Quotes from book

Mother of Storms

“One reason nature pleases us is its endless use of a few simple principles: the cube-square law; fractals; spirals; the way that waves, wheels, trig functions, and harmonic oscillators are alike; the importance of ratios between small primes; bilateral symmetry; Fibonacci series, golden sections, quantization, strange attractors, path-dependency, all the things that show up in places where you don’t expect them…these rules work with and against each other ceaselessly at all levels, so that out of their intrinsic simplicity comes the rich complexity of the world around us. That tension—between the simple rules that describe the world and the complex world we see—is itself both simple in execution and immensely complex in effect. Thus exactly the levels, mixtures, and relations of complexity that seem to be hardwired into the pleasure centers of the human brain—or are they, perhaps, intrinsic to intelligence and perception, pleasant to anything that can see, think, create?—are the ones found in the world around us.”

“It’s a long step down the road to paranoia, but it’s been a proverb for a hundred years that being paranoid does not mean that they aren’t out to get you.”

“He’s always known the real way to money is not through production but through control; “The hotel owner gets rich owning the keys, the maids stay poor keeping the toilets clean,” as one of his biz profs back at Madison used to say.”

“It is characteristic of information that it can be stolen an all but unlimited number of times.”

“Too bad about all those people, but as Hassan says, compassion speaks well of its holder but does little for its recipient.”

“He’s stunned numb when she takes his hand and says, “Let’s give it a try. I’ve been thinking maybe I don’t bend enough or try to see anyone else’s point of view.””

“Work does not cause money; getting paid causes money.”

“With diligent effort he has established that there is no statistical basis for Murphy’s Law. He has also established that he believes in it anyway.”

“Once I’m dead, I can afford to be patient.”

“The only thing Carla has ever learned to like about dealing with power is how easy it is to embarrass people who have it.”

“Philosophic clarity has been a key to his life in business, and he doesn’t fall for facile or self-flattering descriptions—not even, usually, for the self-flattery of thinking he is immune to self-flattery.”

“Experimentally she thinks about dumping toxic waste in pristine wilderness and killing the last great apes on earth with a club. She still finds both those thoughts disgusting. This is a relief; it seems to her that she’s just selfish, not evil.
She was always taught they’re the same thing. She hopes she remembers, when she gets out of all this, that they’re not.”

“The beautiful earth is being crapped up by an excess of people—lovely as individuals, towns, and cultures, but hideous in such profusion.”

“He wonders if there is some requirement that you have to be an idiot to be a politician.”

“Are you up to faking being sincere underneath faking being fake?”

“Yeats fussed about things falling apart and the center not being able to hold. What really happened was that the center ceased to exist altogether.”

“It’s a game against the clock, but what isn’t?”

“Once you understand what money can do it gets harder to live without it.”

“Finally she resorts to the oldest tactic of all, telling the truth.”