Quotes by Game Designers - Page 3

World-class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact and for the entire reaction between them to take place in the mouth. Randy has worked out a set of mental blueprints for a special cereal-eating spoon that will have a tube running down the handle and a little pump for the milk, so that you can spoon dry cereal up out of a bowl, hit a button with your thumb, and squirt milk into the bowl of the spoon even as you are introducing it into your mouth. The next best thing is to work in small increments, putting only a small amount of Cap’n Crunch in your bowl at a time and eating it all up before it becomes a pit of loathsome slime, which, in the case of Cap’n Crunch, takes about thirty seconds.
Neal Stephenson
From this moment forth, my sword shall be with you and your fate shall be with me.
Kinoko Nasu
I wrote a book on cats. In retrospect, I should have used paper, cause chapter six got hit by a car.
Wynne McLaughlin
I'm not saying it's going to be easy; I'm saying it's going to be worth it. If it were easy, you would've done it by now
B. Dave Walters
Religion doesn't just cloud our minds. It asks us to deliberately deceive ourselves-- to replace reason with its opposite, faith. And when men operate on faith, they can no longer be reasoned with, which makes them more dangerous than any sane man, good or evil.
James L. Sutter
Unix is not so much a product as it is a painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker subculture. It is our Gilgamesh epic: a living body of narrative that many people know by heart, and tell over and over again—making their own personal embellishments whenever it strikes their fancy. The bad embellishments are shouted down, the good ones picked up by others, polished, improved, and, over time, incorporated into the story. […] Thus Unix has slowly accreted around a simple kernel and acquired a kind of complexity and asymmetry about it that is organic, like the roots of a tree, or the branchings of a coronary artery. Understanding it is more like anatomy than physics.
Neal Stephenson
There was no room for dust devils in the laws of physics, as least in the rigid form in which they were usually taught. There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education: you get your competent but bored, insecure and hence stodgy teacher talking to an audience divided between engineering students, who are going to be responsible for making bridges that won’t fall down or airplanes that won’t suddenly plunge vertically into the ground at six hundred miles an hour, and who by definition get sweaty palms and vindictive attitudes when their teacher suddenly veers off track and begins raving about wild and completely nonintuitive phenomena; and physics students, who derive much of their self-esteem from knowing that they are smarter and morally purer than the engineering students, and who by definition don’t want to hear about anything that makes no fucking sense. This collusion results in the professor saying: (something along the lines of) dust is heavier than air, therefore it falls until it hits the ground. That’s all there is to know about dust. The engineers love it because they like their issues dead and crucified like butterflies under glass. The physicists love it because they want to think they understand everything. No one asks difficult questions. And outside the windows, the dust devils continue to gambol across the campus.
Neal Stephenson
How slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions?
Neal Stephenson
I don’t need luck,” Chirrut said. “I have you.
Alexander Freed
Turn your cheek' only works with physical slaps, only works pre-Second coming. Against guns, bombs, and the most inhumane practices ever conceived, we must protect ourselves. We must become the agents of God's vengeance.
Peter Tieryas
How does a poor country defeat rich ones?” “Indeed, the answer is not by acquiring wealth in the sense that France has it.” “Meaning vineyards, farms, peasants, cows?” “But rather to play a sort of trick and redefine wealth to mean something novel.” “Currency!” “Indeed.
Neal Stephenson
It is a second-generation Seattle-scene record label; all of its artists are young people who came to Seattle after they graduated college in search of the legendary Seattle music scene and discovered that it didn't really exist--it was just a couple of dozen guys who sat around playing guitar in one another's basements--and so who were basically forced to choose between going home in ignominy or fabricating the Seattle Music scene of their imagination from whole cloth. This led to the establishment of any number of small clubs, and the foundation of many bands, that were not rooted in any kind of authentic reality whatsoever but merely reflected the dreams and aspiration of pan-global young adults who had flocked to Seattle on the same chimera hunt.
Neal Stephenson
No one is more vulnerable to fear than a man who keeps another in bondage. He will do anything to prevent justice from rearing its head — for he knows well what he deserves at the hands of those he subjugates.
Jane Jensen
Hope?" She eyed Cassian dubiously. "Is that the best the Rebel Intelligence can do?" Cassian might as well have shrugged. "Rebellions are built on hope," he said
Alexander Freed
It’s my belief that all of the greatest tales ever told have been told in saloons. It was in such smoky, heathen-filled den of iniquity that I first heard the tale of the Bone Feud. As with all great tales, it was at its core one hundred percent true. In fact, much of it has long been a matter of historical record. But tales grow in the telling, and I therefore must apologize in advance for any inaccuracies, and beg your indulgence for any romanticized embellishments. I have decided to present the story here, just as it was told to me. I find it entirely too rich and too entertaining to alter, simply to curry favor with pedants and historians.
