John Scalzi Quotations

Ultimately, the first, best step in getting your work noticed is to write good work. If people don't engage in your writing, no amount of serialization or free downloads is going to matter. You have to write something worth reading, and often it takes time to get at that level.

What we need to do, as writers, is find out where our market is and adapt to it. I'm not saying that you follow every trend slavishly, but what you see is that, if there is a sea-change in the way that things are being done, then you account for it.

When I'm writing a novel or doing other serious writing work, I do it on a schedule that dictates writing either 2,000 words a day or writing until noon. After I hit whichever mark comes first, then I can give my attention to everything else I have to do.

When I was 10, I was hit by a car, which turned my right tibia into a jigsaw puzzle.

Many of the writers who have inspired me most are outside the genre: Humorists like Robert Benchley and James Thurber, screenwriters like Ben Hecht and William Goldman, and journalists/columnists like H.L. Mencken, Mike Royko and Molly Ivins.

Personally speaking, when everything is boiled down to the marrow, I think the reason Reddit tolerates the creepy forums has to do with money more than anything else.

I would say I'm a medium-sized 'Star Trek' fan. I love the universe that it's created.

I don't keep a Bucket List. I'm open to anything.

I find it difficult to believe that Redditors don't understand that anonymity online is merely a facade; indeed, it's probably one of the reasons that revealing the identity of pseudonymous Redditors is looked on as such a huge betrayal.

I don't think we're at the point where most people are willing to get rid of body parts and replace them, but then again, people who shoot lasers in their eyes come out with better-than-perfect vision.

Humor is rare in science fiction... there's so little of it that it automatically reminds you of other heroes with that acerbic humor when you find it.

I think that what I do, in terms of how I craft my words rhetorically, is fairly simple stuff. I don't mean that to denigrate myself. I mean that in the sense of, when I write, the person that I keep in mind is my mother-in-law.

Reddit is not a public utility or a public square; it's a privately owned space on the Internet.

People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning.

I tell people the first time I decided to write a novel I was in my mid-20s, and it was, 'Well, it's time to see if I can do this.' I basically flipped a coin to see if I was going to write science fiction or if I was going to do a crime novel. The coin toss went to science fiction.

People start panicking because they think it's the end of everything. But the fact is, you know, books survived movies; books survived TV. Books are surviving manga and anime. Books will always be there in one form or another. You just have a larger palette of entertainment options.

People are worried about their bodies. They're worried about disease. They're worried about how they are able to get out and participate in the world.

The way that I write novels in particular is I don't usually outline; I just write. Part of the fun is discovering what's happening in the story as I'm going along.

There's always been a little bit of tension between the writers of science fiction literature and then science-fiction televised shows or movies, partly because they have a different dynamic.

It took me eight books to finally be at a point in my career where I could come out with a book and say, 'This is meant to be a funny book,' and we didn't have to make any bones about it.

I'm perfectly fine with the fact that lots of young folks are wanting to watch anime and read manga. I'm perfectly happy that they are doing things online, reading there as opposed to traditional print magazines.

By the time I'm 75 and I have a new hip, and my eyes are laser cleaned of cataracts, I wont think I'm a bionic man. I think that's just how technology works. The posthuman future of humanity will not announce itself; it will just creep up on us.

I failed angst in high school. They let me graduate anyway.

Ultimately the first, best step in getting your work noticed is to write good work. If people don't engage in your writing, no amount of serialization or free downloads is going to matter. You have to write something worth reading, and often it takes time to get at that level.

GamerGate is about harassing, threatening and silencing women. Started that way, has been that way all along. Dont pretend otherwise.

I both love and am terrified by Greg Van Eekhout's vision of Los Angeles. I already want to go back.

When it came time to make the audiobook, Audible did an ingenious thing: they asked both Wil Wheaton and Amber Benson to record entire versions of the book. As the author, I'm impressed with Audible's commitment to my narrative -- and I'm geeking out that both Wil and Amber are reading my book. This is fantastic.

