one of my all-time favorite story openings; thank you for it.
And I respond with one of my favorite story openings that is appropriate, I think:
It was around the hub of the evening on the planet of Porlumma when Captain Pausert, commercial traveler from the Republic of Nikkeldepain, met the first of the witches of Karres.
It was just plain fate, so far as he could see.
I was born in a house with a million rooms, built on a small, airless world on the edge of an empire of light and commerce that the adults called the Golden Hour, for a reason I did not yet grasp.
Now, the question for the hour is, ‘Who’s got the Pandorica?’
You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day. If there is a Hell, you might wanna go there for some R & R after a tour on Pandora. Out there beyond that fence every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes. We have an indigenous population of humanoids called the Na’vi. They’re fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin that will stop your heart in one minute - and they have bones reinforced with naturally occurring carbon fiber. They are very hard to kill. As head of security, it is my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed. Not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need to cultivate a strong, mental aptitude. You got to obey the rules: Pandora rules.
“Unfortunately, they got a nasty surprise at journey’s end. Grayson’s a pretty nice place in many ways, but it’s a high-density world with unusual concentrations of heavy metals, and there isn’t a single native plant or animal that won’t kill any human who eats it for very long."