Quotes from Neal Stephenson

Sir! This Marine apologizes for his disgraceful behavior during that interview, sir! This Marine let down himself and his fellow Marines, sir!" "Aren't you going to give me an excuse? You were wounded. Shellshocked. Drugged. Suffering from malaria." "Sir! There is no excuse, sir!

I am aware that men are in the habit of looking at whatever women happen to be nearby, in the hopes of deriving enjoyment from their physical beauty, their hair, makeup, fragrance, and clothing.

given all the other changes he's gone through, why the hell shouldn't he become a cigarette smoker while he's at it? Maybe next week he'll be shooting heroin. For something disgusting and lethal, cigarettes are amazingly enjoyable.

They had emerged, abruptly and conclusively, from Glenwood Canyon and come out into a more open valley containing the crossroads town of Glenwood Springs. From here a highway doubled back east toward the elite paradise of Aspen. Travelers who, like them, chose to continue west toward Utah were confronted by an animated mushroom cloud rising from the interstate's median.

if you are still tied to reality by family or by some kind of regularizing influence in your day-to-day life, like having a job, then you've got a fighting chance.

Your mistake, Ng says, is that you think that all mechanically assisted organisms -- like me -- are pathetic cripples. In fact, we are better than we were before.

They had pointed out to him that even a year's leave of absence, should he choose to take one, would benefit the Crow's Nest, in the sense that he would return to it with fresh eyes and immediately see how beneficial changes might be made.

She's not a shy person. Her body language is eloquent enough: "I am aware that men are in the habit of looking at whatever women happen to be nearby, in the hopes of deriving enjoyment from their physical beauty, their hair, makeup, fragrance, and clothing. I will ignore this, politely and patiently, until you get over it.

The ports were individually numbered with glowing digits, and annotated, in the mixture of Latin and Cyrillic used throughout the ring, as to their purposes: TRANZIT IMMIGRA?ON MILITARY CURVEY CPE?

You're saying that my consciousness extends across multiple cosmi," I said. "That's a pretty wild statement.

I think I'm in love," she said. He clapped a bag over his mouth and threw up. HOW

We have a huge workforce that is illiterate or alliterate and relies on TV—which is sort of an oral tradition.

That man behaves so much like the villain in a work of literature, it's almost funny," Arsibalt observed. "Yes," said one of the Hundreders, "it's as if he'd never heard of foreshadowing.

it was connected, by an underground tunnel and secret passages on every floor, directly to the brewery itself—thus allowing johns who needed to remain anonymous a way to escape if the brothel were raided by the constables.

Everyone seemed brighter. Especially Jules. "Food, here I come.

It stands for Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.

Pascal once said that you should believe in God because, if you turned out to be wrong, you weren't losing anything, and if you turned out to be right, the reward was infinite

couple of dozen CDs in it, mostly albums by American woman singer-songwriters of the offbeat, misunderstood, highly intelligent but intensely emotional school, getting rich selling music to consumers who understand what it's like not to be understood.

Do you remember the total eclipse of 3680 when we made a camera obscura so we could see it without burning our eyes?" "A box," I recalled, "with a pinhole at one end and a sheet of white paper at the other.

pauses for a moment to get the answer queued up in his output buffer.

Debris of beer cans, Subway wrappers, and chip bags attested to the fact that Jules, by dint of youth, good genes, and an active lifestyle, could consume as many calories as he pleased with zero impact on the eminently fuckable physique on display

This is why he hates business. He wants to tell everyone everything. He wants to make friends with people.

Even high-tech weapons systems cannot defeat organized small-arms fire on a massive scale.

if Newton is the finger, Leibniz is the stone, and they press against each other with equal and opposite force, a little bit harder every day. RAVENSCAR: