Quotes from Neal Stephenson

if money is a science, then it is a dark science, darker than Alchemy. It split away from Natural Philosophy millennia ago

In which witches will be witches

20:08:13 USSS 1: It's been an hour and not a peep. I am beginning to get concerned messages from people in the Pentagon wanting to know why Backhoe is incommunicado. 20:08:22 DOSECOPS C4 ACTUAL: The Pentagon? 20:08:27 USSS 1: The Trapezoid. Was my transmission garbled? 20:08:33 DOSECOPS C4 ACTUAL: Sorry, I was distracted. I thought you said Pentagon.

On certain hilltops grew spruce forests, as fine and dense and soft-looking as the pelts of Arctic mammals. When the wind gusted through these, a sound issued from them that was like icy water hurrying over sharp stones. But most of the land was covered with heather, gone scab-colored for the winter. There the wind was silent, except for the raucous buller that it made as it banged around in the porches of Daniel's ears like a drunk burglar.

It was clear, however, that having made that decision, the Committee would have to explain it, justify it, and perpetuate it by painting the Spacers as alien mutants, and furthermore by cultivating a finely developed sense of racial grievance against the cowards who had run away and abandoned them. All of which had been on vivid display during the brief and disastrous conversation between Doc and the Digger contingent.

Jack supposed that a very big and old crocodile must take a certain pride in his work, viz. swallowing and digesting whatever came along, and that an attempt to revoke a meal by yanking it out must be viewed, by such a Reptile, as a very serious affront. In any event it led to an amount of thrashing.

It is October and the days are growing short. Shaftoe and Bischoff, both mired in the yet-to-be-discovered emotional dumps of Seasonal Affective Disorder, are like two brothers trapped in the same pit of quicksand, each keeping a sharp eye on the other.

FORERUNNER (deprecated synonyms: SUICIDE BOMBER, DEAD MAN RUNNING, SCHNEIDER) One who is Sent to a DTAP in which DODO has no Known Compliant Witch, safe house, or other contacts/infrastructure whatsoever. Considered the most elite and difficult-to-recruit subclass of DOer, Forerunners must possess all the skills of a STRIDER (see below) combined with those of a FIGHTER, LOVER, or CLOSER.

Pelear no es cuestión de saber hacerlo, sino de decidir hacerlo.»

A computer is a human being.

his whimper dying in his throat. There had been a flash of white moonlight reflecting off pale skin, and when the second one passed, he clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle his cry of terror at what he saw. The

This was because Moira was of African descent, and Aïda had become fascinated by the idea that Africans carried more genetic diversity within their genomes than non-Africans, as a simple result of the fact that humanity had originated on that continent and spread outward.

For as any French-influenced courtier could explain, to insist on everything's being reasonable, in a world that wasn't, was, in itself, unreasonable.

onomatopoetically

Whether or not this was a valid theory, the fact was that Aïda swallowed it hook, line, and sinker and used it to inform her genetic strategy in the Great Game.

Three Desiderata: location, location, and location, this ruin has all!

What would the engineer say, after you had explained your problem and enumerated all of the dissatisfactions in your life? He would probably tell you that life is a very hard and complicated thing; that no interface can change that; that anyone who believes otherwise is a sucker; and that if you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own.

A red dragonfly hovers above a backwater of the stream, its wings moving so fast that the eye sees not wings in movement but a probability distribution of where the wings might be

Nacida en Nueva York de padres huidos de la represión política en Chile.

All the accoutrements of a major construction site are here, plus a few extras, like two monkeys with giant stiff penises fighting over some booty from a Dumpster, but there is no construction site.

everything looks the same in America, there are no transitions now).

FIGHTER (deprecated synonyms: CONAN, WARRIOR) One who specializes in missions where, to put it politely, martial attributes are of the essence. Since every DTAP has a unique environment surrounding weapons, fighting styles, and martial culture, competence in fighting is only a part of the skill set required to be a successful Fighter. It is equally important to know how and when to fight.

Izzy estaba llena de gente que se orientaba hacia el extremo Asperger del espectro social y la mejor forma de hacerla hablar era preguntarle por algún detalle técnico.

She is in a house not thirty miles from here…a house that is for the time being unguarded, as the proprietor has been locked up in the Tower of London. How fortuitous, Sergeant!