Wynne McLaughlin
This is one of the most important moments in your life. Nothing will ever be the same. We might get rich. We might get killed. We might just have an adventure or lean something. But we have been changed. We are standing close the Heraclitean fire, feeling its heat on our faces.
Neal Stephenson
That a universe exists within every human being. That to the blood cells and organs in your body, you are god. That this universe is only one individual among infinite others.
Peter Tieryas
Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.
Neal Stephenson
Chess is a game with simple rules and pieces, a small sixty-four-space board, but there are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the universe.
Austin Grossman
Remember us. Remember us as we used to be, before the universe turned against us. Young, beautiful, strong, brave, admirable, loved, loving...' --Alema Rar
Aaron Allston
The business of the dead belongs to the living.
Margaret Stohl
No, they can't. They can't be Luke Skywalker.
Aaron Allston
It appeared that way, Lawrence, but this raised the question of was mathematics really true or was it just a game played with symbols? In other words—are we discovering Truth, or just wanking?
Neal Stephenson
Times will change. Peace changes even the worst of killers," Ruth said."Into what?" Ezekiel asked.
Peter Tieryas
So yes, black mages often can be evil. But black as a color is not inherently evil. Being influenced by black’s philosophies does not necessarily mean that one will commit an evil act. That being the case, we cannot say that black represents evil. More closely aligned with evil than the other colors? Fine. More ripe with potential for evil? Sure. Evil? No. And that's a very important distinction
Mark Rosewater
If you want to know what you are attracting, look around you!
B. Dave Walters
There will be pages. Lots and lots of pages. Most of the pages will have letters on them, and a vast majority of these letters will be in the Roman alphabet.
Aaron Allston
I no longer looked to the future or lost hope in it. The past and the future are, from the view of the present, nothing more than a distant paradise. As one who can never achieve divinity, all I could do is ponder that with all of my might.
Kinoko Nasu
It's not easy to be Light when you've been Dark. It's almost too much to ask anyone.-Macon Ravenwood
Margaret Stohl
Over time, even the tiniest meaningful actions add up, each one bringing you closer to a life that is truer to your dreams and free of regret.
Jane McGonigal
Nicolas walked toward him. Ignoring the presence of the others nearby, he took Julien's chin in his hand and kissed him tenderly on the lips. Julien seemed chagrined at first, and then accepted the gesture. It was sweet, and had the air of a couple that had been together for a great long time.Maric glanced away, embarrased by the intimacy, not to mention the fact that he hadn't quite realized the nature of the two warriors' relationship ealier. Not just comrades, then, and far more than close friend. The older Grey Wardens seemed unsurprised.
David Gaider
Now you're an adult, Katya!" he'd said, picking her up under the armpits like he'd been doing since she'd been born.
Jonathan L. Howard
The mysterious Enoch Root meets 8-year-old Benjamin Franklin, Boston, 1713: "Do I look like a schoolmaster to you?" "No, but you talk like one." "You know something of schoolmasters, do you?""Yes, sir," the boy says, faltering a bit as he sees the jaws of the trap swinging toward his leg. "Yet here it is the middle of Monday—" "The place was empty 'cause of the Hanging. I didn't want to stay and—" "And what?" "Get more ahead of the others than I was already." "If you are ahead, the correct thing is to get used to it—not to make yourself into an imbecile. Come, you belong in school.
Neal Stephenson
See, the world is full of things more powerful than us. But if you know how to catch a ride, you can go places,
Neal Stephenson
So in order to accommodate the Pioneers who would begin arriving in a few weeks, the Arkitects sent up Scouts. The qualifications for being a Scout seemed to be a shocking level of physical endurance, a complete disregard for mortal danger, and some knowledge of how to exist in a space suit. All of them were Russians.
Neal Stephenson
[The thief-taker] was conspicuous by his age, I should estimate he is in his middle fifties, and by a bearing, I am tempted to call it dignity, wanting in the others. He has a good head of hair, only a bit thin on top, blond going grey, and sea green eyes. He has an excellently carved set of teeth, but displays them rarely. He has a trim figure, unusual in a profession that consists largely of loitering around taverns, but any illusion that he is especially fit is dispelled when he begins to move, for he is a little bit halt, and a little bit lame, stiff in the joints and given to frequent sighs and grimaces that hint at pains internal.
