Neal Stephenson

Well, all information looks like noise until you break the code.

— Neal Stephenson

“--after that it's just a chase scene.”

— Neal Stephenson

“Plastic is essentially frozen gasoline.”

— Neal Stephenson

“They made data a controlled substance.”

— Neal Stephenson

Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?

— Neal Stephenson

Unix is not so much an operating system as an oral history.

— Neal Stephenson

“Kids need to get answers from humans who love them.”

— Neal Stephenson

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

— Neal Stephenson

“for now, none of the lights are on and that's all there is, black steel and slate sky.”

— Neal Stephenson

“Why do they believe that?” “Because we are hackers,” Csongor said, “and they have seen movies.”

— Neal Stephenson

“Insubordinate/undisciplined witch—murders colleagues, not on board with mission objectives, declines to disclose functionality”

— Neal Stephenson

“what he’s really thinking is: why did I waste all those years in academia when I could have been doing great shit…

— Neal Stephenson

They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were…

— Neal Stephenson

“whose picture appeared to be a state-issued ID of an octogenarian drag queen. I”

— Neal Stephenson

If you sincerely believed in God, how could you form one thought, speak one sentence, without mentioning Him?

— Neal Stephenson

“The goal was to find products that would keep on making money forever, long after the talent had been paid off and…

— Neal Stephenson

“Many set themselves the aim of rescuing the indifferent and the lazy—and end up lost themselves. The flame within them gets dim…

— Neal Stephenson

“can’t say I mourned my failure overmuch, as it meant I’d get a free trip to New Orleans out of it, and…

— Neal Stephenson

The only thing that can effect a big change in personality is something that physically rewires the brain and/or alters the body's…

— Neal Stephenson

“He parks in the far corner of the lot, explaining that it is more logical to do this and then walk for…

— Neal Stephenson

This made him a grad student, and grad students existed not to learn things but to relieve the tenured faculty members of…

— Neal Stephenson

“Randy was forever telling people, without rancor, that they were full of shit. That was the only way to get anything done…

— Neal Stephenson

“Why couldn’t I fill my hard drive with random bytes, so that individual files would not be discernible? Their very existence would…

— Neal Stephenson

“Sometimes, if you want to live and breathe tomorrow, you have to dive into the black depths today, and that is a…

— Neal Stephenson

“Sline: (1) In Fluccish of the late Praxic Age and early Reconstitution, a slang word formed by truncation of baseline, which is…

— Neal Stephenson

“Her skirts, sleeves, collar, and hat saw to it that none of the young ruffians of the Leased Territories would have the…

— Neal Stephenson

“What he wasn’t so good at was manipulating the internal states of other humans, getting them to see things his way, do…

— Neal Stephenson

“It’s as though anyone who argues clearly can’t be trusted—that’s the opposite of what reasonable people ought to think. That attitude is…

— Neal Stephenson

“Shut up about Leibniz for a moment, Rudy, because look here: You—Rudy—and I are on a train, as it were, sitting in…

— Neal Stephenson

“Y.T. is maxing at a Mom's Truck Stop on 405, waiting for her ride. Not that she would ever be caught dead…

— Neal Stephenson

“Right, by tomorrow morning everyone will have congregated in Le Havre and you can all pile in the car and come back…

— Neal Stephenson

“Hiro's father, who was stationed in Japan for many years, was obsessed with cameras. He kept bringing them back from his stints…

— Neal Stephenson

“so efficient it doesn't waste power by making noise”

— Neal Stephenson

It is what you don't expect... that most needs looking for.

— Neal Stephenson

“The stuff was tremendous, like drinking your favorite book.”

— Neal Stephenson

The best way to know someone is to have a conversation with them.

— Neal Stephenson

“Boredom is a mask that frustration wears.”

— Neal Stephenson

To condense fact from the vapor of nuance.

— Neal Stephenson

“Smart, rabidly paranoid people are the backbone of cryptology,”

— Neal Stephenson

I am on an expense account that would blow your mind.

— Neal Stephenson