“ This was probably rooted in a belief that had been inculcated to him from the get-go: that there was an objective reality, which all people worth talking to could observe and understand, and that ther… Neal Stephenson
“ This made him a grad student, and grad students existed not to learn things but to relieve the tenured faculty members of tiresome burdens such as educating people and doing research. Neal Stephenson
“ This is a very odd conversation, Dappa observed. On an arbitrary numerical scale of conversational oddness, ranging from one to ten, with ten being the oddest conversation I’ve ever had, and seven bei… Neal Stephenson
“ This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. Neal Stephenson
“ This Snow Crash thing--is it a virus, a drug, or a religion? Juanita shrugs. What's the difference? Neal Stephenson
“ There’s no way to get from the point in Hemn space where we are now, to one that includes pink nerve-gas-farting dragons, following any plausible action principle. Which is really just a technical ter… Neal Stephenson
“ There are only two industries. This has always been true....There is the industry of things, and the industry of entertainment....After people have the things they need to live, everything else is ent… Neal Stephenson
“ The world has actually been wired together by digital communications systems for a century and a half. Nothing that has happened during that time compares in its impact to the first exchange of messag… Neal Stephenson
“ The people who'd made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day's end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had… Neal Stephenson
“ The other, somewhat subtler point, was that interface is very important. Sure, the MGB was a lousy car in almost every way that counted: balky, unreliable, underpowered. But it was fun to drive. It wa… 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,… Neal Stephenson
“ The curt maneuver forced hearty laughter from all of the fathers in the ballroom, who were delighted by the illusion of danger and the impotence of Nature. Neal Stephenson
“ Software comes out of factories, and hackers are, to a greater or lesser extent, assembly-line workers. Worse yet, they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves. Neal Stephenson
“ Sir, if you ask a Marine if he wants another cigarette, or if he’s ready, the answer is always the same, sir! Neal Stephenson
“ Once you found the math in a thing, you knew everything about it, and you could manipulate it to your heart’s content with nothing more than a pencil and a napkin. Neal Stephenson
“ No one thought about the big picture for a few thousand years. We were all scrambling to survive. Neal Stephenson
“ Near Amy, Randy can see another silt-covered boulder near the surface, maybe six feet away. He gathers himself and leaps towards it. But it topples under the impact of his foot and sends him splashing… Neal Stephenson
“ Kath Two wondered, as she always did, whether the people of the Epic would have said and done some of what they had, had they known that, five thousand years later, billions of people would be watchin… Neal Stephenson
“ Jack was finally going mad, and it was a small comfort to know that he’d picked the right city for it. Neal Stephenson
