Gavin Extence Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes words aren't needed. — Gavin Extence

I know, for example, that Mr. Petersen did not experience the flow of time in the same way that I did during those last sixteen months. He told me often, particularly towards the end, that for him time had become a slow, peaceful drift. If I had to guess why this was the case, I'd say that maybe it was because this was time he never expected to have. Or maybe it was more than he was now letting time drift. There was a certain type of contentment in his outlook, which never strayed too far into the future. His life had become simple and uncluttered, and when you're living like that, I think time can seem to stretch out for ever. Matters only change when you start fretting about all the things you need to get done. The more stuff you try to force into it, the less accommodating time becomes. — Gavin Extence

According to reliable and never-named sources in the hospital, my situation was critical, then desperate, then critical but stable, then just stable, then uncertain, then (for twelve hours) improving, then uncertain again and then steadily bleaker with each passing day until everyone agreed that there was very little chance of my ever waking up. At that point I woke up, escaping the cul-de-sac into which I'd been written. — Gavin Extence

Don't you think it's good to serve your country?' I asked. 'No, I don't,' Mr Peterson said. 'I think it's good to serve your principles. And in the army you don't get to pick and choose your fights according to your conscience. You kill on command. Don't ever surrender your right to make your own moral decisions, kid. — Gavin Extence

They called our arrangement a 'Death Pact' - but, really, that's not a phrase that tells you anything important. It's just the kind of phrase that sells newspapers. For us, it was never about death. It was about life. Knowing that there was a way out, that his suffering was not going to become unendurable ( ... ). — Gavin Extence

Because sometimes chance and circumstance can seem like the most appalling injustice, but we just have to adapt. That's all we can do. — Gavin Extence

If you're a boy, any display of sensitivity is gay. Compassion is gay. Crying is supergay. Reading is usually gay. Certain songs and types of music are gay. 'Enola Gay' would certainly be thought gay. Love songs are gay. Love itself is incredibly gay, as are any other heartfelt emotions. Singing is gay, but chanting is not gay. Wanking contests are not gay. Neither is all-male cuddling during specially designated periods in football matches, or communal bathing thereafter. (I didn't invent the rules of gay - I'm just telling you what they are.) — Gavin Extence

[ ... ] from what I'd been able to ascertain online, the Swiss were a reassuringly practical people. They had a long, proud history of staying out of wars, preferring to devote themselves to more constructive endeavours like science, secure banking and building extremely accurate clocks. — Gavin Extence

Well, for each of us the brain creates a whole, unique universe. It contains everything we know. Everything we see or touch. Everything we feel and remember. In a sense, our brains create all of reality for us. Without the brain, there's nothing. Some people find this idea scary, but I think it's rather beautiful. — Gavin Extence

Even very low-probability events can, and indeed do, occur. — Gavin Extence

For us, it was never about death. It was about life. Knowing that there was a way out, and that his suffering was not going to become unendurable, was the one thing that allowed Mr. Peterson to go on living, much longer than he would have otherwise wanted. It was the weeks leading up to our pact that were shrouded in darkness and despair; after its inception, life became a meaningful prospect once more. — Gavin Extence

Although I don't use it nearly so much anymore, I've decided, five years down the line, that Mr. Treadstone's verdict on 'kind of' was kind of unjust. Obviously, this phrase can be redundant or reductive, or just plain stupid in some sentences, but not in all sentences. I wouldn't, for example, use a sentence like 'Antarctica is kind of cold', or 'Hitler was kind of evil'. But sometimes, things aren't black and white. And sometimes 'kind of' expresses this better than any other phrase. For example, when I tell you that my mother was kind of peculiar, I can think of no better way of putting this. — Gavin Extence

I think a reading group should have a snappy name to attract members, don't you?'
Mr Peterson didn't ask about my snappy name, but I could tell his curiosity was piqued.
'The Secular Church of Kurt Vonnegut,' I said.
'Jesus F Christ,' said Mr Peterson. — Gavin Extence

It's possible to find order in chaos, and it's equally possible to find chaos underlying apparent order. Order and chaos are slippery concepts. They're like a set of twins who like to swap clothing from time to time. Order and chaos frequently intermingle and overlap, the same as beginnings and endings. Things are often more complicated, or more simple, than they seem. Often it depends on your angle. I think that telling a story is a way of trying to make life's complexity more comprehensible. It's a way of trying to separate order from chaos, patterns from pandemonium. — Gavin Extence

