Quotes from Marcus Sakey

Left untended, the holes through which freedom escapes widen. When politicians restrict our rights in order to "protect us," freedom is lost. When the military refuses to disclose basic facts, freedom is lost. Worst of all, when fear becomes a part of our lives, we willingly surrender freedom for a promise of safety, as if freedom weren't the very basis of safety.

of smiling strangers hanging on each other, holding up beer bottles, all of them seeming to be having a great time. He wondered how old the photos were

They want us all wound up and mistrusting each other. Norms and abnorms, left and right, rich and poor, all of it. The more we fear, the more we need them. And the more we need them, the more powerful they get.

Because all the talk about preventing a war is bullshit. What they really want is to control it. They want to generate and maintain war at a low simmer. They want us all wound up and mistrusting each other. Norms and abnorms, left and right, rich and poor, all of it. The more we fear, the more we need them. And the more we need them, the more powerful they get.

Small talk wasn't his thing, and he didn't have the knack for storytelling. There was a skill to organizing your life into neatly bundled anecdotes, and he lacked it.

We are," Quinn said. "We're doing all of the stuff you've seen on tri-d. But if you want to see your friend again, we need to know what you know.

A small minority of human beings now possesses a massive advantage. How can men and women on both sides of this divide live together, work together, form a single, more perfect union?

The world would be a better place if people stopped voting for folksy candidates they could have a beer with and started voting for people smarter than they are.

the problem with looking for your glasses is that you don't have your glasses on while you're looking . . .

The problem with the best moment in your life is that every other moment is worse

You want to change the world? Forget politics. Learn to code.

She'd always been blunt, to the point that people sometimes mistook her for cold. In truth, she was one of the warmest people he had ever met. It was just that she had the honesty of someone with nothing to prove.

Life is a raindrop

No, the great thing about the truth is that it's true.

It was like meeting someone exceptional while you were married: the yank of possibility, the realization that here was another path your life could have taken.

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

Revolution? You're an idiot. You don't even know what that word means. Forget your precious Mao and Che and Fidel. If they've appeared on a T-shirt, they haven't changed shit. You want revolution, look at Alexander Fleming. Penicillin transformed the world in ways Lenin and Washington only dreamt of. Now sit down and shut up, you autocratic frat boy. It's adult swim.

Funny, there had been a time when building things was what America did. From massive dams to towering skyscrapers, from mechanized factories to moon rockets, the nation had created, had viewed that as part of the national identity. Being an engineer or an architect had once been high aspirations. Now everybody wanted to be musicians and basketball players, and America didn't build squat.

Frightened people want action more than they want correct action. It's in the data.

Maybe the world would burn. But if truth was all it took to start the fire, maybe it needed to.

We are never more clever than in the creation of ways to destroy ourselves.

Data. That's what matters. That's what tells us something. But people want to see pictures. Supernova in vivid color. Even though scientifically it's useless.

the nature of compromise was that no one was happy. That's how you knew a fair deal had been reached.

He never realized how noisy American silence was until all the gadgets died.