Quotes from Neal Stephenson

We are just proceeding adaptively to leverage our core competencies

with anything else under UNIX (of which Finux is a variant), there are a million options that only young, lonely, or obsessed people have the time and patience to explore.

But like a lot of theologies it can do duty as a cracked mirror or a smudged lens through which we might be able to glimpse things that are informative.

terraform Earth before we get distracted by Mars

Men were drawn to civilization; only the most severe ascetic among them relished isolation. Penitent hermits craved seclusion. Being away from the squalor of humanity was an integral part of their spiritual monasticism. They could talk more readily to God in the silence of their mountaintop cave or their desert isolation. It was easier to believe that the voice you heard responding to your queries issued from a divine trumpet if there were no other souls nearby. But he was a soldier.

I was just realizing that if you have a set of cryptographic protocols suitable for issuing an electronic currency that cannot be counterfeited—which oddly enough we do—you could adapt those same protocols to card games. Because each one of these cards is like a banknote. Some more valuable than others.

But a trick of the voice and the general body language was enough that I had a visceral desire to simply avoid him.

A WEEK LATER, WHEN THE LAST OF THE VICTIMS HAD SUCCUMBED to their wounds or to radiation sickness, eight humans remained alive and healthy.

Even the word 'science' comes from an Indo-European root meaning 'to cut' or 'to separate.' The same root led to the word 'shit,' which of course means to separate living flesh from nonliving waste. The same root gave us 'scythe' and 'scissors' and 'schism,' which have obvious connections to the concept of separation.

Well," I'd said finally, "I guess I have to invoke the Steelyard. In the absence of a good argument to the contrary, I have to choose the simplest answer. And the simplest answer is that time runs independently in Universe A and Universe B." "Because they are separate causal domains.

Jack had wondered how geometers could be so inventive as to produce so many types and families of curves. Later he had come to perceive that of curves there was no end, and the true miracle was that poets, or writers, or whoever it was that was in charge of devising new words, could keep pace with those hectic geometers, and slap names on all the whorls and snarls in the pages of the Doctor's geometry-books.

Ivy said, "Had we known that it was going to come down, so suddenly, to seven surviving fertile women, we would have had every healthy male masturbating into test tubes for the last three years. We'd have looked for ways to keep it all frozen. But we never imagined it would come to this.

nothing was worse than getting stuck in a situation like that with nothing to read.

She didn't really know the speech of Beedles and so she made it as simple as she could: "I am Death," she said. "Now, which one of us is going to open the gate?

She was of West Indian ancestry, wearing her hair in finger-length dreadlocks that had adapted pretty well to zero gravity—better than white-people hair, for sure.

Working on the native-herb garden in the front corner of the yard. Already thriving: thyme, hyssop, spearmint, lemon balm, fennel, chamomile, marjoram. Must add: lavender, ambrosia, valerian, mugwort, pennyroyal, gillyflower, and (when it's warmer) sweet basil.

What else can you tell us about this batna, Surendranath?" "I learnt it from English traders in Surat," said the befuddled Surendranath, "It stands for Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.

You could get used to anything. You got used to it and then time raced by, and before you knew it, time was up

All of the history had been erased in Karen's earnest efforts to make the house historical.

I'd rather stub out cigarettes on my tongue than go shopping.

you should not believe a thing only because you like to believe it.

It is just that — according to some who style themselves in the know — you are destitute.

America's like this big old clanking, smoking machine that just lumbers across the landscape scooping up and eating everything in sight. Leaves behind a trail of garbage a mile wide. Always needs more fuel.

It is the hardest thing in the world to make educated Westerners pull together