Paranoid Quotes

“Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.”
― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

“They speak very well of you".
- "They speak very well of everybody."
- "That so bad?"
- "Yes. It means you can´t trust them.”
― Iain M. Banks

“In this world only the paranoid survive.”
― Dean Koontz, Midnight

“If we want to avoid becoming overly paranoid while still maintaining a healthy level of vigilance, we must balance trust and caution without letting fear dominate our interactions with others or living merely on assumptions or stereotypes. (“Could the milkman be the devil?)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Imagine a young Isaac Newton time-travelling from 1670s England to teach Harvard undergrads in 2017. After the time-jump, Newton still has an obsessive, paranoid personality, with Asperger’s syndrome, a bad stutter, unstable moods, and episodes of psychotic mania and depression. But now he’s subject to Harvard’s speech codes that prohibit any “disrespect for the dignity of others”; any violations will get him in trouble with Harvard’s Inquisition (the ‘Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion’). Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can’t get a decent book deal until Newton builds his ‘author platform’ to include at least 20k Twitter followers – without provoking any backlash for airing his eccentric views on ancient Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse.

Newton wouldn’t last long as a ‘public intellectual’ in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensive’ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he’d drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn’t have Newton’s Laws of Motion.”
― Geoffrey Miller

“I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of trying to make me happy”
― J.D. Salinger

“Cautious was helpful; paranoid was just another word for distracted.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House

“You have already lost if you are always fearful of losing everything.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“Just because we don't understand why they'd cover up something doesn't mean they aren't," Bobby said, and we both turned to look at him.
"Now you just sound paranoid," I said.
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you," Bobby said with an expression so serious that I couldn't help but laugh.”
― Amanda Hocking, Wisdom

“I knew it was coming. I knew they didn't have the nerve.
Three days in and they've got faces like vexed tomatoes, their skins flaking sci-fi style: burnt to fuck. They were an embarrassment; not only to me and the wife and The Fall fans but to their own generation.”
― Mark E. Smith, Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith

“Every paranoid person is right at least once, said the tall sergeant. When he dies.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“The anticipation of loss is much more frightening than the actual loss as anticipation leaves room for the imagination to create that which, in all likelihood, will never transpire.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Are those conspirators that you spy through your window or is it a mirror reflecting the chattering parasites in your mind?”
― Stewart Stafford

“Can I say something out loud? Is anybody listening?"
"Everybody. Nobody. Does it matter?”
― Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice

“Sadly, it seems that I have the proclivity to create plenty of devils, but most of the time I don’t even go looking for angels.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“I became convinced that I was being watched.

Because self was still leaking everywhere, a part of me began to think it was Mizuko rather than a stranger. I hoped that there might still be a reunion. I hoped it in the shy, sly way hope comes out of the jar, the mistranslated box, last—after everything and everyone else has escaped.”
― Olivia Sudjic, Sympathy

“Most of us feel isolated and paranoid during stressful times. We feel alone in the wilderness.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“They are all paranoid." Apparently, this voice does not see itself in the "all" of dementia.”
― Lamine Pearlheart

“Conspiracy theorists, she knew, were paranoid by definition, and usually with good reason – they were indeed being watched, largely because they were standing on an upturned bucket, haranguing the sheeple about their wingnut delusions.”
― Mick Herron, Real Tigers

“It’s all supposed to be so innocent, upwardly mobile snob, designer shades, beret, so desperate to show he’s got good taste, except he’s also dyslexic so he gets ‘good taste’ mixed up with ‘taste good,’ but it’s worse than that! Far, far worse! Charlie really has this, like, obsessive death wish! Yes! he, wants to be caught, processed, put in a can, not just any can, you dig, it has to be StarKist! suicidal brand loyalty, man, deep parable of consumer capitalism, they won’t be happy with anything less than drift-netting us all, chopping us up and stacking us on the shelves of Suprmarket Amerika, and subconsciously the horrible thing is, is we want them to do it. . . .”
“Saunch, wow, that’s. . .”
“It’s been on my mind. And another thing. Why is there Chicken of the Sea, but no Tuna of the Farm?”
“Um. . .” Doc actually beginning to think about this.
“And don’t forget,” Sauncho went on to remind him darkly, “that Charles Manson and the Vietcong are also named Charlie.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice

“Love makes humans petty and cruel, Full of arrogance, lacking in decorum. Suspicious and paranoid beyond reason. And though it cannot last forever, it drives humans to sacrifice all they have.”
― Yūji Kaku, 地獄楽 12 [Jigokuraku 12]

“Only the Paranoid Survive...”
― Andrew Grove

“If my attitude is that the world is out to get me, it’s more likely that my attitude is really what’s out to get me.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“I DON'T KNOW

What is it, to live
Is it to dream, or is it about way back when?
Is it to hassle, or is it about peace?
Is it to hope, or is it about being atheist?

