Dystopia Quotes

• The beauty of dystopia is that it lets us vicariously experience future worlds - but we still have the power to change our own.

  Ally Condie

  World, Power To Change, Stills

  "'Matched' Author Ally Condie's Guide To A Dystopian Holiday", www.mtv.com. December 2, 2011.

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• Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

  George Orwell

  Dream, Time, Peace

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 3 (1949) See Orwell 19

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• When we read dystopia, we root for these people to break free because we are these people; hoping and fighting against things that are bigger than ourselves.

  Ally Condie

  Fighting, Roots, People

  "'Matched' Author Ally Condie Explains Why Dystopian Novels Rock", www.mtv.com. May 6, 2011.

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• Utopian movements produce dystopias.

  Dennis Prager

  Movement, Produce, Utopian

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• No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?

  George Orwell

  Believe, Animal, Decision

  George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.20, Hamilton Books

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• War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

  George Orwell

  Strength, Peace, Freedom

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 1 (1949)

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• Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.

  Margaret Atwood

  Light, Numbers, People

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• Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?

  Anthony Burgess

  Men, Evil, Chosen

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• The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.

  Lois Lowry

  Pain, Past, Unexpected

  Lois Lowry (2014). “The Giver Quartet”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.

  Margaret Atwood

  Home, Night, People

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Feb 20, 2017

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• Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.

  George Orwell

  Worst Enemy, Nineteen, Nervous

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.52, Arcturus Publishing

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• The future is always a dystopia in movies.

  Alex Cox

  Interview with Maximilian Le Cain, sensesofcinema.com. January 2003.

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• Once you get into the world of dystopia, it's hard to avoid plagiarism, because other people have had such powerful visions.

  Anthony Horowitz

  Powerful, People, Vision

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• Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch – this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy.

  Suzanne Collins

  Kids, Watches, Way

  Suzanne Collins (2009). “The Hunger Games”, p.20, Scholastic Inc.

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• In movies and in television the robots are always evil. I guess I am not into the whole brooding cyberpunk dystopia thing.

  Daniel H. Wilson

  Evil, Robots, Television

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• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

  George Orwell

  Nineteen, April, Cold

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 1 (1949)

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• That's how we stay young these days: murder and suicide.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Suicide, Murder, These Days

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• The people at the NSA aren't trying to ruin your life. They're not trying to put you in authoritarian dystopia. These are normal people trying to do good work in hard circumstances.

  Edward Snowden

  Nsa, People, Trying

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

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• Detroit is a fascinating place, because things are so bad there that the dystopia has almost become utopian. People know they can't rely on the state, that public infrastructure is broken, and they've taken their own measures. People are growing their own food and selling their produce to local stores and restaurants. It's certainly not a fix-all; Detroit's problems are too deep-rooted for quick-fix solutions. But it's a hopeful sign. Detroiters are crafting their own solutions rather than being passive in the face of the city's and state's actions and inactions.

  Sasha Abramsky

  Taken, People, Broken

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• In the annals of science fiction, where dystopias rule the imaginative roost, Star Trek stood nearly alone in telling us that our future would be better than our past, that our common problems would be solved, that we, as a species, were fundamentally good, and that the universe would reward us for our goodness.

  Charles Shaar Murray

  Stars, Past, Rewards

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• I think the category of perpetual adolescence, it's a new thing, and it's a dangerous thing. Adolescence is a pretty glorious concept. It's about intentionally transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Being stuck in adolescence - that's a hell. Peter Pan is a dystopia, and we forget that.

  Benjamin E. Sasse

  Thinking, Childhood, Forget

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• So "Grand Theft Auto," for those who don't know, is the video game series where players pretend to drive cars around these virtual cities, getting points for winning street races and killing people and generally creating mayhem. So, of course, we should make the robots practice driving in a violent, lawless dystopia.

  Peter Sagal

  Winning, Player, Race

  Source: www.npr.org

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• ...I've spent the last fifteen years of my life railing against the game of soccer, an exercise that has been lauded as "the sport of the future" since 1977. Thankfully, that future dystopia has never come.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Soccer, Sports, Exercise

  Chuck Klosterman (2013). “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”, p.82, Faber & Faber

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