“ Anyone who made it through the screening and the training required to become an Arkie—which doesn’t include you, Julia—will understand exactly what we are trying to do from an orbital mechanics standp… Neal Stephenson
“ Andreas had been trying to remember the words to a ribald drinking song he had heard a few weeks ago when Saluador rode up next to him. The Spaniard’s horse was a hand or so taller than his own, and i… Neal Stephenson
“ And yet people went on thinking this way, kind of in the way that someone who has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness will go on getting up and going to work every morning, not so much out of… Neal Stephenson
“ And this all fits very well with the modern way of thinking about stuff in which all you need to do, in order to attain a sense of personal accomplishment and earn the accolades of your peers, is to d… Neal Stephenson
“ And then there's The Enforcers—but they cost a lot and don't take well to supervision. It is rumored that, under their uniforms, they wear T-shirts bearing the unofficial Enforcer coat of arms: a fist… Neal Stephenson
“ And then she figures out something important: These people aren't looking at her. They're not even giving her a second glance. They're all looking at Raven. And it's not just a case of celebrity watch… Neal Stephenson
“ And so what moved him onward and down the office building’s stairway was not any sort of foolish hope that he could actually be saved, but competitive fury at the fact that he had been outdone by the… Neal Stephenson
“ And she went on in this vein for a minute or two; she could talk about alloys the way some girls talked about shoes. Neal Stephenson
“ And it happened all the time that the compromise between two perfectly rational alternatives was something that made no sense at all. Neal Stephenson
“ All people have religions. It's like we have religion receptors built into our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything that'll fill that niche for us. Neal Stephenson
“ After about three billion years of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Neal Stephenson
“ In the background she can hear the shopping carts performing their clashy, anal copulations. Neal Stephenson
“ Can’t say I mourned my failure overmuch, as it meant I’d get a free trip to New Orleans out of it, and that would rock be most excellent. I DROVE BACK to the office late in the day to find Tristan col… Neal Stephenson
“ And two cats. He teaches medieval fighting techniques to members of the armed forces. The Mongoliad is his first published fiction. Erik Bear lives and writes in Seattle, Washington. He has written fo… Neal Stephenson
“ You can say any sort of nonsense in Latin, and our feeble university men will be stunned, or at least profoundly confused. That’s how the popes have gotten away with peddling bad religion for so long,… Neal Stephenson
“ When you just wing it, you are aware of the risk and the uncertainty, and inclined to be more cautious. When you have a high-tech tool giving you an illusion of omniscience, I am concerned that it wil… Neal Stephenson
“ When the gangplanks are drawn in from the stone edge of the Bund, they are cut off from a whole world that they’ll never see again, a world where they were kings. Now they are Marines again. Neal Stephenson
“ When later generations come to read about our history they will think they are reading a romance, and not believe a word of it. Neal Stephenson
“ What are you doing? Dengo would ask him. Observing, father would say. But how long can you observe the same thing? Forever. Neal Stephenson