What is it, to lose
Is it to win, or is it about the big bad world outside?
Is it to repeat, or is it about traversing the road less taken?
Is it to sympathy, or is it about trying to make it all worthwhile?

What is it, to die
Is it to cry, or is it about the starry sky?
Is it to love, or is it about the armageddon?
Is it to rest, or is it about when you are done with all the forty winks?

Maybe say yes, or maybe say no
Ugh, how I wish I could know!
Maybe it's a lie, or maybe con
It seems I can't tell anymore!”
― Dishebh Bhayana

“Paranoia, why do you keep watching me?”
― Steven Magee

“For months the previous year she had monitored message boards for suggestions of terrorist activity, and while she'd never entirely thrown off the suspicion that every other poster she encountered was an undercover cop, she'd grown used to eavesdropping on tin-hat conversations, from how the government was controlling the weather to the thought-experiments carried out on anyone who rang HMRC helplines. And all of these philosophers, without exception, were convinced they were under surveillance, their every online foray or mobile chat recorded and stored for future use. That this was probably true was an irrelevance, of course; they were simply caught in the same net as everyone else. Louisa had never trapped a terrorist; never stopped a bomb. She'd read it lot of discussions about 9/11, obviously, but contributions from structural engineers had been conspicuous by their absence. And while the helpline thing wag probably true, that was just the law of averages at work.”
― Mick Herron, Real Tigers

“More often than not, bad things only seem big because they talk themselves up in our head.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“I had to remind myself of all the ways that he might be Buffalo Bill, and my erotically charged moment was his puts the lotion on its skin. He could take me anywhere. He looked like the kind of guy who'd be savvy about which highway exit had the best wooded area for dumping a body. Maybe that was why he drove a truck. Which I was currently sitting in.
Which of those options honestly scared me more--- that he could be up to some dark shit, or just that I had a crush? Maybe my true crime reading had desensitized me after all, because I knew which of those made my heart speed up.”
― Alicia Thompson, Love in the Time of Serial Killers

“According to many experts the majority of the people won't be needed anymore for the coming society. Almost everything will be done by artificial intelligence, including self-driving cars and trucks, which already exist anyway. Some even mentioned that AI is making universities obsolete by how fast it can produce information. However, In my view, the AI has limitations that the many can't see, because on a brain to brain comparison, the AI always wins, yet the AI can only compute with programmable data. In other words, the AI can think like a human but can't imagine or create a future. The AI is always codependent on the imagination of its user. So the limitations of the AI are in fact determined by humans. It is not bad that we have AI but that people have no idea of how to use it apart from replacing their mental faculties and being lazy. This is actually why education has always been a scam. The AI will simply remove that from the way. But knowledge will still require analysis and input of information, so the AI doesn't really replace the necessary individuals of the academic world, but merely the many useless ones that keep copying and plagiarizing old ideas to justify and validate a worth they don't truly possess. Being afraid and paranoid about these transitions doesn't make sense because evolution can't be stopped, only delayed. The problem at the moment has more to do with those who want to keep themselves in power by force and profiting from the transitions. The level of consciousness of humanity is too low for what is happening, which is why people are easily deceived. Consequently, there will be more anger, fear, and frustration, because for the mind that is fixed on itself, change is perceived as chaos. The suffering is then caused by emotional attachments, stubbornness and the paranoid fixation on using outdated systems and not knowing how to adapt properly. In essence, AI is a problem for the selfish mind - rooted in cognitive rationalizations -, but an opportunity of great value for the self-reflective mind - capable of a metacognitive analysis. And the reason why nobody seems to understand this is precisely because, until now, everyone separated the mind from the spirit, while not knowing how a spiritual ascension actually goes through the mind. And this realization, obviously, will turn all religions obsolete too. Some have already come to this conclusion, and they are the ones who are ready.”
― Dan Desmarques

“A Sharing Shearing by Stewart Stafford

A sartorial accoutrement,
The hijacking blister overruns,
Morphs into a restless jockey
A green-eyed stallion mounted.

Sense deep neck bite wounds,
In the snarling invisible attacks,
The naysayers whisper to you:
"Burglars ransack the home."

A blade tip runs down the spine,
Walk a plank of splintered avarice,
Seize the weapon from the intruder,
Cut out the mouth ulcer in exorcism.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford