Favorite Quotes

[Thanquol]

"I have stood knee deep in mud and bone, and filled my lungs with mustard gas. I have seen two brothers fall. I have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. I have dug trenches for the refugees; I have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws, and starved the masses into faith! A child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. A house of skulls in the jungle. The innocent! The innocent, Mandus, have trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved! This is your coming century! They will eat them Mandus, they will make pigs of you all and they will bury their snouts into your ribs and they will eat. your. hearts!"

-A Machine for Pigs

[Hickory]

Kobayashi: That's fine. Everyone should be wearing the same thing.
Tohru: Why's that?
Kobayashi: To reduce differences. Men, women, Japanese, and foreigners are all the same. That's important.
Tohru: What happens when you're different from everyone else?
Kobayashi: Sometimes you're eliminated... humans don't like things different from themselves.
Tohru: That's foolish.
Kobayashi: Yeah, I agree it is. But everyone's afraid of things that are different.

I never thought I'd post something from this, but... it sort of made me think.

[Hickory]

"Jazz, I'm a businessman. My whole job is exploiting underutilized resources. And you are a massively underutilized resource."

"How dare you call me lazy! I'd come up with a scathing retort but, meh, I'm just not motivated."

Both from Andy Weir's Artemis.

(And, apologies for the double post - they were just too good.)

[SoranMBane]

"Later, when Ged thought back upon that night, he knew that had none touched him when he lay thus spirit-lost, had none called him back in some way, he might have been lost for good. It was only the dumb instinctive wisdom of the beast who licks his hurt companion to comfort him, and yet in that wisdom Ged saw something akin to his own power, something that went as deep as wizardry. From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, and the great slow gestures of trees." ~ A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

I only started reading the first Earthsea book fairly recently, but this particular passage definitely stuck out to me. It's a fantastically beautiful sentiment, and an extremely heart-warming moment between the main character and his pet.

[Hickory]

Warning, quite the long post to follow:

Subaru: It's easy to give up?

Don't give me that! There's nothing easy about giving up! You think I'm just doing nothing, thinking about nothing, cutting myself off from everything, and throwing everything away! And that's all it took to give up? It was not easy to give up! It was so much easier for me to think there was something I could do. But there's nothing I can do... there's no way out! The only path everything leads to is giving up! If I could do something, I would... I would...

Rem: It is easy to give up. But it doesn't suit you. I do not know what painful things you've been through, or what you have done to make you suffer so. And I know it would be wrong of me to thoughtlessly say I understand. But even so... There is something that I do know. I know that you're someone who cannot give up on something halfway through. I know that you are someone who can smile when you talk about your wishes for the future. I know... I know that you are someone who cannot give up on the future.

Subaru: You're wrong, I'm not that kind of–

Rem: I am not wrong. You haven't given up on anyone. Not Emilia or Sister. Not Roswaal or Beatrice, or anyone else.

Subaru: I have given up! Carrying it all was impossible from the start! My hands are so small, that it all slipped through my fingers, leaving nothing.

Rem: No, that isn't true. You have–

Subaru: What do you know?! What do you know about me?! This is the kind of man I am! I have no strength, but I want it all. I have no knowledge, but all I do is dream. There's nothing I can do but struggle in vain! I hate myself!

All I do is talk big game, and make myself sound like a big shot, when I can't do anything! I never do anything, yet I can complain like a pro. Who do I think I am? It's amazing that I can live like this and not feel ashamed! Right?! I'm empty... There's nothing in me at all! I know that... yeah, that's obvious... I know it's obvious. Before I came here, before I got into the situation that me to all of you, do you have any idea what I did? I did nothing. I've never done a single thing. I had all that time, all that freedom... I could have done anything, but I never did a thing. And this is the result! What I am now is the result!

All of my powerlessness, all of my incompetence, is the product of my rotten character. Wanting to accomplish something, when I've never done anything, goes beyond the limits of arrogance! The cost of my laziness and all the wasteful habits in my life, just ends up killing both you and me. That's right. I have no character. Even when I thought I could go on living here, nothing changed... That old man saw that part of me perfectly. Right? I wasn't trying to get stronger, or trying to make things better. I was just striking an obvious pose, to justify myself, to say that I was trying, that it wasn't like I wasn't doing anything. I wanted to say I couldn't help it. I wanted to be told that it couldn't be helped! I only pretended to push my body to the limit, so that would be possible! Even when I had you help me study, I was just posing to cover up how embarrassed I felt!

At heart, I'm just a small, cowardly, filthy piece of trash, who's always worried about how others see me. And nothing... Nothing about me has changed!

