Interview with Larry McCaffery in Storming the Reality Studio : A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction, Duke University Press (December 1991)
Context: On the most basic level, computers in my books are simply a metaphor for human memory: I'm interested in the hows and whys of memory, the ways it defines who and what we are, in how easily memory is subject to revision. When I was writing Neuromancer, it was wonderful to be able to tie a lot of these interests into the computer metaphor. It wasn't until I could finally afford a computer of my own that I found out there's a drive mechanism inside — this little thing that spins around. I'd been expecting an exotic crystalline thing, a cyberspace deck or something, and what I got was a little piece of a Victorian engine that made noises like a scratchy old record player. That noise took away some of the mystique for me; it made computers less sexy. My ignorance had allowed me to romanticize them.
in Hendricks, V: “500CC Computer Citations”, King’s College Publications, London,2005.
“Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.”
Source: Blue Nights
“Memory is the fear, and I play most of my repertoire from memory.”
The Express on Sunday, 06/01/2002
Musician's life
“But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.”
Source: Secrets of Eden
"Building a Moral Society", Chamberlin Lecture at Lewis & Clark College (1995)
Context: An immoral society betrays humanity because it betrays the basis for humanity, which is memory. An immoral society deals with memory as some politicians deal with politics. A moral society is committed to memory: I believe in memory. The Greek word alethia means Truth, Things that cannot be forgotten. I believe in those things that cannot be forgotten and because of that so much in my work deals with memory... What do all my books have in common? A commitment to memory.
My Grandmother's Love Letters (l. 1-4). In The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, by Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair (1988)
Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 4 (“Halo”), pp. 146-147
