Quotes by Randall Munroe

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how theyll turn out. Youre curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because youre waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go.

Its weird how I am constantly surprised by the passage of time when its literally the most predictable thing in the Universe.

So Yoda sounds like our best bet as an energy source. But with world electricity consumption pushing 2 terawatts, it would take a hundred million Yodas to meet our demands. All things considered, switching to Yoda power probably isnt worth the trouble — though it would definitely be green.

Whatever happened to our dreams? The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and Im sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us. And no, I dont have all the answers. I dont know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesnt involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of someday easing my fit into a mold. It doesnt involve tempering my life to better fit someones expectations. It doesnt involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up. This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

Telescopes and bathyscapes and sonar probes of Scottish lakes, Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse explained with abstract phase-space maps, some x-ray slides, a music score, Minards Napoleonic war: the most exciting new frontier is charting whats already here.

The role of gender in society is the most complicated thing I’ve ever spent a lot of time learning about, and I’ve spent a lot of time learning about quantum mechanics.

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that theres no good reason to go into space - each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

If you were standing in the path of the beam, you would obviously die pretty quickly. You wouldnt really die of anything, in the traditional sense. You would just stop being biology and start being physics.

“Its weird how I am constantly surprised by the passage of time when its literally the most predictable thing in the Universe.”

“So Yoda sounds like our best bet as an energy source. But with world electricity consumption pushing 2 terawatts, it would take a hundred million Yodas to meet our demands. All things considered, switching to Yoda power probably isnt worth the trouble — though it would definitely be green.”