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
Whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
..this is just like life must be for about 99 percent of the people in the world. You're in this place. There's… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
That to me is the basic message of events like the rise of Nazism, the Salem witch trials, and so on: not… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Hostility towards Microsoft is not difficult to find on the Net, and it blends two strains: resentful people who feel Microsoft is… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
This made him a grad student, and grad students existed not to learn things but to relieve the tenured faculty members of… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
...But they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Even the best of us have certain psychological mechanisms that can suddenly kick in and turn us into monsters. That to me… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
A lot of secular, modern people claim to be disillusioned whenever they learn that any smart person is religious. That's applicable to… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Of course, the underlying structure of everything in England is posh. There is no in between with these people. You have to… — 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
All people have religions. It's like we have religion receptors built into our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
“There are many people and many tribes, but only so many stories.” — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
The difference between stupid and intelligent people - and this is true whether or not they are well-educated - is that intelligent… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Which path do you intend to take, Nell?' said the Constable, sounding very interested. 'Conformity or rebellion?' Neither one. Both ways are… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
One of the most frightening things about your true nerd, for may people, is not that he's socially inept - because everybody's… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
An old market had stood there until I'd been about six years old, when the authorities had renamed it the Olde Market,… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
I really am just trying to tell stories. But stories are often grounded in larger events and themes. They don't have to… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
He had some measure of the infuriating trait that causes a young man to be a nonconformist for its own sake and… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Just as an informal, nonscientific observation, most people's personalities don't seem to change very much during their lives. There are exceptions in… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“It is what you don’t expect,” he’d said, “that most needs looking for.” “Do” — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
“...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 Image
“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 Image
“Space and Time! Two minor omissions that no one is likely to notice," grumbled Newton.” — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
Interesting things happen along borders - transitions - not in the middle where everything is the same. — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
