Robert Kroese Quotes & Sayings

If I look back on everything I've done and think, 'I couldn't possibly have done anything differently,' then what's the point in doing anything? — Robert Kroese

Interagency cooperation was all well and good, but it was understood to be the sport of the aristocracy; rank-and-file workers like Jacob were expected to keep to their own kind. — Robert Kroese

Even hypochondriacs get sick sometimes. — Robert Kroese

There is, of course, a lot of disagreement on Earth about whether demons actually exist, what they want, and how much of the tax code they are responsible for. — Robert Kroese

She tried to kill us, Keane."
"You can't take attempted murder personally in this business, Fowler. — Robert Kroese

He was like an idiot savant without the savant part. — Robert Kroese

It was never a good thing when a bad guy started quoting Nietzsche. — Robert Kroese

This puzzling discrepancy prompted the development of the controversial cosmological theory known as the Strong Misanthropic Principle, which asserts that the universe exists in order to screw with us. — Robert Kroese

You know what your problem is, Sasha?" Rex said. "You always want to have every little detail worked out in advance. You've got to leave some room for improvisation." "My concern, sir, is that you've given such a wide berth to improvisation that you've left no room for planning." "You — Robert Kroese

I'm sure that creating the cosmos was a great deal of work, but it happened before I got here. I didn't ask for it to be created, I wasn't consulted on the specifics, and I don't intend to pay for it. — Robert Kroese

For one hour a day, Lucifer took a break from his surveillance to indulge a guilty pleasure: drinking a tall, icy glass of Schweppes ginger ale and watching The O'Reilly Factor. — Robert Kroese

Job was convinced that life wasn't as complicated as everybody made it out to be. He believed that if you were nice to other people and you worked hard, you tended to do OK. — Robert Kroese

By most accounts, Boric the Implacable was, while he was alive, an incomparable badass. By all accounts, he was an even bigger badass after he died. — Robert Kroese

How many of these rescue missions have you conducted anyway?" "More than I can count," sniffed the general. "I see," said Rex. "How many fingers am I holding up? — Robert Kroese

You can't rage against the machine; rage is part of the machine. — Robert Kroese

You know what happened to the last guy to make a pact with Lucifer, right?" "I thought he was still hosting American Idol." "Exactly," said Perp. "A fate worse than death. — Robert Kroese

The Christians had then struck back with a decal of a larger fish, labeled "TRUTH," eating the Darwin fish, which distilled Christianity to its core principle: the ultimate devouring of Science by the giant, horrific Jesus-fish. — Robert Kroese

souls of dead heroes to their glorious afterlife in the Halls of Avandoor, if you believe in that sort of thing. — Robert Kroese

There's no consensus in the mental health community on how to maintain the sanity of a person whose whole existence is fictional. — Robert Kroese

People like me really shouldn't be allowed to build a people house until we've managed to build a bird house that isn't immediately condemned as uninhabitable by the avian building department. — Robert Kroese

What is that thing? It looks like a model of the human digestive tract made from broken beer bottles and sadness. — Robert Kroese

You'd think that Modern Science would have found a cure for the common hangover by now, but evidently Modern Science has been too busy doing things like figuring how to reconfigure DNA and creating artificial gravity. Modern Science doesn't get invited to a lot of parties. — Robert Kroese

democracy just seemed like the same old thing with a bigger group of idiots running the show. — Robert Kroese

One thing I've learned, Sasha," said Rex, "is that no matter how poorly thought out a plan is, there's always a chance it will succeed unless I'm directly involved." "You — Robert Kroese

Dead kings were honored in the Six Kingdoms only insofar as they had the good sense to stop walking around above ground. — Robert Kroese

And I can't promise anything, you understand, but there's always a chance he'll want to torture your boss anyway. Just recreationally, I mean."
"Wow, that would be terrific," I said. — Robert Kroese

She's right, thought Boric. I'm a dead man riding a winged bear named Bubbles. — Robert Kroese

People of a "scientific" bent have been known to ridicule those, like Harry, who believe unlikely notions such as the idea that the Universe was created in six days and that the first human being was formed by God breathing into a lump of clay. It should be noted that the latest scientific theories entail that (1) all of the matter in the Universe was once compressed into an area smaller than the point of a pin; and (2) life came about when a chance collision of molecules accidentally lined up three million nucleic acids in exactly the right order to form a self-replicating protein. — Robert Kroese

It requires a constant effort to keep people worried about inconsequential issues and unconcerned with important matters. — Robert Kroese

lurches forward like a charging rhino, — Robert Kroese

How do we know Stephanie's not just watering a friend's plants?"
"Oh, she's watering his plants all right," said Keane.
"Congratulations," I said. "That's the worst euphemism for intercourse I've ever heard."
"No," said Keane. "Intercourse is the worst euphemism for intercourse you've ever heard. Normal people call it fucking. — Robert Kroese

