Neal Stephenson quotes - page 2

Most of the people on the Cloud Ark were going to have to be women. There were other reasons for it besides just making more babies. Research on the long-term effects of spaceflight suggested that women were less susceptible to radiation damage than men. They were smaller on average, requiring less space, less food, less air. And sociological studies pointed to the idea that they did better when crammed together in tight spaces for long periods of time. This was controversial, as it got into fraught topics of nature vs. nurture and whether gender identity was a social construct or a genetic program. But if you bought into the idea that boys had been programmed by Darwinian selection to run around in the open chucking spears at wild animals-something that every parent who had ever raised a boy had to take seriously-then it was difficult to envision a lot of them spending their lives in tin cans. (Neal Stephenson)
These changes in identity and location can easily become nested inside each other, many layers deep, even if you aren't doing anything nefarious. Once you have forgotten who and where you are, the whoami command is indispensible. View quote
Neal Stephenson
If you show her too much favor she will be punished. If you touch her, we're all dead,” Ty said. "Why?” Einstein asked. "Because this is one of those cultures that is psychotic about female reproductive organs. View quote
Neal Stephenson
The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. It was waxing, only one day short of full. The time was 05:03:12 UTC. Later it would be designated A+0.0.0, or simply Zero. An amateur astronomer in Utah was the first person on Earth to realize that something unusual was happening. Moments earlier, he had noticed a blur flourishing in the vicinity of the Reiner Gamma formation, near the moon's equator. He assumed it was a dust cloud thrown up by a meteor strike. He pulled out his phone and blogged the event. View quote
Neal Stephenson
My nighttime attitude is, anyone can run you down and get away with it. Why give some drunk the chance to plaster me against a car? That's why I don't even own a bike light, or one of those godawful reflective suits. Because if you've put yourself in a position where someone has to see you in order for you to be safe - to see you, and to give a fuck - you've already blown it. View quote
Neal Stephenson
The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. View quote
Neal Stephenson
Once a person has all the things they need to live, everything else is entertainment. View quote
Neal Stephenson
It is the fate of operating systems to become free. View quote
Neal Stephenson
It is what you don't expect... that most needs looking for. View quote
Neal Stephenson
And it happened all the time that the compromise between two perfectly rational alternatives was something that made no sense at all. View quote
Neal Stephenson
Men who believe that they are accomplishing something by speaking speak in a different way from men who believe that speaking is a waste of time. (Neal Stephenson)
Supposing that originally there was nothing but one creator, how could ordinary binary sexual relations come into being? View quote
Neal Stephenson
They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right. View quote
Neal Stephenson
This is one of the two great labyrinths into which human minds are drawn: the question of free will versus predestination. View quote
Neal Stephenson
Those who think through possible outcomes with discipline, forge connections, in so doing, to other cosmi in which those outcomes are more than mere possibilities. Such a consciousness is measurably, quantitatively different from one that has not undertaken the same work and so, yes, is able to make correct decisions in an Emergence where an untrained mind would be of little use. View quote
Neal Stephenson
There was a white man sitting at the kitchen table, warming his hands by wrapping them around a hot cup of tea. He had kind of an oblong face, curly red hair piled on top, a close-cropped but dense red beard, shocking blue eyes that always looked wide open. He face was ruddy with the outdoors, and the way he was sitting there with that tea, he looked so calm, so centered, almost like he was in meditation. When I came in, he looked at me and smiled just a trace, without showing his teeth... View quote
Neal Stephenson
Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "We have a protractor. View quote
Neal Stephenson
When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins. View quote
Neal Stephenson
To condense fact from the vapor of nuance. View quote
Neal Stephenson
Whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window. View quote
Neal Stephenson
Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways. (Neal Stephenson)
It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists. View quote
Neal Stephenson
Boredom is a mask frustration wears. View quote
Neal Stephenson
That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code. View quote
Neal Stephenson
This made him a grad student, and grad students existed not to learn things but to relieve the tenured faculty members of tiresome burdens such as educating people and doing research. View quote
Neal Stephenson