Quotes from Neal Stephenson

The streets of Pudong were filled with hungry and terrified refugees, and through them, in simple peasant clothes streaked with the blood of herself and of others, broken shackles dangling from her wrists, followed by her generals and ministers, walked the barbarian Princess with her book and her sword.

the ambiguous conversation with the unseen serving-wench, the bags of hot-grease-scented food hurtling in through the window, condiments in packets, attempting to eat while lurching down a highway, volumes of messy litter that seemed to fill all the empty space in the mobe, a smell that outstayed its welcome.

Edzard screamed at the men on the starboard side, threatening to throw them overboard if they didn't match the pace of the port team.

Is dangerous, I know, to take ride from strangers. With assault rifle in backpack, not so dangerous.

What do you think Orolo saw, when he looked out thus?" Fraa Jad asked. "He was a great appreciator of beauty and loved to look at the mountains from the starhenge," I said. "You think he saw beauty? That is a safe answer, since it is beautiful. But what was he thinking about? What connections did the beauty enable him to perceive?" "I couldn't possibly answer that." "Don't answer it. Ask it.

But this is how history is done now. People wait until they have a need for some history and then they customize it to suit their purposes.

and two cats. He teaches medieval fighting techniques to members of the armed forces. The Mongoliad is his first published fiction. Erik Bear lives and writes in Seattle, Washington. He has written for a bestselling video game and is currently working on several comic book series. Cooper Moo spent five minutes

but if you have studied that, everything since will seem like repetition and all the particulars as to how the Sæcular Power of my day was organized will remind you of more or less ancient forerunners, but with less majesty and clarity since the ancients were all doing it for the first time and believed they were on to something.

I doubt you even know what duty is," she retorted. A risky response—such flippancy of the tongue—and it might provoke them, but showing fear would invite a response. Half of combat is causing your opponent to think you are stronger than you are, Gansukh had told her. Scarface

they have commandos and astronauts who know this kind of thing cold." "But Raz, you are educable, you can learn 'this kind of thing,' if by that you mean how to maneuver an S2-35B and how to assemble a Cold Black Mirror. You've spent your whole life, ever since you were Collected, becoming educable.

After that it had all been oral history for about a thousand years, since there had been no paper to write on and no ink to write on it with. Memory devices were scarce and jury-rigged. Every single chip had been used for critical functions such as robots and life support.

penetrates your iris, tenderest of sphincters

organizers had been able to find interpreters for. First up on the dais was Mary Bulinski, the United States secretary of the interior, an inveterate hiker and climber, spry at sixty. By training she was a wildlife

Anyone who made it through the screening and the training required to become an Arkie"—which doesn't include you, Julia—"will understand exactly what we are trying to do from an orbital mechanics standpoint.

Godspeed? Godspeed! What kind of a thing is that to say to a fucking galley slave?

What's an adventure?" Nell said. The word was written across the page. Then both pages filled with moving pictures of glorious things: girls in armor fighting dragons with

You spend too much time goggled in," she says. "Try a little Reality, man.

If you had to give a name to the whole apparatus, what would you call it?" "Hmmm," Waterhouse says. "Well, its basic job is to perform mathematical calculations—like a computer." Comstock snorts. "A computer is a human being." "Well . . . this machine uses binary digits to do its computing. I suppose you could call it a digital computer." Comstock writes it out in block letters on his legal pad: DIGITAL COMPUTER.

In any soul, the Condemned Man argued, was the ability to create a whole world, as big and variegated as the one that he and the Magistrate lived in. But if this was true of the Innocent, it was true of the Condemned Man as well, and so he should not—no one should ever—be put to death.

Or a Moonie festival or something.

What makes you think they're spying on you?" "Voco. An aut where a fraa or suur is called out from the math—Evoked—and goes to do something praxic for the Panjandrums. We never see them again.

the pole's center was a gleaming lump about the size of a person's head, which any Spacer would recognize as a small nickel-iron asteroid, as common in space as dead leaves were on the reforested surface. But rare down here, even after the Hard Rain.

Well, it seems that this process you call consciousness is somewhat more complex than you perhaps gave it credit for at first," Orolo said. "One must be able to take in givens from sparse dustings of probability waves in a vacuum—" "I.e., see stuff." "Yes, and perform the trick of integrating those givens into seemingly persistent objects that can be held in consciousness.

What do you mean by values?" "They were code words like honesty, hard work, self-reliance . . . myths, actually, to motivate the people to accept the natural inequities found in a market system.