Neal Stephenson
Talent is a word lazy people use to explain why they can’t do things.
Edmund McMillen
My God. Johannes, are you saying that you’re accepting this task because I asked you?’ Cabal did not reply. Instead he found a loose thread on the eiderdown and fiddled distractedly with it. Horst sat on the side of the bed, embraced his brother around the shoulders with one arm, and rubbed the top of his head with the knuckles of the other. ‘Horst!’ snapped Cabal. ‘I am no longer eight years old!’ Horst kissed him on the top of the head. ‘You’ll always be my little brother, Johannes, even if you look older than me now.
Jonathan L. Howard
The nice thing about being an adolescent is being able to make mature decisions when you need them and being able to just flow alone with life when you don't.
Michael A. Stackpole
You have 100% control over yourself, and your life. It is up to you to stop giving your power away, and to decide what you want to be, do, or have...and go after it.
B. Dave Walters
What was a shadow, after all, but a shape in the moving world reduced to a projection of possibilities?
Yoon Ha Lee
One day you wake up and realize the world can be conquered... I'm going to put a mask on and scrawl my name across the face of the world, build cities of gold, come back and stomp this place flat, until even the bricks are just dust. So you can just shut up. All of you. I'm going to move the world.
Austin Grossman
The United States of America is logically the least magical place in the world. Planned by committee, not even a country, just a legal umbrella for fifty associated provinces, an elaborate polling system for creating other larger and more permanent committees. No mysteries; no demons; one God at the most. Sure, it had its own folklore and tall tales, but it wasn’t the same. Its rulers weren’t descended from men and women who spoke with birds and rode dragons. Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan were hayseeds, folksy also-rans compared to the madness in the ancient royal blood going back to the Druids, to Byzantium, to Mithraic cults.
Austin Grossman
I'm not saying it's going to be easy; I'm saying it's going to be worth it. If it was easy, you would've done it by now
B. Dave Walters
It's all about perspective. The sinking of the Titanic was a miracle to the lobsters in the ship's kitchen. (Oct 4, 2011)
Wynne McLaughlin
Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.
Neal Stephenson
To him it was a sort of hyperspace-librarian, girl-geek thing that he found clever and fetching without attracting him in a way that would have been creepy.
Neal Stephenson
The world's full of wonder, he said. Or at least horror that looks wondrous from afar.
Luke Scull
Wha...what are you smiling for...? If I'd swallowed that needle, I'd have died! It's not like putting tabasco in ohagi!!!
Ryukishi07
think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her, maybe he knew something she didn't.
Neal Stephenson
Men believe that they are accomplishing something by speaking speak in a different way from men who believe that speaking is a waste of time. Bobby Shaftoe learned most of his practical knowledge – how to fix a car, butcher a deer, throw a spiral, talk to a lady, kill a Nip – from the latter type of man. For them, trying to do anything by talking is like trying to pound in a nail with a screwdriver. Sometimes you can see the desperation spread over such a man’s face as he listens to himself speak.
Neal Stephenson
It was an unfamiliar feeling, waking up with a place to go, a place I was actually beginning to comprehend and face without a sense of terror.More than that, I was even questioning the assumption that I was, in my bones, a scared and anxious and miserable person. It felt like the days were almost supernaturally good, that I could wake up without the usual wave of terror, that the days were admixed with some foreign substance dripping into them, some animating essence, like the dragonborn races of Endoria, dragonborn days. I felt like I'd stumbled on one of the open secrets of the world. Why hadn't I realized before that being a grown-up could be anything you wanted it to be?
Austin Grossman
I'm going to tell you a secret:You don't have to believe every thought that pops into your head.
B. Dave Walters
Topology is destiny,' he said, and put the drawers on. One leg at a time.
Neal Stephenson
Life is not without pain, but life concerns itself with how we handle that pain, or joy, or confusion or triumph. Life is more than time passing before death, it is the sum and total of all we make of it.
Michael A. Stackpole
We all go through our entire lives not knowing. Wondering. Trying.Untile we sleep.
David Gaider
I'll be famous one day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons." - Greg Heffley,
Jeff Kinney
Tell yourself the stories you need to tell. But don't be fooled by them. Never live your own lies.
David Gaider
Alema said, 'Are you mad?'Ship thought it probably was, since it was beginning to take liking to her, but that was beside the point. The Emperor-to-Be was trying to break free; all they needed to do was open a hole for him.'Us and what f
Troy Denning
No, General. I'm not your subordinate. And what I'm coming dangerously close to is violence.-General Wedge Antilles
Aaron Allston