Quotes from Charles Stross

Don't you have any concept of individuality? she asks, annoyed by its presumption at meddling with her internal states. Individuality is an unnecessary barrier to information transfer, says the ghost, morphing into its original form, a translucent reflection of her own body. It reduces the efficiency of a capitalist economy. A large block of the DMZ is still inaccessible to we-me. Are you sure you have defeated the monster?

loose lips don't merely sink ships, they summon krakens with too many tentacles.

Look, we know, now, that a singularity doesn't turn into a voracious predator that eats all the dumb matter in its path, triggering a phase change in the structure of space—at least, not unless they've done something very stupid to the structure of the false vacuum, somewhere outside our current light cone.

Humans: such a brilliant model of emotional self-awareness.

Only debt is forever.

A WOMBAT is a Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time: the non-IT equivalent of a PEBCAK. (A PEBCAK is a Problem that Exists Between Chair And Keyboard. (You get the picture: it's parenthesized despair all the way down.)))

I try not to notice the exploded eyeballs or the ruptured tongue bursting through the blackened lips. This job is quite gross enough as it is without adding my own dry heaves to the mess.

I set the self-portrait timer on the camera to ten seconds, handed it to the zombie, and sent him into the grid and through the door to blow himself up. Then things got weird.

They were brilliant, widely read, incisive, and effortlessly effective analysts and programmers. Which is another reason why, ultimately, so many people died.

Never trust a man who thinks his religion gives him all the answers.

I don't mind going without clothes, but being without a microprocessor is truly stripping down. It's like asking a sorcerer to surrender his magic wand, or a politician to forswear his lies.

This has serveral consequences, starting with screwing over most cryptography algorithms--translation: all your bank account are belong to us--

If you're a humble believer set on doing your deity's will, then what are you doing spending the take on Lamborghinis and single malt?

The Denizen of Number 10 is the avatar—the humanoid sock-puppet—of an ancient and undying intelligence who regards mere humanity much as we might regard a hive of bees. Our lives are of no individual concern to Him, but He likes honey.

How boring, just another billionaire necromancer cruising the Caribbean in his thinly disguised guided missile destroyer, plotting total world domination.??

Never bring a knife to a gun fight, I tell Mr. Crispy as I turn away from him. His right arm thinks about it for a moment, then falls off.

Starships are all work and no fun.

Apparently you're only allowed to demolish Wolverhampton if you're a property developer like Donald Trump. Crawling eldritch horrors don't get planning permission unless they're Trump's hairpiece.

We shouldn't even be here, I think distantly as I raise my weapon and take aim, we're management, not heroes.

There will be plenty of backup and support, but she's still going to have to do heartbreaking things to people who probably don't understand why the pale woman with the bone-white violin and blood dripping from her fingertips is coming for them.

There are things out there in the night where light cannot exist that make Cthulhu look like a Care Bear.

I let the happy times slip through my fingers and gripped on to the sad times as if they were my heart's desire

Like I said: the only god I believe in is coming back. And when he arrives, I'll be waiting with a shotgun.

Some people you just do not want to leave outside the tent pissing in, and in my early twenties, self-confident and naïve, I was about as safe to leave lying around unsupervised as half a ton of sweating gelignite.