Quotes / Paranoia Fuel

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Spike: Do you really think this was too much for Twilight? That she ‘snapped under the strain?’ She came here and passed this ‘test’ with flying colors! Just like every other test Princess Celestia has thrown at her.
Princess Cadence: Then why –?
Spike: Lemme try again, just like all of the other hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tests Princess Celestia has thrown at her. Day in, day out. Big tests, little tests, surprise tests, trick tests she wasn’t supposed to pass... every single day since she became Celestia’s student, Celestia has been testing her.
Princess Cadence: I think you exaggerate a bit.
Spike: Cadence, you’re talking to a guy who’s birthday was Twilight Sparkle’s very first test.
Princess Cadence: Ah... well... true...
Spike: She was supposed to fail that one too, by the way.
Princess Cadence: Errrrmm...
Spike: Right. You get it. Ever since Twilight was a filly, it’s been like this. She’s never known when the next test or trial or challenge was gonna come, or if she was being tested in some way right that very minute. Why do you think she studies all the time? Why she makes all those checklists? Why she flips out if everything doesn’t go exactly to schedule? The stress has made her completely bonkers.

"It could happen to anybody!"

Kent Mansley: You know, Hogarth, we live in a strange and wondrous time: the Atomic Age. But there's a dark side to progress, Hogarth. Ever hear of Sputnik?
Hogarth: Yeah, first satellite in space.
Kent Mansley: Foreign satellite, Hogarth, and all that implies. Even now it orbits overhead - (Gestures with spoon) Boop! Boop! - watching us. We can't see it but it's there.

"From now on, you must take good care of your toys. Because if you don't, we'll find out, Sid. We toys (cue Exorcist Head) can see evvvvrryyythingggg... So play nice."

"I'm gonna kill you. I am going to kill you. Not now. Not tonight. That would be too easy. Maybe next week. Next month. You'll never know. Think about it."

Galdalf: A palantìr is a dangerous tool, Saruman.
Saruman: Why? Why should we fear to use it?
Gandalf: They are not all accounted for, the lost seeing-stones. We do not know who else may be watching.

Logan Wallace: Have you ever thought about how, like, weird open houses are?
Naomi Wallace: What?
Logan: I mean, you give your keys to someone you hardly know, they stand in one room and welcome in a bunch of complete strangers, and those people just roam around the house. And the realtor doesn't check the house when it's done, right? They just... turn the lights off and go?
Naomi: Okay, well, now I'm not gonna sleep tonight.
Logan: Maybe you shouldn't sleep tonight.

"He's everywhere. Everywhere! He's sitting at your desk, he's kissing your lover, he's eating supper with your family!"

If I was an imitation, a perfect imitation, how would you know if it was really me?

You guys gonna listen to Garry? You gonna let him give the orders? I mean, he could be one of those things!

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

How do you know who is a Controller and who isn't? That's the problem. You don't. You can look deep into the eyes of the person you trust most and never, ever guess that behind those eyes is an alien parasite.

Now you know why I won't tell you my last name. Or where I live. Not even what state. See, I want to live.

"There's a word for people who think everyone's out to get them."
"PERCEPTIVE!"

"Alaska is very cold and no place to run. I would find you. I can track your cell phone— remember?"

"Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck."

"Well, you say that you're paranoid, but I have a report here that says you looked "very relaxed" in the bath this morning."

Capt. Benjamin Sisko: What if it wasn't a dream? What if this life we're leading, all of this, you and me, everything; what if all this is the illusion?
Joseph Sisko: That's a scary thought.
->Benjamin Sisko: "I know, I know. But maybe, just maybe, Benny isn't the dream; we are. Maybe we're nothing more than figments of his imagination. For all we know, at this very moment, somewhere far beyond all those distant stars, Benny Russell is dreaming of us.

"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away"

"Just because you're paranoid
Don't mean they're not after you"

"I don't know anymore
Are the neighbors watching me?
Well, is the mailman watching me?!
And I don't feel safe anymore,
Oh, what a mess
I wonder who's watching me now
Who, the IRS?!"

