Neal Stephenson: Trending quotes (page 2)

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

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Source: Anathem

“That's funny because if anyone actually did prove the existence of God we'd just tell him 'nice proof, Fraa Bly' and start believing in God.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Source: Anathem

God

“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bomc,' I said. 'We have a protractor.'
Okay, I'll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler and a piece of string.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Cord and Erasmas, Part 6, "Peregrin"
Source: Anathem (2008)
Context: “Do you need transportation? Tools? Stuff?”
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
“Okay, I’ll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler and a piece of string.”
“That’d be great.”

Home

“I beg your pardon?" Robson says.

One thing Waterhouse likes about these Brits is that when they don't know what the hell you're talking about, they are at least open to the possibility that it might be their fault.”

Neal Stephenson book Cryptonomicon

Source: Cryptonomicon

Hell

“And it happened all the time that the compromise between two perfectly rational alternatives was something that made no sense at all.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Source: Anathem

Sense , Time

“Gold is the corpse of value…”

Neal Stephenson book Cryptonomicon

Economics of gold farming, Thanksgiving (prologue)
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons
Source: Cryptonomicon
Context: Gold, he learned, was considered to be a reliable store of value because extracting it from the ground required a certain amount of effort that tended to remain stable over time. When new, easy-to-mine gold deposits were found, or new mining technologies developed, the value of gold tended to fall. It didn’t take a huge amount of acumen, then, to understand that the value of virtual gold in the game world could be made stable in a directly analogous way: namely, by forcing players to expend a certain amount of time and effort to extract a certain amount of virtual gold…

“She looked at me like I was crazy. Most of my lovers do, and that's partly why they love me, and partly why they leave”

Neal Stephenson
Love , Lovers

“All people have religions. It's like we have religion receptors built into our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything that'll fill that niche for us.”

Neal Stephenson book Snow Crash

Source: Snow Crash

People , Religion

“Which path do you intend to take, Nell?' said the Constable, sounding very interested. 'Conformity or rebellion?'
Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded - they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.”

Neal Stephenson

Source: The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

People , Way

“Men who believe that they are accomplishing something by speaking speak in a different way from men who believe that speaking is a waste of time.”

Neal Stephenson book Cryptonomicon

Source: Cryptonomicon

Men , Way , Time

“Supposing that originally there was nothing but one creator, how could ordinary binary sexual relations come into being?”

Neal Stephenson book Snow Crash

Source: Snow Crash

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

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Part 2, Apert
Source: Anathem (2008)

Idea

“This is one of the two great labyrinths into which human minds are drawn: the question of free will versus predestination.”

Neal Stephenson book Quicksilver

Source: Quicksilver

Question

“Plane-change maneuvers are expensive.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

Seveneves

Change

“Those who think through possible outcomes with discipline, forge connections, in so doing, to other cosmi in which those outcomes are more than mere possibilities. Such a consciousness is measurably, quantitatively different from one that has not undertaken the same work and so, yes, is able to make correct decisions in an Emergence where an untrained mind would be of little use.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Part 11, "Advent." Fraa Jad, on his polycosmic approach to problem-solving.
Anathem (2008)

Thinking , Decision

“There was a white man sitting at the kitchen table, warming his hands by wrapping them around a hot cup of tea. He had kind of an oblong face, curly red hair piled on top, a close-cropped but dense red beard, shocking blue eyes that always looked wide open. He face was ruddy with the outdoors, and the way he was sitting there with that tea, he looked so calm, so centered, almost like he was in meditation. When I came in, he looked at me and smiled just a trace, without showing his teeth…”

Neal Stephenson book Zodiac

The legendary S.T. finally meets the legendary Hank Boone (proto-Enoch Root character), end of chapter 24
Zodiac (1988)

Smile , Way , Tea

““Welcome to the GWOJ.”
“GWOJ?”
“Global War on Jones.””

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Day 15
Reamde (2011), Part II: American Falls

War

“bulshytt … Technical and clinical term denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said. …
It is inherent in the mentality of extramuros bulshytt-talkers that they are more prone than anyone else to taking offense (or pretending to) when their bulshytt is pointed out to them. … One is forced either to use this “offensive” word and be deemed a disagreeable person and as such excluded from polite discourse, or to say the same thing in a different way, which means becoming a purveyor of bulshytt oneself…. The latter quality probably explains the uncanny stability and resiliency of bulshytt.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Definition of "bulshytt," The Dictionary, 4th edition, A.R. 3000
Anathem (2008)

Way , Personality

“For a Westerner to trash Western culture is like criticizing our nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere on the grounds that it sometimes gets windy, and besides, Jupiter's is much prettier. You may not realize its advantages until you're trying to breathe liquid methane.”

Neal Stephenson

Wired 2.02: In the Kindom of Mao Bell http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/mao.bell.html?pg=2&topic=&topic_set=

“The girl in the passenger seat said she had never before been in “a car like this,” meaning, apparently, a sedan. Richard felt far beyond merely old.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Thanksgiving (prologue)
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

Cars , Girl