119
Contextualization matters more than words
In common speech, the quote is fairly vague, and likely only those who have seen the movie would understand the reference (at least, right away, to the desired effect). But by prefacing it with "Luke", you cue people in to the reference better by offering more context.
It's quite similar to how Kirk never said "...
98
It's from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
It even has its own entry on the Wikipedia page for H2G2:
In the series, Don't Panic is a phrase on the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The novel explains that this was partly because the device "looked insanely complicated" to operate, and partly to keep intergalactic travellers from ...
84
You're referring to the quote below from Small Gods between the Great God Om (presently in the form of a small turtle) and his acolyte Brother Brutha (presently in the form of a slightly befuddled young man) on the relative worth of philosophers to society.
“The reason why Omnia hasn’t got much of a fleet any more,” said Om. “That’s why it’s always worth ...
80
This is from Star Trek III:
Kirk: How much refit time till we can take [the Enterprise] out again?
Scotty: Eight weeks, sir. (as Kirk opens his mouth) But you don't have eight weeks, so I'll do it for ya in two.
Kirk: (considers) Mr. Scott. Have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?
Scotty: Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my ...
72
I think you might be referring to this one:
Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.
Terry Pratchett - Mort
Or alternatively, this one:
Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as ...
65
This is the closest I can find, from TNG: Relics
Geordi La Forge: Look, Mr. Scott, I'd love to explain everything to you, but the Captain wants this spectrographic analysis done by
1300 hours.
[La Forge goes back to work; Scotty follows slowly]
Scotty: Do you mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything ...
60
J.R.R. Tolkien was a noted prescriptivist, regarding Shakespearean neologisms as a bastardization of English and attempting to prescribe specific rules for the usage of his own invented languages.
The guide to prescriptivist English, The Elements of Style says:
Shall, Will. In formal writing, the future tense requires shall for the first person, will ...
58
The question Louise Banks poses is as follows:
DR. BANKS: Before you commit to him… ask him the Sanskrit word for “war” and its
translation.
It’s a way of challenging the other linguist’s qualifications, and it is indeed the same question she later answers.
Later, we hear the other linguist’s response, as relayed by the army handler:
Gavisti.1 He says ...
53
It's a reference to the use of Logo (a programming language) to control robots referred to as "turtles".
51
Robert Heinlein had a long rant about cars in The Rolling Stones:
Despite their great sizes and tremendous power spaceships are surprisingly simple machines. Every technology goes through three stages:
first a crudely simple and quite unsatisfactory gadget; second, an
enormously complicated group of gadgets designed to overcome the
short-comings of ...
48
He says "Vi har funnet et jævla romvesen! Skål!".
An accurate translation would be something along the lines of "We've found a fu**ing alien! Cheers!".
Some interesting facts:
The word "romvesen" does not literally translate to "alien". An alien refers to anything that does not belong or is not native, like a mexican in Norway. However, norwegians use the ...
47
This is from Maskerade, in relation to Greebo the cat's transformation into a human.
The allusion is that it's very hard to do something once (e.g. turn a cat into a man) but that once it had happened, it was infinitely easier to accomplish again.
But magic is never as simple as people think. It has to obey certain universal laws. And one is that, no matter ...
46
I found it! It's in the third book of the Robots cycle, The Robots of Dawn (chapter 2: "Daneel"), and said by Daneel, as you correctly guess (emphasis mine):
“Of a certainty, Partner Elijah. It is a pleasure to see you.”
“You feel emotion, do you?” said Baley lightly.
“I cannot say what I feel in any human sense, Partner Elijah. I can say, however,...
45
To be on the safe side, just consider this entire answer to be one big spoiler:
The other answers touch on this explanation, but I'll do the long version. The statement by itself could be taken as Saruman simply trying to intimidate Gandalf & party, but when you look at the entire conversation it takes on a different tone. Let's take a look at the scene ...
44
The reason for the similarity may simply be that it is a commonplace thought, neither unique to nor original with Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Yale Book of Quotations gives these examples:
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1580):
C'est dequoy j'ay le plus de peur que la peur.