"He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake"

"There's a shark in the pool and a witch in the tree
A crazy old neighbor and he's been watching me
And there's footsteps loud and strong coming down the hall
Something's under the bed, now it's out in the hedge
There's a big black crow sitting on my window ledge
And I hear something scratching through the wall"

I can’t trust anyone. Some of them are really good at hiding it, so I have to assume the worst. If I can figure out how it happens, maybe I can avoid it. But what then? How high does it go? Am I the only one left? They want to make me one of them; I can tell by the way they approach me, try to get me to go along with them. But how does it happen? There has to be a way to stay myself. Of course, that’s assuming it’s not already too late.

Some of my friends say they see it too, that we need to stick together. But can I trust them? What if it’s all part of a plot to replace me? What if they are thinking the exact same thing? Even if we are all still human, can I trust them not to make a fatal mistake?

The paranoia such clones create in Tradition mages, and even our colleagues in the Conventions, is extreme. One never knows whether his spouse, child, master, or even beloved pet could in truth be a Progenitor agent.

Drones are watching you. The most important and probably the most (if only) accurate assumption you can make about Drones is that they're everywhere. No, of course not literally; these guys are probably even rarer than gorgons and damn rarer than fomori. But that doesn't mean that the assumption is flawed. You should assume that they're everywhere, because they could be. The guy sitting in the parked car across from your place might be a Drone; the bank teller might be tapped into the OneSong; your credit cards, email accounts and online memberships may well have been tagged (you were keeping an eye on those already, right?). We're a people at war, and we may be staring at a new kind of enemy trooper. A little paranoia goes a long way.

Dynamo: So, you're in the Sandman Division!
Haze: Yes.
Dynamo: Are there a lot of you?
Haze: Enough that we call ourselves a division.
Dynamo: It's a rather unsettling idea.
Haze: We like it that way.

"You are being watched. Your servants are being watched. Your slaves are being watched. The unblinking eyes of the lord of NATION is ever watching your moves, peering over your shoulders, glaring at you from the sun, watching you from the shadows. By taking the first steps towards omniscience, PRETENDER has set himself on a path, that if not blocked will lead him to ascension. Obviously there is only one fitting punishment for this grotesque arrogance, you must blind these ever-present eyes"

Emma Emmerich: Do you know how many genes exist in an individual?
Raiden: About 30 to 40 thousand...?
Emma: Right. That's what was announced at the turn of the century. But there's actually 100 thousand, according to the original theory advanced by the scientific community. Information regarding the remaining 60 thousand was suppressed by the Patriots.
Raiden: (incredulous) No!
Emma: Why? How would you know? Do you know what a gene looks like? Did you count them yourself?

"Look behind you. I said, look behind you."

'"Princess Celestia": I can feel you trembling. You're wondering if you've already let one of us in, aren't you? You look at your guests and you search for a flaw, but you'll never be sure. That's the real torture. The not knowing.
Twilight Sparkle: I trust the ponies I let in.
'"Princess Celestia": Trust is a very fragile thing to bet your life on. Every time you turn your back to sleep, you wonder if you've already made your last mistake. You're more afraid of the pony in the next room than you are of me.

James: It's good to be alive!
Dave: You could wake up with cancer.
James: But I'm healthy!
Dave: Healthy people still get cancer.

Tessa: Can I ask what this is about? Was that drawing a monster you saw?
Anemone ...Yes. Outside your window, on most nights.

"Do not be afraid, my dear shepherds. I have great news. I am your true savior. I know everything about what makes you human. I know what you love. I know what you dread."

"Do you ever get the feeling you was being watched?"

"He's- he's everywhere! He could be in this cake, or in this punch, or in this present!"

"Elmo knows where you live!"

"Can't sleep! Clown will eat me!"

"Before Lethal Weapon 2 I didn't think there could be a bomb in my toilet, but now I check every time."

"The trouble is, some children are timorous and some children are reckless [...] but in order to save the lives of reckless children, warnings are calibrated for their safety. The result of which is that the timorous live in a state of perpetual terror. What I needed to be told was 'You know what, most days you won't die, it's fine.' I wasn't ever going to run across a three-lane motorway. The very existence of a three-lane motorway in the same postcode as me made me not want to leave the house."

"And consider this: it absorbs your entire being. So what the hell besides the boundaries of fiction says existing species can't just be a single Thing roleplaying with BILLIONS OF CLONES OF ITSELF?!"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!