Quotes from Ben Mezrich

There's always going to be controversy when you write the way I write.

I see myself as attempting to break ground. I definitely am trying to create my own genre here... I'm attempting to tell stories in a very new and entertaining way.

I write nonfiction in this thriller-esque style. I have all the facts; I research it. I have thousands of pages of court documents... I try to get inside my stories.

Everyone had a story he believed was worthy of a best-seller; for me, reality was rarely interesting enough to take the place of fiction.

To guys like Mark, time was another weapon of the establishment, like alphabetical order. The great engineers, hackers - they didn't function under the same time constraints as everyone else.

in other words, his story was part boast, part confession.

I once knew a beautiful young woman that didn't believe in forever. She became my forever.

As an entrepreneur, you had one, maybe two, but usually not more than three chances to catch lightning in a bottle; as a venture capitalist, however, you could chase lightning as long as you had cash to invest.

occurred. But there was no denying it now, the evidence was all over him. The pleasantly warm flush to his normally sallow cheeks; the relaxed, almost rubbery way he leaned against the window—a stark contrast to his usual calcified, if slightly hunched posture; and most important

someone exceedingly loyal, a true yes-man, a cog who knew when to turn, when to stay still.

Below, he could see down the entire Strip, from the radioactive green lion at the base of the MGM Grand to the glowing spire of the Stratosphere. The logjam street traffic just added to the visual effect: a thousand headlights blinking like neurons in the glowing spine that snaked down the center of the city.

Gold is valuable because of its naturally occurring properties: it's scarce, durable, portable, divisible, fungible, hard to counterfeit, and easy to authenticate

You still had to use the Balkanized, legacy banking system, which was built before the internet even existed, littered with middlemen and rent-seekers all along the way. And only if the central authorities of this network allowed it to happen, would your money move at a snail's pace from point A to point B.

You didn't go on MySpace to communicate, you went there to show yourself off. It was like one big narcissistic playground.

The less you know, the more soundly you sleep.

Zuckerberg had gotten lucky—in another world, the twins never would have had to approach him for coding help. In any event, Tyler and Cameron didn't believe they were on the earth to exist; they were here to create, to build.

Silicon Valley was a town made up of engineers who thought in frameworks, decision trees, and game theory.

Everything about the presentation--the openness, the involvement of the community, the methodical plan laid out for implementing the idea--was exactly what Ting considered science done right. Science in secret as dangerous, difficult to regulate, and people who relished secrecy usually had something to hide.

If you don't have to struggle, you don't really have to get smart or strong, you just drift along.

you can be unethical and still be legal.

We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error.

I write about nerds who go the extra mile and become rock stars.

Libertarians or individualists believed people should be free to do whatever they wanted with their money. But in reality, people had never been free to do whatever they wanted with their money. There were laws, regulations, criminal statutes.

In rowing," Tyler said, "sometimes there's one guy in your boat who slows the whole thing down. He might mean well. He might be trying as hard, or even harder, than anyone else, but it doesn't matter, he's weighing everyone down. We call that guy an anchor." And with that, the twins left the building.