I knew it all along. That all of it was my fault. I'm the lowest of the low. I absolutely hate myself...

Rem: I know... that no matter how deeply you have fallen into darkness, you still have the courage to reach out your hand.

I love it when you stroke my hair. I feel as if we can understand each other through the contact between your hand and my hair.
I love your voice. Just hearing you say one word makes my heart feel warmer.
I love your eyes. Normally, they look stern, but when you're being kind to someone, I love the way they soften.
I love your fingers. For a boy, you have such lovely fingers. But when they clutch mine, I know they are the strong, slender fingers of a man.
I love the way you walk. When we walk together, I love the way you occasionally turn, to make sure I keep up.

Subaru: Stop...

Rem: I love the way you look when you sleep. You look unguarded, like an infant, and your eyelashes are on the long side. When I touch your cheek, you calm down... and when I playfully touch your lips, you don't even notice... And it makes my heart ache terribly.

I love you.

Subaru: Why?

Rem: When you said that you hate yourself, it made me want to tell you all the wonderful things I know about you.

Subaru: That was all phony. You just don't know me! I know myself better than anyone!

Rem: All you know is yourself! How much do you know about the Subaru that I see?!

Subaru: Why do you like me so much? I'm weak and small. I'm running away. Just like I ran away last time! So why?

Rem: Because you are my hero, Subaru! In that dark forest, when I didn't even know who I was anymore and couldn't think of anything but violently lashing out, you saved me. When I woke up unable to move, and Sister was exhausted after using too much magic, you faced the mabeasts as a diversion, so we could escape. There was no way you could win, and your life was in real danger. But you still stayed, and came back to my arms, still warm. When you woke up, you smiled, and said the words I wanted to hear most, when I wanted to hear them most, from the one I wanted to hear them from.

My time has been stopped for so long. Ever since that fiery night, the night I lost everything except my sister, my time has been stopped. It was you who melted my frozen heart, and kindly made my stopped time begin to move forward again! I'm sure you have no idea how you saved me, or how happy I was at that moment, on that morning. That's why I believe. No matter what painful things happen, even when it looks like you'll lose... when no one else in the world believes in you, when you don't even believe in yourself, I will believe! That the Subaru that saved me is a true hero.

From episode 18 of the anime Re:Zero, which is amazing and everyone should go watch the whole thing right freaking now.

Also, I originally intended to transcribe only a small amount but the entire scene is so gooooood (despite Rem's more yandere lines... ehehe).

[Hickory]

"If it weren't for the shattered debris of what used to be the dragon carriage, Rem would not have found this scene to be so bizarrely horrifying.

No matter how you look at it, the man doesn't seem anything out of the ordinary. His body was long and slender, and his neat white hair was neither long nor short, nor particularly odd. His black clothes were neither flamboyant nor shabby, and his face was not eye-catching at all. He looked so very ordinary, that perhaps no matter where you put him he would not seem out of place, that if you met him on the street you'd forget him within 10 seconds.

But the fact is, upon coming into contact with this man, the ground dragon was ripped in two, its feet still in mid-stride, and then, along with the driver and carriage, shattered into countless indiscernible pieces.

The most frightening part is, though Rem never looked away, all she saw was this man merely "standing there"."

From the Re:Zero light novel translation

[Thanquol]

"Everfing I see is mine. All da uvver bits are mine too - I just ain't got there yet. When we reach da end of da whole world, we'll turn around and march back."

—Grimgor Ironhide, Black Orc Warboss

[Hickory]

"Henry... I was going to call you before I left–"
'Left? Where are you going?'
"Why, back home."
'You mean, you're giving up?'
"Well, what will people think?"
'People will think whatever they want to think, regardless of what you do. Don't be afraid of your emotions. How do you feel about him?'
"I don't know..."
'Whatever you decide, you don't owe me a thing. Remember that.'

(I honestly have no idea what this is from, but I heard it as a prelude to a track on Spotify, and I really like it.)

[Hickory]

MORE QUOTES

Kayama: It's more fun to play with everyone.

Hachiman: Everyone? Who's "everyone"? The same "everyone" you use to beg your mom for something by saying "everyone else has one?"? Who's that supposed to be? I don't have friends, so I never got to use that excuse. Hayama, I appreciate your kindness. And I get that you have a good personality. You're the ace of the soccer club, and you're good-looking to boot. You must be quite popular among the ladies. Someone like you, who has so much, wants to take this tennis court from me, who has nothing? Do you feel no shame?

Hachiman can be a total jerk sometimes, but also super funny and pretty real. Love him.

