“Reader, if you don’t know what a database is, rest assured that an explanation of the concept would in no way increase… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
“The problem of the librarian is that books are multi-dimensional in their subject matter but must be ordered on one-dimensional shelves.” — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
What's hard, in hacking as in fiction, is not writing, it's deciding what to write. — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
“Randy does a sorting procedure on the diving books now: he ignores anything that has color photographs, or that appears to have… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
“The Bibliotheque du Roi then gives you the closest thing that currently exists to God's understanding of the world." "And yet with… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
If the item of stolen property had been anything other than a book, it would have been confiscated. But a book is… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
I'm strictly a one-project-at-a-time kind of guy. If I came up with a compelling idea for a different book while working on… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
As convenient as it is for information to come to us, libraries do have a valuable side effect: they force all of… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
At the beginning of the project, I wasn't certain that I could come up with an engaging storyline and cast of characters… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
But I'm not a small-literary-novel kind of guy, and once I'd developed the world in the first couple of hundred pages, I… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
“I study dead languages for a living,” I said. “That’s why you hired me. Why should I be up to speed on your line… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“Other people - store clerks, burger flippers, software engineers, the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America - other people… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“It is what you don’t expect,” he’d said, “that most needs looking for.” “Do” — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“...the insects here see you as a big slab of animated but not very well defended food. The ability to move, far from being… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“There was no way that these guys were going to let a bleeding, barefoot woman simply wander off alone into the streets. Two of… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“Space and Time! Two minor omissions that no one is likely to notice," grumbled Newton.” — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
See, the world is full of things more powerful than us. But if you know how to catch a ride, you can go places, — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“Hey,” Shaftoe says, “if we surrender to you, you’ll kill us. Right?” “Yes.” “If you guys surrender to us, we won’t kill you. Promise.… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“My men think you are dead now, and won’t waste balls on you,” Jack said. “In fact I have let you live, but for… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“You’ve probably heard the expression that the Industry feeds off of biomass, like a whale straining krill from the ocean.” — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He’s got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
Interesting things happen along borders - transitions - not in the middle where everything is the same. — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
“and people could only make sense of complicated matters through stories. Likewise” — Neal Stephenson Copy Share
