“ The little boy in him was crestfallen that he wasn’t going on the adventure. Then he reminded himself that he was already part of the biggest adventure ever, and that, so far, it had been altogether m… Neal Stephenson
“ The leaders of Nippon were stupid. They took all of the gold out of Tokyo and buried it in holes in the ground in the Philippines! Because they thought that The General would march into Tokyo and stea… Neal Stephenson
“ The last year had been an education in how little having money really mattered. A rich Vagabond was a Vagabond still, and ’twas common knowledge that King Charles, during the Interregnum, had lived wi… Neal Stephenson
“ The kind of woman who could pleasantly instruct you to fuck off, dear, and you immediately would because you’d just hate to disappoint her. Neal Stephenson
“ The example cited most often was a gradual change in eye color among Moirans. Eve Moira’s eyes had been hazel: relatively light in color by the standards of black people, but not all that unusual. By… Neal Stephenson
“ The doctor had been dousing her hands with a sort of ointment they use, scented like bad gin. It is a ritual with them. Neal Stephenson
“ The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intell… Neal Stephenson
“ The conventionally accepted explanation for this is that storytellers have a power of imagination that makes them good at inventing counterfactual narratives. In the light of everything we’ve learned… Neal Stephenson
“ The color of the land fades gradually from dark jungle green to pale green and then a sere reddish-brown as the tail extends from the fat center of the island out to the end, and the soil becomes drye… Neal Stephenson
“ The biggest single-celled organisms in the world. They live beneath the Antarctic ice. And as they grow, they take grains of sand from their environment and glue them together to form hard outer skins… Neal Stephenson
“ The automatic waffle machine emitted a piercing electronic beep, signaling it wanted to be turned over. Seamus reached out and flipped it. The Four were standing at the complimentary breakfast bar of… Neal Stephenson
“ The Victorian era was an age of superlatives and larger-than-life characters, and as far as that goes, Dr. Wildman Whitehouse fit right in: what Victoria was to monarchs, Dickens to novelists, Burton… Neal Stephenson
“ The Templar and Hospitaller commanders had argued with Calpurnius, the master of the Shield-Brethren company, as to the membership of the team that would lead the upper-floor assault. Calpurnius had l… Neal Stephenson
“ The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her, slackjawed. She has just enough residual energy to swing into their driveway. Her momentum carries her to the top. She stops… Neal Stephenson
“ The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that pow… Neal Stephenson
“ The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. Had to borrow it from the Mafia, in fact. So he's in their database now—retinal patterns, DNA, voice graph, fingerprints, footprints, palm print… Neal Stephenson
“ That's funny because if anyone actually did prove the existence of God we'd just tell him 'nice proof, Fraa Bly' and start believing in God. Neal Stephenson
“ That quieted her down a little bit. But after a while, she said: Do you need transportation? Tools? Stuff? Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs, I said. We have a protractor. Neal Stephenson
“ Talking to a black-and-white on the Street is like talking to a person who has his face stuck in a xerox machine, repeatedly pounding the copy button, while you stand by the output tray pulling the sh… Neal Stephenson
“ THE QUILL SWIRLED and lunged over the page in a slow but relentless three-steps-forward, two-steps-back sort of process, and finally came to a full stop in a tiny pool of its own ink. Then Louis Phély… Neal Stephenson
