Cosplay Quotes

“I just cosplay being an adult.”
― Jennie Breeden

“In pursuing a ‘way,’ Japanese typically move beyond an interest in craftsmanship to a kind of sacred search for the ultimate.”
― Morinosuke Kawaguchi, Geeky-Girly Innovation: A Japanese Subculturalist's Guide to Technology and Design

“Pop culture. Nobody does bullshit better than us. Right? China took over manufacturing. And the Middle East has us on fossil fuels. That's just geography and politics. We're a nation of whacko immigrants. Scavengers and con men. We crossed the ocean on faith, stole some land and stone-cold made up a whole country out of nothing but balls and bullshit. Superhero comics got invented by crazy genius Jews who showed up and revamped the refugee experience into a Man of Steel sent from Krypton with a secret identity.”
― Damon Suede, Bad Idea

“Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go out and greet those wonderful creatures and say a few nice words in a language invented by Tolkein. I've practiced, but I sound like Chewbacca making a New Year's speech.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“Cosplay. Why you just said the magic word!”
― Danika Stone, All the Feels

“Halloween is the only time people can become what they want to be without getting fired.”
― Sylvester Stallone

“She stared, wide eyed as glass-walled elevators shot up fifty-two floors like pods in a launch tube. Everything - from the glaringly bright carpet swirling with psychedelic lines; to the hotel's open ceiling ringed by storey after storey of balconies, the distant roof so high it made her head spin; to the people decked out in cosplay - was torn from a science fiction novel. It seemed Liv had spent the last eighteen years in search of her people, and in one sudden explosion of fate, they'd all been brought together in this place in time. Her eyes filled with tears as a sudden awareness filled her.
They were all nerds.”
― Danika Stone, All the Feels

“Xander stood at the end of the bed, hands on hips, the jacket she'd helped him sew thrown open, a gold-threaded waistcoat glimmering underneath. He was the Regency hero today, but she didn't feel like being saved.”
― Danika Stone, All the Feels

“I'm very cute, you know. And I'm not sure you've heard, but I have five thousand pounds a year. I've taken a place in Boulder for the season. Miss Dashwood and her sister will vouch for my parentage.”
― Danika Stone, All the Feels

“Perdu and Cuneo gaped at creatures that seemed to have sprung from Middle Earth or Winterfell. Such is the power of books.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“Samy was Samantha. She was wearing a white linen dress. She also had on hobbit feet, huge and extremely hairy ones.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“I think back to the parties Aimee and I planned, and how all those tuxedos and ball gowns weren't really that much different, costumewise, than some of these getups. Not as elaborate or out there, to be sure, but not so different. After all, is an hour at Bobbi Brown for the perfect party makeup that much of a stretch from an hour putting on a Klingon forehead or Spock ears? Is searching for the perfect dress, shoes, bag, wrap, jewelry so much different from the perfect jumpsuit, ray gun, ammo belt, and communicator? And unlike most of the regular parties we did, these people are way open to each other and the experience. There don't seem to be gaggles of people standing back to judge the other gaggles. And while a lot of the subsets do seem to flock together, Star Wars over here, Lord of the Rings over there, I haven't overheard one snarky comment about someone's costume. None of the women here, in all of their variety of shapes and sizes, seem to be doing anything other than squeeing at each other and praising how gorgeous they are. And everyone seems to just own themselves. I've been at hundreds of events looking at a sea of black dresses because everyone thinks it is slimming. But today I've seen a riot of color and skin. Including a 350-pound raven-haired vixen in a chain-mail corset, with cleavage you could park a hovercraft in, surrounded by a coterie of clearly smitten men. I wanted to high-five her.”
― Stacey Ballis, Out to Lunch

“I know all their costumes by heart, and one day I'll be making-" "Costumes?! That's what you're into, their outfits? Oh God... you're not one of those cosplay chicks, are you?”
― Whitney Gardner, Chaotic Good

“If I died in a freak accident while hurrying through Shibuya's notorious "scramble" intersection, where thousands of pedestrians crossed from all directions at once when the WALK light shifted to green, I hoped whoever performed my funeral service would know I died satisfied. Shibuya felt like being in the center of the vertical world, with tall buildings flashing advertisements, neon lights, and level after level of stores and restaurants visible through glass windows. So many people, so hurried, so much to look at and experience. Fashionista women wearing skinny pants with stiletto pumps riding bikes down crowded sidewalks. Harajuku girls with pink hair and crazy outfits. Loud izakaya bars where men's conversations and laughter spilled onto the street, and women walking by wearing kimonos with white socks tucked into flip-flops. Young people strutting around dressed in kosupure ("cosplay," Nik translated) outfits from their favorite anime, like it was Halloween every day here.
TOO MUCH FUN.
I didn't want to die, but if I did, I would tell the souls I met in the afterlife: Don't feel bad about my premature end. I saw it all in my short time down in the upworld of Tokyo.”
― Rachel Cohn, My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life

“I love anime, but anime makes it so hard... It's like a boy I knew. "I love you, so why do you have to be so dumb?" Hahaha.”
― Dash Shaw, Cosplayers #1

“Were the future leaders of the United States who had won coveted tickets to the highest echelons of the neoliberal meritocracy — the ones who were supposed to take over the newspapers, high political offices, and corporations — really demonstrating in the quads not about the military-industrial complex, wealth inequality, or America's endless foreign wars, but cosplay?”
― Dale Beran, It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office

“We'd been trying so hard to look like our heroes, we'd kinda forgotten what a hero really is. Capes, masks, powers — sure, that's great and all, but in the end ... it's just window dressing. Like Emile says: clothes don't make the man!”
― Mikko, Cosplay