“ I don’t think that teenagers are the way they are because of their age. It’s because they have nothing to lose. They simultaneously have a lot of time on their hands and yet are very impatient to get… Neal Stephenson
“ I don't think a Drop Top can can reach an orbit this high, can it? Dinah asked. Sean's coming alone. It's some kind of special one-passenger model -- the extra mass is being used for propellant. And… Neal Stephenson
“ I don't get this, Hiro says. What is Snow Crash?It's a drug, asshole, the guy says. What do you think? Neal Stephenson
“ Humans are conversant in many media (music, dance, painting), but all of them are analog except for the written word, which is naturally expressed in digital form (i.e. it is a series of discrete symb… Neal Stephenson
“ Human nature doesn’t change, Randy. Education is hopeless. The most educated people in the world can turn into Aztecs or Nazis just like that. He snaps his fingers. Neal Stephenson
“ How could a man become a god? Nell asked. By living in an extremely pragmatic society, said Constable Moore after some thought Neal Stephenson
“ His mind refused to accept that what he was hearing was laughter, and that it was coming from a human throat. He scrambled backward, and the shadowy figure leaped forward, grabbing at his trailing leg… Neal Stephenson
“ His father was a sergeant major, his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon, and Hiro didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain Army, whether he was rich o… Neal Stephenson
“ Hiro is a talented drifter. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. But in the bleak light of full adulthood, which is to one's early twenties as Sund… Neal Stephenson
“ Hey, Shaftoe says, if we surrender to you, you’ll kill us. Right? Yes. If you guys surrender to us, we won’t kill you. Promise. Scout’s honor. For us, living or dying is not the important thing, Goto… Neal Stephenson
“ He was wearing a suit that appeared to have been constructed by 1) Dressing him in a blouse with twenty-foot long sleeves of the most expensive linen.2) Bunching the sleeves up in numerous overlapping… Neal Stephenson
“ He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him, and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. And she, maybe, was beginning to think that if Hiro was s… Neal Stephenson
“ He is disappointed because he has solved the problem, and has gone back to the baseline state of boredom and low-level irritation that always comes over him when he’s not doing something that inherent… Neal Stephenson
“ He had had many conversations during his long life. Some were fascinating and stayed with him more than a century later. Others were less so. As a younger man he had tolerated those as part of the cos… Neal Stephenson
“ GUIs tend to impose a large overhead on every single piece of software, even the smallest, and this overhead completely changes the programming environment. Small utility programs are no longer worth… Neal Stephenson
“ For members of the general public might not care about Wolf-Rayet stars in the Quintuplet Cluster, but they definitely saw why having hot rocks fall on one’s head was a good thing to avoid. Neal Stephenson
“ Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, sc… Neal Stephenson
“ FORERUNNER (deprecated synonyms: SUICIDE BOMBER, DEAD MAN RUNNING, SCHNEIDER) One who is Sent to a DTAP in which DODO has no Known Compliant Witch, safe house, or other contacts/infrastructure whatsoe… Neal Stephenson
“ FIGHTER (deprecated synonyms: CONAN, WARRIOR) One who specializes in missions where, to put it politely, martial attributes are of the essence. Since every DTAP has a unique environment surrounding we… Neal Stephenson
