“ She eyes him warily. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her officeyears ago.It comes into his mind to wonder why she is always so alert in his presence. Incollege, he used to think that sh… Neal Stephenson
“ See, the world is full of things more powerful than us. But if you know how to catch a ride, you can go places, Neal Stephenson
“ SF does possess at least two of the classic markers of genrehood, namely intellectual disreputability and moral salaciousness. SF thrives because it is idea porn. Neal Stephenson
“ Ronald Reagan has a stack of three-by-five cards in his lap. He skids up a new one: What advice do you, as the youngest American fighting man ever to win both the Navy Cross and the Silver Star, have… Neal Stephenson
“ Reality is what we make it. Or what is made for us by the companies we keep. It is our clay from which we fashion ourselves. Neal Stephenson
“ Passing through the utility section she considered getting herself a cup of coffee. Then she felt shock and shame over the fact that she was thinking about coffee while her planet was being set on fir… Neal Stephenson
“ One thing Waterhouse likes about these Brits is that when they don’t know what the hell you are talking about, they are at least open to the possibility that it might be their fault. Neal Stephenson
“ Once she gets over the shock of it and settles into a routine, she startslooking around her, watching the other fish-cutting dames, and realizes thatthis is just like life must be for about 99 percent… Neal Stephenson
“ Occasionally a red taxi or Mercedes-Benz would squeeze by along the iron fence and burst free, the driver holding down the horn button so furiously that he might detonate the air bag. Neal Stephenson
“ Native Americans had tricksters—creatures full of cunning—like Coyote and Raven in their mythologies, but they didn’t have technology yet, and so they hadn’t coupled the Trickster with Crafts to gener… Neal Stephenson
“ NONE OF YOU WILL EVER STAND ON TERRA FIRMA, TOUCH YOUR loved ones, or breathe the atmosphere of your mother planet again, the president said. That is a terrible fate. And yet it is a better fate than… Neal Stephenson
“ Most of their children had reached the age when they were no longer naturally endearing to anyone save their own parents; the size when their energy was more a menace than a wonder; and the level of i… Neal Stephenson
“ Most of the information on this topic is crap. What do you mean by that? Crade demanded. We all looked at him, because in an instant he had become markedly defensive. Sammann raised his eyes from the… Neal Stephenson
“ Moral reforms and deteriorations are moved by large forces, and they are mostly caused by reactions from the habits of a preceding period. Backwards and forwards swings the great pendulum, and its alt… Neal Stephenson
“ Middle-class prosperity is lapidary; the flow of cash rounds and smooths a person like water does riverbed stones. The goal of all such persons seems to be to make themselves cuddly and nonthreatening… Neal Stephenson
“ Menopause had finally terminated her fantastically involved and complex relationship with her womb: a legendary saga of irregular bleeding, eleven-month pregnancies straight out of the Royal Society p… Neal Stephenson
“ Mammon led them on, Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell From heav’n, for ev’n in heav’n his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of Heav’ns pavement, trod’n Go… Neal Stephenson
“ Later, he was to decide that Andrew’s life had been fractally weird. That is, you could take any small piece of it and examine it in detail and it, in and of itself, would turn out to be just as compl… Neal Stephenson
