“ Most men would rather be shot through with a broad-headed arrow than be described by you. Neal Stephenson
“ It is a second-generation Seattle-scene record label; all of its artists are young people who came to Seattle after they graduated college in search of the legendary Seattle music scene and discovered… Neal Stephenson
“ Her skirts, sleeves, collar, and hat saw to it that none of the young ruffians of the Leased Territories would have the opportunity to invade her body space with their eyes, and lest her distinctive f… Neal Stephenson
“ Investors who dictate terms are common as the air, Jack, Enoch said. This is a different matter altogether. You are not borrowing capital from an investor in exchange for specific terms. You are enter… Neal Stephenson
“ The four-day elevator ride might be nothing more than a prelude to further journeys, some of which might take her to places with little to no bandwidth, and nothing was worse than getting stuck in a s… Neal Stephenson
“ Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line… Neal Stephenson
“ Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amoun… Neal Stephenson
“ So in order to accommodate the Pioneers who would begin arriving in a few weeks, the Arkitects sent up Scouts. The qualifications for being a Scout seemed to be a shocking level of physical endurance,… Neal Stephenson
“ People wait until they have a need for some history and then they customize it to suit their purposes. Neal Stephenson
“ Most of the brain's work is done while the brain's owner is ostensibly thinking about something else, so sometimes you have to deliberately find something else to think and talk about. Neal Stephenson
“ And so from then onwards, Daniel understood that the point of this grueling sundial project was not merely to plot the curve but to understand why each curve was shaped as it was. To put it another wa… Neal Stephenson
“ There was no room for dust devils in the laws of physics, as least in the rigid form in which they were usually taught. There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education:… Neal Stephenson
“ He turns off the techno-shit in his goggles. All it does is confuse him; he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as it's happening to him. Very post-modern. Neal Stephenson
“ He parks in the far corner of the lot, explaining that it is more logical to do this and then walk for fifteen seconds than it is to spend fifteen minutes looking for a closer space. Neal Stephenson
“ Yong is the outer manifestation of something. Ti is the underlying essence. Technology is a yong associated with a particular ti that is ... Western, and completely alien to us [the Chinese]. For cent… Neal Stephenson
“ Enoch pulled the hood back from his head and said, What was really magnificent about that entrance, Jack, was that, until the moment you rose up out of the pool all covered in phosphorus, you were inv… Neal Stephenson
“ Every human being who is born into this universe is like a child who has been given a key to an infinite Library, written in cyphers that are more or less obscure, arranged by a scheme—of which we can… Neal Stephenson
