“It's, like, one of them drug dealer boats," Vic says, looking through his magic site. "Five guys on it. Headed our way."… — 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
Jad said, "The leakage was forcing choices, the making of which in no way improved matters." Okay. So we were, in effect,… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
The imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
They wanted to carry her, but she jumped to the stones of the plaza and strode away from the building, toward her… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Early on, I settled on the first-person strategy as a way to deal with exposition and world-description issues. As long as the… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Most of my colleagues go on backpacking trips when they have to do some thinking. I go to a good hardware store… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Humans needed water or they would die, but dirty water killed as surely as thirst. You had to boil it before you… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
I think visual literacy and media literacy is not without value, but I think plain old-fashioned text literacy and mathematical literacy are… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Software development, like professional sports, has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit. — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
The GPS unit became almost equally obstreperous, though, over Richard’s unauthorized route change, until they finally passed over some invisible cybernetic watershed… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Whenever I get distracted or bored, my eyes wander over to that chalkboard and I read the words. Some of them grow… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
In the case of Anathem, most of the research had to do with philosophy and metaphysics. Reading this sort of thing has… — 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
Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
If you are a professional writer - i.e., if someone else is getting paid to worry about how your words are formatted… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Men who believe that they are accomplishing something by speaking speak in a different way from men who believe that speaking is… — Neal Stephenson Copy Share Image
Let's set the existence-of-God issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self-replicating organisms came into existence… — 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
“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
