Neal Stephenson Quote

The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. They raise their children to believe in that code—but their children believe it for entirely different reasons.They believe it, the Constable said, because they have been indoctrinated to believe it.Yes. Some of them never challenge it—they grow up to be small minded people, who can tell you what they believe but not why they believe it. Others become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebel—as did Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw.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

The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. They raise their children to believe in that code—but their children believe it for entirely different reasons.They believe it, the Constable said, because they have been indoctrinated to believe it.Yes. Some of them never challenge it—they grow up to be small minded people, who can tell you what they believe but not why they believe it. Others become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebel—as did Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw.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.

Related Quotes

About Neal Stephenson

Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and baroque.
Stephenson's work explores mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes nonfiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired. He has written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury.
Stephenson has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (founded by Jeff Bezos) developing a spacecraft and a space launch system, and also co-founded the Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project The Mongoliad. He was Magic Leap's Chief Futurist from 2014 to 2020.