100
votes
Accepted
What is "DON'T PANIC" a reference to on the dashboard of Elon Musk's car?
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. ...
- 136k
91
votes
Accepted
Pratchett Quote about Research and Development
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 ...
- 718k
77
votes
Accepted
Who said "One person, one vote. I just happened to be the person voting"?
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; ...
- 10.9k
66
votes
Accepted
Was Douglas Adams specifically joking about British small talk?
At the time he wrote the original radio series and first novel, Adams had lived his entire life in England, and was writing for a British audience, so a lot of the cultural references are based on ...
- 2,477
65
votes
Accepted
What is the linguistic challenge Louise uses in the beginning of "Arrival"?
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 ...
- 119k
65
votes
Accepted
In what context did Tolkien say "evil cannot create anything new"?
It doesn't appear to be anything that Tolkien ever said or wrote, but a paraphrase:
"No, they eat and drink, Sam. The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of ...
- 11.3k
58
votes
Accepted
What does this quote in Small Gods refer to?
It's a reference to the use of Logo (a programming language) to control robots referred to as "turtles".
- 718k
52
votes
What is the linguistic challenge Louise uses in the beginning of "Arrival"?
(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 ...
- 29.6k
51
votes
Looking for quote about the absurdity of people driving cars
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 ...
- 53.7k
50
votes
What are all the times Gandalf was either late or early?
It's hard to catch Gandalf on this, because he'll just retort the second half of the line, that whenever he came actually was when he meant to come.
So you'll have up look for places where Gandalf ...
- 96.1k
46
votes
Accepted
Daneel or Giskard quote about functioning more efficiently, similar to happiness
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....
- 20.6k
44
votes
Is there a conversation regarding heroes and common people in "The Lord of the Rings"?
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:...
- 7,410
42
votes
Accepted
Faith cannot move mountains but can create someone who can (Discworld)
The quote is indeed from Reaper Man, but concerns belief rather than faith. The exact quote is:
Belief is one of the most powerful organic forces in the multiverse.
It may not be able to move ...
37
votes
Is there a conversation regarding heroes and common people in "The Lord of the Rings"?
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 ...
- 42.4k
35
votes
Accepted
Which Harry Potter novel is the quote "Things are gonna get serious for you" from?
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....
- 17.5k
35
votes
Accepted
Did Douglas Adams say "I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe."?
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 ...
- 66.5k
35
votes
Need source for the inverse of "Clarke's Third Law"
This was quoted in the Fall 1989 edition of the Keystone Folklore Archives. It also appears somewhat earlier in the 1984 edition of Keystone Folklore, identified as being on page 26 in "Volumes 2-...
- 718k
34
votes
Accepted
Which Terry Pratchett book starts with "Zoom in"?
Chapter 12 of Wings starts out:
Find a blue planet...
Focus
This is a planet. Most of it is covered with water, but it's still called Earth.
Find a country...
Focus
...blues and greens and browns ...
- 143k
32
votes
Accepted
Looking for a Discworld quote involving Rincewind running away and not looking behind
From Interesting Times:
A less practised runner would have risked a glance behind, but Rincewind instinctively knew all about wind drag and the tendency for inconvenient rocks to position themselves ...
- 2,752
29
votes
Daneel or Giskard quote about functioning more efficiently, similar to happiness
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 ...
- 11k
29
votes
In what context did Garak (ST:DS9) speak of a lie between two truths?
I don't think it was Garak. The line comes from "Deep Throat" on The X-Files. "A lie, Mr Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths." (S1E7-EBE)
...
- 9,400
28
votes
Accepted
Quote from Discworld about Ankh-Morpork tolerance and greed
The closest I can find - specifically talking about diverse peoples - is a line from Reaper Man:
Ankh-Morpork has always had a fine tradition of welcoming people of all races, colours and shapes, if ...
- 143k
27
votes
Accepted
Which sci-fi book is this quote from?
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 ...
27
votes
Accepted
Source of Heinlein quote, “I don’t see how an article of clothing can be indecent. A person, yes.”
It's a slight variation on a line from Job: A Comedy of Justice (Chapter 16):
"What? Because those shorts, worn alone, are indecent!"
"I don't see how an article of clothing can be ...
- 143k
27
votes
Is this Peter Pan quote attributable to J.M.Barrie?
This book about men in Disney movies says the line is a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 1:9 which says (in the Good News Translation):
What has happened before will happen again, What has been done before ...
- 57.2k
26
votes
Is there a conversation regarding heroes and common people in "The Lord of the Rings"?
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 ...
- 66.5k
26
votes
Who said, "The only way to model an infinitely complex system is with the system, itself"?
I believe this is from Asimov's Prelude to Foundation (1988) chapter 32;
"The LPS - that is, 'the least possible simulation' - gains in complexity faster than the object being simulated does and ...
- 360
26
votes
Quote from Discworld about Ankh-Morpork tolerance and greed
Possibly Pyramids
There had been one or two like that in Ankh-Morpork—deposed royalty,
who had fled their suddenly-dangerous kingdoms for Ankh’s hospitable
bosom carrying nothing but the clothes they ...
- 718k
25
votes
What is "DON'T PANIC" a reference to on the dashboard of Elon Musk's car?
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: ...
- 6,317
25
votes
Looking for a Neal Stephenson passage on religion as inoculation / vaccination / prophylactic
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]...
- 26.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible