Vernor Vinge

Poor humans; they will all die.""Poor us; we will not.

— Vernor Vinge

So much technology, so little talent.

— Vernor Vinge

Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever.

— Vernor Vinge

What we have is a data glut.

— Vernor Vinge

Pham Nuwen plunked himself down, stretching indolently.

— Vernor Vinge

“noble winged pig.’” “Yes, the spirit of programming.”

— Vernor Vinge

“Hexapodia as the key insight”

— Vernor Vinge

“So High, So Low, So Many Things to Know”

— Vernor Vinge

Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.

— Vernor Vinge

He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.

— Vernor Vinge

“[He] was an insect wandering in the cathedral his mind had become.”

— Vernor Vinge

One of his greatest talents was empathy; no sadist can aspire to perfection without that diagnostic ability.

— Vernor Vinge

“This was the pretech experience, that even if you had no enemies the world itself could kill you. And”

— Vernor Vinge

The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity.

— Vernor Vinge

“Fong’s obscenity-spattered fit about keyboards. So what to look”

— Vernor Vinge

The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.

— Vernor Vinge

“From this era on, I think invention will be the parent of necessity – and not the other way around.’ That was…

— Vernor Vinge

“They had been at the center of something vast, but as usual with the affairs of the Powers, no one knew quite…

— Vernor Vinge

But every time our ability to access information and to communicate it to others is improved, in some sense we have achieved…

— Vernor Vinge

Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation…

— Vernor Vinge

Peregrine Wickwrackscar was flying. A pilgrim with legends that went back almost a thousand years-and not one of them could come near…

— Vernor Vinge

“Johanna was looking at her expectantly, and suddenly Ravna realized that the girl thought librarians must be experts at everything.”

— Vernor Vinge

“welts long enough for them to grow eyes. Nature does indeed prefer that cobblies be created right before the Dark.”

— Vernor Vinge

Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work - the world…

— Vernor Vinge

“When Vendacious chased Johanna into the Choir, when the killing swarm knocked her down, the image and the strangeness of her must…

— Vernor Vinge

We will soon create intelligences greater than our own ... When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity,…

— Vernor Vinge

“The freedom of expression and entrepreneurship that have characterized the Internet to date would be a thing of the past, and the…

— Vernor Vinge

Politics is good; when it works properly, disagreements get solved without people beating each other up. But when a regime knows its…

— Vernor Vinge

“Yes,” said Ravna, “on Nyjora.” In the Age of Princesses, there had been the Elder Princess and the Younger, the Techie. The…

— Vernor Vinge

“[The Universe] does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil…

— Vernor Vinge

“Those Emergent fuckers have taken away all the I/O that works. I can’t use voice, I can’t use head-up displays. All we…

— Vernor Vinge

Here I had tried a straightforward extrapolation of technology, and found myself precipitated over an abyss. It's a problem we face every…

— Vernor Vinge

“On this small world, there will be no more real darkness. But there will always be the Dark. Go out tonight, Lady…

— Vernor Vinge

“Sst. Johanna? Are you okay? Telemetry showed a problem with the skiff. Johanna?” It was Nevil’s voice, a loud whisper. She reached…

— Vernor Vinge

“It is an edged cliché that the world is most pleasant in the years of a Waning Sun. It is true that…

— Vernor Vinge

“But in a year we’ll have ten or twenty of our own processors. By then we’ll be making vision chips. There will…

— Vernor Vinge

“The young woman threw her parka to the floor. “That fucker! That motherless, shit-eating traitor! That—” From there, Johanna’s criticism became more…

— Vernor Vinge

“Dreams die in every life. Everyone gets old. There is promise in the beginning when life seems so bright. The promise fades…

— Vernor Vinge

“many of the oldest programs still ran in the bowels of the Qeng Ho system. Take the Traders’ method of timekeeping. The…

— Vernor Vinge

“basically you’re a military man. That’s an honorable profession, and it sets you high, no matter what your origin. You see, there…

— Vernor Vinge