Quotes from Neal Stephenson

Your diligence is setting an example for all of us—stop it!

amística, un término acuñado hacía eones por un antropólogo moirano para referirse a las elecciones que hacían las diferentes culturas en cuanto a qué tecnologías formarían parte de su vida y cuáles no.

but not subjecting him to the tiresome demands of polite social interaction.

Finkle-McGraw began to develop an opinion that was to shape his political views in later years, namely, that while people were not genetically different, they were culturally as different as they could possibly be, and that some cultures were simply better than others. This was not a subjective value judgment, merely an observation that some cultures thrived and expanded while others failed. It was a view implicitly shared by nearly everyone but, in those days, never voiced.

Well, says Uncle Enzo. It is the well that begins the end of a conversation. I was going to send you some roses, but you wouldn't really be interested in that, would you?

Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes, an electric guitar, and a hangover.

But even if they did have that kind of money rattling around in their pockets, actually spending it would offend their native frugality.

There had been no drones shadowing him in Canada, but apparently the United States was a different story. It was, as all the world knew, a completely insane and out-of-hand country, unable to control itself.

He seemed not to know that he was quite handsome.

The big red-handled blade switch on the wall of the mad-scientist lab.

hadn't known that," I said. "I always tend to assume there's an infinite amount of money out there." "There might as well be," Arsibalt said, "but most of it gets spent on pornography, sugar water, and bombs. There is only so much that can be scraped together for particle accelerators.

El desarrollo de software comparte con el deporte profesional la característica de lograr que los treintañeros se sientan decrépitos

Secondly, that Leibniz's most fundamental assumption, namely that the universe makes sense and that the human has the power to make sense of it and that, consequently, pure metaphysics is no waste of time, remains perhaps the central question of all science.

It was the destruction of our society. When our society was based upon planting, it could truly be said, as the Master did, "Virtue is the root; wealth is the result.' But under the Western ti, wealth comes not from virtue but from cleverness. So the filial relationships became deranged. Chaos

The opening strains of "Comfortably Numb.

I don't think that teenagers are the way they are because of their age. It's because they have nothing to lose. They simultaneously have a lot of time on their hands and yet are very impatient to get on with their lives.

I'll be honest with you: as a physicist, I am a hack," he admitted. "I majored in it, yes, but I was never employed in that capacity. But if you cut me I still bleed physicist blood. I'll go to my grave believing that, if magic existed, there's a scientific explanation for it.

As with all gut feelings, only time will tell whether this it is pathetic self-delusion.

Tekla wanted to slap her so much that her hand actually twitched.

The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

Body parts that unfortunately found themselves on the wrong side of the rift may seem to remain attached. Intense GLAAMR and general disorientation may hide their misshapen form. Many victims will be unwilling to believe in the reality of what has happened to them. The temptation may be strong to leave these attached and hope for the best. Don't do it! Think

the Sword fled, and would have vanished utterly if the Pope had not granted them refuge in the ranks of the Teutonic Knights.

It was just utterly, fantastically awful and it went on and on and on.

The mind couldn't think about the End of the World all the time. It needed the occasional break, a romp through the trivial. Because it was through trivia that the mind was anchored in reality […]