“ Every pirate and privateer has lurking within him the soul of an accountant. Though some would say ’tis the other way round. Neal Stephenson
“ You heard of Mary Jane? Root asks. Shaftoe—role model, leader of men—stifles the impulse to say, Heard of her? I’ve fucked her! Neal Stephenson
“ 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 wit… Neal Stephenson
“ What are you going to say to the Maternal Organism? Dinah asked, as Ivy rummaged in the back of a storage bin for her bottle of tequila. Ivy stiffened for a moment, then pulled out the bottle and swun… Neal Stephenson
“ We have a huge workforce that is illiterate or alliterate and relies on TV—which is sort of an oral tradition. And we have a small, extremely literate power elite—the people who go into the Metaverse,… Neal Stephenson
“ Versailles has only existed for seven years. It does not have any ancient traditions. It was made by Colbert, the commoner. It is full of nobles, true; but you fool yourself if you believe that they f… Neal Stephenson
“ Today I: smoke/am overweight/have a shitty attitude/am depressed because: my mom died of cancer/my uncle put his thumb up my butt/my dad hit me with a razor strop seems kind of overly deterministic to… Neal Stephenson
“ Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled o… Neal Stephenson
“ This was governed entirely by Newtonian mechanics. Each piece of the moon attracted every other piece more or less strongly depending on its mass and its distance. It could be simulated on a computer… Neal Stephenson
“ They walk into the hop field. Carefully. There is an enveloping smell, a resiny odor not unlike marijuana, the sharp smell that comes off an expensive beer. Neal Stephenson
“ The lumbering bagos and topheavyfour-wheelers form a moving slalom course for Hiro on his blackmotorcycle.All these beefy Caucasians with guns! Get enough of them together, looking forthe America they… Neal Stephenson
“ The human race might be about to disappear, but not before putting on a two-year frenzy of recreational sex. Neal Stephenson
“ The franchise and the virus work on the same principle, what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring bin… Neal Stephenson
“ The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambigous or ev… Neal Stephenson
“ The belief in the magical power of language is not unusual, both in mysticaland academic literature. The Kabbalists -- Jewish mystics of Spain andPalestine -- believed that super-normal insight and po… Neal Stephenson
“ The basic problem for Lawrence was that he was lazy. He had figured out that everything was much simpler if, like Superman with his X-ray vision, you just stared through the cosmetic distractions and… Neal Stephenson
“ The answer was that it was about twenty degrees west of their projected apogee, encircling a large new habitat called Akureyri, and heading generally in the direction of the Cape Verde boneyard that s… Neal Stephenson
“ The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He’s got esprit up to here. Neal Stephenson
“ TL;DR: I got recruited out of a park to prevent Tristan from getting his ass kicked in a swordfight and they found out I was a CS major. Neal Stephenson