[Ashleg]

"Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence."
- John Lydon

[Hickory]

"'It's taking part that counts.' These words became famous after the father of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, used them in a speech, but some say the quote has been frequently misused as a coercion tool to force participation. Yet, there are countless situations in our society where it was a waste to even go. If it's taking part that sounds, then taking part in the side that doesn't take part should also count. If everything can be chalked up to experience, then the experience of experiencing nothing should be worth just as much. In fact, the idea that someone isn't getting experience could be called priceless."

-Hachiman

[Thanquol]

"If only I could show you the places I have been, you might understand the things I say.

I have been to the Desolate Lands, wandered by those souls who still see the lands of the living, but wear the cloak of the dead. Blind to their own ends, they cry, passing through one another like shadows in the dying light of day.

I have been to where souls rot in torment, faced with shards of life and vision, clinging to memory... Regrets of the flesh. I have seen that this prison was of their own making, and the key was in unknowing—in release. And still, I traveled on.

Finally, I came to the place where souls go to die. Where the weary and worn spirits fall into an endless sea of grey, mirrored glass... and I lowered myself within... and lay among them... and I almost did not return.

And do you know what I found there? There, among the silent and battered shells of the innumerable?

Peace. Enlightenment. Truth.

It was then that I realized that this place, this "Life", was an abomination, a horrible distortion of the natural order.

This... Life... who mothered Pain, and Fear, and Envy - these twisted children who exist only because we are here to feed them, to nourish them.

This... LIFE

This... afterthought. A mere ripple in that great, dead sea. Not even a cause, but merely an effect, sending these souls upwards, screaming for release from the day they are torn from their waters! The effect of what!

I do not know. Nor do I care.

Have you ever spoken with the dead? Called to them from this side? Called them from their silent rest? Do you know what it is they feel?

Pain. Pain, having been torn into this wakefulness, a reminder of the chaos from which they had escaped. Pain... for having to live.

There will be no more pain.

There will be no more chaos."

-Kerghan, The First Necromancer

[Hickory]

"For my dissertation I was assigned the U.S.S. Kelvin. Something I admired about your dad: he didn't believe in no-win scenarios. It depends on how you define winning, you're here, aren't you? You know, that instinct, to leap without looking, that was your dad's nature too, and in my opinion it's something Starfleet's lost. I looked up your file while you were drooling on the floor. Your aptitude tests are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest? So your dad dies, you can settle for a less than ordinary life. But you feel like you were meant for something better. Something special. Enlist in Starfleet. If you're half the man your father was, Jim, Starfleet could use you. You could be an officer in 4 years, you could have your own ship in 8. You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important, it's a peacekeeping humanitarian armada-

"I'm done. Riverside shipyard. Shuttle for new recruits leaves at 0800. Your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours. I dare you to do better. "

-Christopher Pike

One of the better scenes from the Star Trek reboot. Bruce Greenwood killed the role.

[Hickory]

"Mune- I mean, Kugayama hasn't touched the pen since drawing A Corpse by Evening. Anjou is certainly gifted, but I didn't know that Mune was that good. My pathetic scribbles can't even compare. There is a manuscript for it. It was never lost. If he felt like, he could make it a story even better than A Corpse by Evening! But for him, drawing manga was just something he did for fun that year. It's a waste, right? It's a loss for everyone! But he has no intention of drawing anymore. I'd do anything to make him say, "yes." I was afraid of asking him. I didn't want to believe that he never figured out the message. Expectations are born from a despairingly large distance in skill. I've had expectations of him all this time. He never once opened the work which Anjou poured her soul into. He never saw through the code. My message never reached him."

-Student Council Vice President, Hyouka

[Søren]

"For my dissertation I was assigned the U.S.S. Kelvin. Something I admired about your dad: he didn't believe in no-win scenarios. It depends on how you define winning, you're here, aren't you? You know, that instinct, to leap without looking, that was your dad's nature too, and in my opinion it's something Starfleet's lost. I looked up your file while you were drooling on the floor. Your aptitude tests are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest? So your dad dies, you can settle for a less than ordinary life. But you feel like you were meant for something better. Something special. Enlist in Starfleet. If you're half the man your father was, Jim, Starfleet could use you. You could be an officer in 4 years, you could have your own ship in 8. You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important, it's a peacekeeping humanitarian armada-

"I'm done. Riverside shipyard. Shuttle for new recruits leaves at 0800. Your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours. I dare you to do better. "

-Christopher Pike

One of the better scenes from the Star Trek reboot. Bruce Greenwood killed the role.

Absolutely he did.