If your flirting strategy is indistinguishable from harassment, it's not everyone else that's the problem.

We've already established whoever is writing us is an asshole.

My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid. I miss that sort of security, and that sort of connection with someone.

I don't care whether I really exist or don't, whether I'm real or fictional. What I want right now is to be the person who decides my own fate.

I thought I saw him once, but it turned out to be a yeti

I'm not insane, sir. I have a finely calibrated sense of acceptable risk.

When you lose someone you love, you die too, and you wait around for your body to catch up.

Here's a quick rule of thumb: Don't annoy science fiction writers. These are people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they'll do to you.

Fear is a scavenger who feeds on the future; on what may be and what is possible, extending down the line of our lives.

Fear sits and smiles and is predatory, immobile and silent and serene; an observer who conserves his energy and is content to wait.

The original sin of Republicans is greed. Everyone understands greed. Everybody wants to get theirs. The original sin of Democrats is pity. Greed is more attractive, and a better motivator, than pity.

If the universe is bigger and stranger than I can imagine, it's best to meet it with an empty bladder.

You do what you have to do to give people closure; it makes them feel better and it doesn't cost you much to do it. I'd rather apologize for something I didn't really care about and leave someone on Earth wishing me well.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.

Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to 'get off my property.' News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.

When you're a kid all you want to do is be somewhere else.

Guns don’t kill people. The aliens behind the triggers do.

Christianity is a fine religion and I wish more Christians practiced it.

I know a little bit about deaf culture because a friend of mine has been in the deaf culture for awhile. Over the course of 25 years, she and I have talked about many of the issues and concerns for deaf people and deaf culture.

The Scooby gang doesn't travel because they are looking for crimes to solve. They travel because they're one step ahead of the deprogrammers. Somehow, Fred's got them all snookered. It probably has something to do with the Scooby Snacks.

I can describe to you the taste of government cheese.

As a reader, I have a very short attention span and a low tolerance for boredom, and I find that comes in handy with my writing. If I get bored writing something, I pity the people who will then try to read it.

The more I want a book to be done, the faster I type because I just want to get it out.

I grew up in southern California in the 80s. Yes, I am a walking cliche.

I will not let my sales figures dictate what I say on the blog, because the blog is what I want to say.

I do think people of good will can have different opinions but still be coming not from a place of malice.

Do what you need to do and enjoy life as it happens.

Reddit is not a public utility or a public square; its a privately owned space on the Internet.

The story of how I left Huckleberry begins -- as do all worthy stories -- with a goat

There's a difference between the fact that the universe is inherently unfair on a cosmic level, and the fact that life is unfair because people are actively making it so.

Never anger a sci-fi writer. These people destroy entire planets over lunch. Imagine what they'll do to you.

In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug," Cassaway said, dryly.

Star Wars is not entertainment. Star Wars is George Lucas masturbating to a picture of Joseph Campbell and conning billions of people into watching the money shot.

I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.

When you're a teenager and you're in love, it's obvious to everyone but you and the person you're in love with.

It's easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she's never been anything but dead, than to miss her at all the places where she was alive.

If your social consciousness seems stuck in 1975, 2014 is gonna be a rough ride.

Sooner or later the Narrative will come for each of us.

You would rather face a life without me than to have me choose a life I would not choose for myself.

Now, you may think that this is some sort of generalized hatred that I will carry for the lot of you. Let me assure you that this is not the case. Each of you will fail, but you will fail in your own unique way, and therefore I will dislike each of you on an individual basis.

Don’t discount that part of who he was just because you didn’t know it. None of us are all of who we are to any one person.

Part of what makes us human is what we mean to other people, and what people mean to us.

I am not responsible for actions of the imaginary version of me you have inside your head.

I didn't mind getting old when I was young. It's the being old now that's getting to me.

If you want me to treat your ideas with more respect, get some better ideas.

Engrave this in your brain: EVERY WRITER GETS REJECTED. You will be no different.