The thing I fear the most is fear.
Francis Bacon (1623):
Nothing is terrible ...
43
There are many parallels between the two stories but the specific word "Hero", in the context you require, I believe only occurs in "An Unexpected Party", chapter one in The Hobbit:
Thorin & Gandalf are back-and-forthing about the various difficulties that lie along the way when Thorin eventually talks about heading up the river ...
41
Yoda is referring to the first interpretation you offer. I admit, upon looking at the quote written down it is somewhat ambiguous, but in the context in which Yoda made that comment he was clearly referring to his inability to achieve immortality. The latter interpretation is only possible due to Yoda's strange speech pattern, not the intended inference.
39
Disclaimer: I've never seen Babylon 5 (although I plan to), but I'll give this a go!
It basically means "don't get caught up in the constraints of life"
I came across this article which I would encourage you to read. In this article, they basically say that the phrase "My shoes are too tight, but it doesn't matter, because I have forgotten how to dance" ...
38
(There is a TL;DR at the end for those who don't care about Sanskrit or grammar.)
Adamant's answer is pretty excellent, but as a holder of a BA in Sanskrit & Linguistics, perhaps I can add something. I failed two of my exams, but what can you do?
The question is:
DR. BANKS: Before you commit to him… ask him the Sanskrit word for “war” and its ...
36
Towards the end of the Council of Elrond there's a dialog which seems like it fits your question. First, Elron says (my emphasis):
...'The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that ...
34
The quote is from an untitled 2008 short story sold at a charity auction:
'Things'll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheeky little--'
Quotes: Harry Potter: The Prequel (Harry Potter 0.5) (Goodreads)
More information: Harry Potter prequel (Wikipedia)
Full transcript: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Potter_Prequel
33
As DavidW says in the comments, the dialog in Fit the Sixth of the radio series is slightly different, and does include (very nearly) that quote.
ARTHUR: That's it. Six by nine. Forty-two. I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
(Note, the book of the original scripts includes the sentence "Something's certainly got ...
29
There is also this quote from Robots and Empire:
"Are you pleased that you will be seeing Elijah Baley again?"
"I am not certain, Madam Gladia, how best to describe my inner state. It may be that it is analogous to what a human being would describe as being pleased."
"But you must feel something."
"I feel as though I can ...
28
This was inserted into the Scholastic (US) edition and does not appear in the earlier Bloomsbury (UK) edition. See page 264 of The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon:
In Bloomsbury's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, just after Ron and Harry find themselves blocked from entering platform nine and three quarters, Ron ...
28
I think this is a scene not from "Ender's Game", but its sequel "Speaker for the Dead". In a thoughtless moment Ender turns off the connection to "Jane", the AI consciousness that is bound to him, and she is deeply hurt by this.
So when he reached up to his ear and turned off the interface for the
first time since he had ...
25
“There are thousands,” someone called from behind Chett.
“We’ll die.” That was Maslyn’s voice, green with fear.
“Die,” screamed Mormont’s raven, flapping its black wings. “Die, die, die.”
“Many of us,” the Old Bear said. “Mayhaps even all of us. But as another Lord Commander said a thousand years ago, that is why they dress us in black. Remember your words, ...
25
I think the OP is conflating the passage from Cryptonomicon which @JohnRennie posted, and a passage from chapter 61 of Snow Crash between Hiro and Juanita:
"Why? Why doesn't [the cult of Asherah] work on you?"
"I've spent the last several years hanging around with Jesuits," she
says. "Look. Your brain has an immune system, just ...
25
Another possibility is the conversation between Sam and Frodo in the chapter The Stairs of Cirith Ungol:
The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was ...
24
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a.k.a H2G2).
In the original radio series of H2G2, Arthur Dent is looking at the cover of the in-Universe book, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which says: Don't Panic.
Arthur: Don't Panic. That's the first helpful or intelligible thing anyone's said to me all day.
Ford Prefect: That's why it sells so well.
The ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
