Andy Weir

"There is no one else," I said. "In this universe, there's just you and me." You stared blankly at me. "But all the people on earth…" "All you. Different incarnations of you." "Wait. I'm everyone!?" "Now you're getting it," I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. "I'm every human being who ever lived?" "Or who will ever live, yes." "I'm Abraham Lincoln?" "And you're John Wilkes Booth, too," I added. "I'm Hitler?" You said, appalled. "And you're the millions he killed." "I'm Jesus?" "And you're everyone who followed him." You fell silent. "Every time you victimized someone," I said, "you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you've done, you've done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you."

"As you can see, this plan provides many opportunities for me to die in a fiery explosion."

"You started my training by buying me a beer. For breakfast. Germans are awesome."

"Amazingly, some of the bacteria survived. The population is strong and growing. That’s pretty impressive, when you consider it was exposed to near-vacuum and subarctic temperatures for over twenty-four hours. My guess is pockets of ice formed around some of the bacteria, leaving a bubble of survivable pressure inside, and the cold wasn’t quite enough to kill them. With hundreds of millions of bacteria, it only takes one survivor to stave off extinction. Life is amazingly tenacious. They don’t want to die any more than I do."

"“It just goes to show,” Teddy said. “Love of science is universal across all cultures.”"

"“But seeing his status doesn’t help,” Mindy said. “It’s not like we can do anything about it if he falls behind. This is a pointless task.” “How long have you worked for the government?” Venkat sighed."

"Then I sat for a moment, dumbstruck that my plan had actually worked."

"I started the day with some nothin’ tea. Nothin’ tea is easy to make. First, get some hot water, then add nothin’."

"As a chemist, Vogel knew how to make a bomb. In fact, much of his training was to avoid making them by mistake."

"This allowed me to do what writers treasure more than anything else: catch the reader off-guard. There’s nothing better than knowing you’re going to outwit with the reader. And the type of people who read sci-fi are very difficult to outwit."

"What's your name?" The computer asks. I look down at my sheet toga. "I am the great philosopher Pendulus!" "Incorrect."