Neal Stephenson

“I study dead languages for a living,” I said. “That’s why you hired me. Why should I be up to speed on…

— Neal Stephenson

“Other people - store clerks, burger flippers, software engineers, the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -…

— Neal Stephenson

“It is what you don’t expect,” he’d said, “that most needs looking for.” “Do”

— Neal Stephenson

“...the insects here see you as a big slab of animated but not very well defended food. The ability to move, far…

— Neal Stephenson

“There was no way that these guys were going to let a bleeding, barefoot woman simply wander off alone into the streets.…

— Neal Stephenson

“Space and Time! Two minor omissions that no one is likely to notice," grumbled Newton.”

— Neal Stephenson

See, the world is full of things more powerful than us. But if you know how to catch a ride, you can…

— Neal Stephenson

“Hey,” Shaftoe says, “if we surrender to you, you’ll kill us. Right?” “Yes.” “If you guys surrender to us, we won’t kill…

— Neal Stephenson

“My men think you are dead now, and won’t waste balls on you,” Jack said. “In fact I have let you live,…

— Neal Stephenson

“You’ve probably heard the expression that the Industry feeds off of biomass, like a whale straining krill from the ocean.”

— Neal Stephenson

“The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He’s got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to…

— Neal Stephenson

Interesting things happen along borders - transitions - not in the middle where everything is the same.

— Neal Stephenson

“and people could only make sense of complicated matters through stories. Likewise”

— Neal Stephenson

“Van Eck phreaking,”

— Neal Stephenson

“When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens.”

— Neal Stephenson

“Diax said something that is still very important to us, which is that you should not believe a thing only because you…

— Neal Stephenson

“But around the time Manila heaves into view, a warm breeze springs up over the deck and all of the Marines sigh,…

— Neal Stephenson

The sight of the bare katana inspires everyone to a practically Nipponese level of politeness

— Neal Stephenson

Most countries are static, and they need to do is keep having babies. But America's like this big old clanking smoking machine…

— Neal Stephenson

“think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her, maybe he knew something she…

— Neal Stephenson

“As Hiro crests the pass on his motorcycle at five in the morning, the town of Port Sherman, Oregon, is suddenly laid…

— 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

“THE RUSSIAN INVASION BEGAN A WEEK LATER, WITH A SPATE OF flights producing what NASA described as “mixed results” and Roskosmos termed…

— Neal Stephenson

I feel that I am entitled to trample all other considerations into the dirt in my pursuit of a satisfying pun.

— Neal Stephenson

“The doctor had been dousing her hands with a sort of ointment they use, scented like bad gin. It is a ritual…

— Neal Stephenson