Quotes from Neal Stephenson

Technology is built on science. Science is like the alchemists' uroburos, continually eating its own tail. The process of science doesn't work unless young scientists have the freedom to attack and tear down old dogmas, to engage in an ongoing Titanomachia. Science flourishes where art and free speech flourish.

The answer was that it was about twenty degrees west of their projected apogee, encircling a large new habitat called Akureyri, and heading generally in the direction of the Cape Verde boneyard that separated the Greenwich segment from the Rio segment. Which meant that it would soon be in the predominantly Ivyn part of the ring.

Is it Protestant money or Catholic money you're after?" I ask. "It does not matter," he says. "Not where I come from." "Where in God's name do you come from?" I ask again. "May I go there with you? Because in the name of Our Lord's mammy, if I could be someplace where money's got no religion and religion's got no money, I'd be a happier woman.

What is the moral of your play, Jack?" "Oh, it could be a number of things: stay the hell out of Europe, for example. Or: when the men with swords come, run away! Especially if they've got Bibles, too." "Sound advice.

Bud, you had to bribe the shit out of numerous Shanghai cops. There was no reason to economize here. Bud had a rich and boundless career ahead of him, vaulting up a hierarchy of extremely dangerous drug-related occupations for which decoy served as a paid audition of sorts. A start weapons system was a wise investment.

That time in Seattle—during the lawsuit—was a fucking nightmare. I came out of it dead broke, without a house, without anything except a girlfriend and a knowledge of UNIX." "Well, that's something," Avi says. "Normally those two are mutually exclusive.

If this all seems ambiguous, that's because it is; and if that troubles you, you'd hate it here; but if it gives you a feeling of relief, then you are in the right place and might consider staying.

Introducing non-copy-protected software into this kind of an environment may be the single most boneheaded thing that American business has ever done in its long history of stepping on rakes in Asia.

Talking to a black-and-white on the Street is like talking to a person who has his face stuck in a xerox machine, repeatedly pounding the copy button, while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them.

The four-day elevator ride might be nothing more than a prelude to further journeys, some of which might take her to places with little to no bandwidth, and nothing was worse than getting stuck in a situation like that with nothing to read.

Certain objects that are supposed to (a) remain horizontal and (b) support heavy things have ceased to do either.

She turns the speedometer off. Running totally black now. Precipitating her way toward the sweet 'crete of the creek bottom like a black angel who has just had the shroud lines of her celestial parachute severed by the Almighty. And when the wheels finally meet the pavement, it just about drives her knees up through her jawbone. She finishes the whole gravitational transaction with not much altitude and a nasty head of dark velocity.

As soon as you open the door wide enough to admit pink nerve-gas-farting dragons, you have let in all of those other possibilities as well.

A man dressed in a radiant white uniform stands below the ragged maw of the jetway holding his hands downwards with fluorescent orange sticks in them, like Christ dispensing mercy on a world of sinners.

But the television news cameras couldn't get anywhere near the action, so the coverage mostly consisted of journalists interviewing each other about how little they knew.

She was just in the process of proving them all desperately wrong. But at this phase, the all-male society of bitheads that made up the power structure of Black Sun Systems said that the face problem was trivial and superficial. It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.

I was wondering when I was going to end up like this.

Their morning training was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a plainly dressed man. Lugo, the youngest initiate at the chapter house, noticed him first and nearly received a blow to the head as a result of his inattention. Shouting at the rest of the men to stop their drill, Andreas glared at the man who was standing inside the chapter house gate. "How might we assist you?" he called across the yard, more than a little annoyed at the interruption.

If he lived by a simple code of ethics, it was not an end in itself, but a way to get something done without selling his soul or destroying his reputation. It was a tool to be wielded like a shovel or a stick of dynamite. Tools were for building things; and pride was something you could feel after the fact, when you stood back, looked at what you had built, and passed it on to your children. Dinah

For one of the toxic things about Lineages was that rich avout could get not-so-rich ones to do things for them in exchange for better food, better drink, and better lodging.

He had spoken with such absolute confidence that I knew he had to be blowing this out of his rectal orifice.

Indeed the Encyclopedia Qwghlmiana features a lengthy article about the local system of runes. The author of this article has such a chip on his shoulder that the thing is almost physically painful to read.

Then he reminded himself that he was already part of the biggest adventure ever, and that, so far, it had been altogether miserable.

That man behaves so much like the villain in a work of literature, it's almost funny," Arsibalt observed.