When I read these books, I no longer felt like I was confined to a very tiny world. I no longer felt housebound and bedbound. Really, I told myself, I was just brainbound. And this was not such a sorry state of affairs. My brain, with a little help from other people's brains, could take me to some pretty interesting places, and create all kinds of wonderful things. Despite its faults, my brain, I decided, was not the worst place in the world to be. — Gavin Extence

At first, I was dubious that my mother would agree that writing letters to prisoners was morally instructive, but Mr. Peterson, who was extremely crazy, insisted that it was. He told me that most of the prisoners we'd be writing to shouldn't have been put in prison in the first place. They were good people who'd been locked away and denied their most basic human rights. They weren't allowed to act according to their consciences or even to express their opinions without fear of persecution and physical reprisals - although Mr. Peterson doubted very much that I could imagine what that was like. I told Mr. Peterson that since I went to secondary school, I thought that I could imagine it fairly well. — Gavin Extence

I knew how many zeroes there were in a quintillion, but I thought that algebra lived in ponds. — Gavin Extence

Fear distorts the world. Fear sees demons where only shadows dwell. — Gavin Extence

Funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the living. — Gavin Extence

All these thoughts drifted like clouds through the virtual space of my mind's eye - tiny electrical and chemical signals that combined to create an entire world - but then, after a while, everything just kind of melted away. All that was left was a calm blue void. I felt very happy. — Gavin Extence

The first thing I learned that day was this: what you think you know about a person is only a fraction of the story. — Gavin Extence

I'm saying that death is the easiest thing in the world. It's only dying that's terrible. — Gavin Extence

So you don't think that God created the brain?' I asked.
'No, I don't think that,' Dr. Enderby replied. 'I think that the brain created God. Because the human brain, however wonderful, is still quite fallible - as both you and I know. It's always searching for answers, but even when it's working as it should, its explanations are rarely perfect - especially when it comes to very big, complicated questions. That's why we have to nurture it. We have to give it plenty of space to develop. — Gavin Extence

I knew that iridium-193 was one of two stable isotopes of iridium, a very rare, very dense metal, but I didn't know that the periodic table even existed.
I knew how many zeroes there were in a quintillion, but I thought that algebra lived in ponds.
I'd picked up a few Latin words, and a smattering of Elvish, but my French was non-existent.
I'd read more than one book of more than one thousand pages (more than once), but I wouldn't have been able to identify a metaphor if it poked me in the eye.
By secondary-school standards, I was quite a dunce. — Gavin Extence

Apt and poetic though this was, it was simply too bleak to read at a funeral. Instead I settled on Rumfoord's farewell speech on page 2007, which starts: "I am not dying. I am merely taking my leave of the solar system," and ends: "I shall always be here. I shall always be wherever I've been. — Gavin Extence

Turning things over and over in isolation had led me to a certain point, but I knew that to get any further I'd have to voice some ideas aloud, just to see how they sounded. But I certainly didn't go to Ellie expecting any kind of constructive input on her part. It was more that I'd hit a wall and needed someone to talk around the subject with - like when you come up against a problem that's just immune to normal logic. — Gavin Extence

Acknowledging reality for myself was one thing. Having to explain what as happening - and what was going to happen - to another person was something else entirely. That would make it TOO real. — Gavin Extence

I tapped on the door, with all the power of a farting flea. — Gavin Extence

Not all scars are bad, Alex. Some are worth hanging on to ... — Gavin Extence

I was half expecting it, but it still came as kind of a shock when the barrier stayed down. It's funny how some things can be so mixed up like that. — Gavin Extence

They sent the shrink round yesterday. He's put me on Prozac. Prozac! He thinks I'm depressed.'
'Aren't you depressed?'
'I wasn't depressed.'
'You did try to kill yourself,' I pointed out.
'Yes. That's what he said too. Apparently that's a classic symptom. It's not thought a sane plan of action for someone in my situation. — Gavin Extence

Fucking hell, Woods!' squealed Decker. 'You really are retarded!' Or he squealed something similar. I was no longer listening. He now held the book aloft and was waving it around like the monkey with the bone at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. — Gavin Extence

In life, there are no true beginnings or endings. — Gavin Extence

In the long history of human affairs, common sense doesn't have the greatest track record. — Gavin Extence

I'm not sayin' that the book wasn't important. I'm sayin' there are more important. I'm sayin' that all the things that were important about the book ... well, they weren't really anything to do with the book itself. They're more up here-' at this point Mr Peterson tapped his head, close to the temple- 'and they haven't gone anywhere. Now do you understand? — Gavin Extence