The crowd was getting hysterical, so I reached into my back pocket and flippe open my wallet to reveal my badge. "Official business," I announced. "Please leave the area." This had the desired effect; it deescalated the mood and prompted most of the crowd to disperse. It's funny what a plastic badge and a meaningless phrase can do. The authority of the police is anothe mass delusion that can be useful at times. I hadn't even needed to claim I was a cop; all it took was a couple of simple cues to invoke the delusion. — Robert Kroese

Human beings have evolved to be extremely good at identifying other individual humans. The race's survival depends on it. A guard lets the wrong person through the gate, and a whole settlement is wiped out. There are a million ways to tell two human beings apart. Not just appearance, either. Gait, odor, pheromones, speech patterns, dialect, nervous habits... even the way people breathe. Even parents of identical twins have little difficulty telling them apart, despite the fact that they are genetically identical and were raised in exactly the same environment, because of tiny differences in appearance and behavior that accrue as the result of differing experiences. The ability of one human to recognize another by appearance is especially acute when it comes to heterosexual males observing nubile females. There is nothing on Earth men pay more attention to than the appearance of sexually attractive young women. — Robert Kroese

That's what people used to tell my parents," Verne said. "Why 'Verne'? they'd ask. And my parents would say, 'No, he's just small for his age. — Robert Kroese

That's right, folks. This is the sort of novel that starts with a fucking Venn diagram. Buckle up, bitches. — Robert Kroese

had they gotten hungry partway through their vandalizing? That seemed like a stunning lack of commitment — Robert Kroese

Declaring war on Skaal increased patriotism among the people, made them forget about all their other problems, killed off some of the excess population, often resulted in the acquisition of some valuable booty, and - most importantly - relieved Boric's crushing boredom. It was too bad about the killing, of course, but most of the peasants were probably going to die of plague or starvation anyway. — Robert Kroese

Shareholders," murmured Eddie, the word echoing meaninglessly in his head. His brain had screeched to a halt in front of an earlier word in the sentence, and it now stood (in a figurative sense) stock still, with its eyes wide and its jaw open, staring at the word in awe. Lovely Wanda Kwan, the vaguely Asian-American publishing company representative, had uttered, through her lip gloss and perfect teeth, the one word that every writer secretly yearns to hear. That word is movie. "Ms. Kwan," he began. — Robert Kroese

It is also said that history is written by the victors. This was particularly true in the Old Realm, where the official historians at the Library of Avaress had been required for centuries to be named Victor. — Robert Kroese

The illusion of free will is straining under the weight of determinism. — Robert Kroese

provoke a challenge from Clovis, the Prince of Blinsk, who was widely known as a master swordsman. And of course, anyone familiar with the history of Dis will know that she got her wish.[5] Why would Shelly deliberately provoke the encounter that was result in her own doom? Perhaps she feared that in her old age, her natural tendencies would overcome her training, or perhaps she had simply decided that she had lived long enough. Either way, far from being proof of Tobalt's failure, Shelly's — Robert Kroese

The big questions don't matter if you get all the little ones wrong. — Robert Kroese

The fool sees his own foolishness reflected in the wisdom of the teacher.'" This — Robert Kroese

The identity of the Antichrist is, of course, less important than the fact that there is an Antichrist. No one cares much what the Antichrist says or does, but they feel better knowing he's around. In this way, he is much like the pope or the United Nations. — Robert Kroese

These days she tended to think of herself as a Heisenbergian Christian: she believed in the broad outlines of Christianity, but she was unable to pinpoint the specifics of her creed. She was OK with the wave; it was the particles that tended to escape her. — Robert Kroese

We had become a country that valued security over freedom, power over justice, and war over peace. — Robert Kroese

I'd seen Rex pull this ruse before. The trick is to employ diplomatic-sounding generalities to cover his near-total ignorance. You'd think that any reasonably intelligent person would see right through it, but Rex's uncanny confidence can be downright unnerving. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain he realizes it's a ruse. He may just be deluded enough to think that he really does understand what's going on, and somehow he manages to extend that delusion to include those in the immediate vicinity. As the originator of the delusion, he then becomes a sort of expert guide to those lost in its fog. — Robert Kroese

This particular ogre, who went by the name Skoorn, was (by ogreish standards) exceedingly clever, and he had developed a taste for what ogres call "screech melons. — Robert Kroese

But consciousness (alternately referred to as "awareness") seems to be one of those things that although we know it when we see it, it's impossible to define. — Robert Kroese