Top Neal Stephenson Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Neal Stephenson Biography

Neal Stephenson

Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer and game designer known for his works of speculative fiction.

Read about Neal Stephenson in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Neal Stephenson Quotes

[Regarding] the soul, I'm a little wary of any discourse on that topic that pretends to have an answer, so I tend to keep my musings to myself. There is interesting, legitimate metaphysical work on the topic going at least as far back as Leibniz and continuing today, following the theme that consciousness, or at least computation, might be at least as fundamental as phenomena such as space, time, energy, and matter, which are the usual subject matter of physics. I follow that sort of thing with interest but with very modest expectations that answers will be arrived at during my lifetime.

Space, Interesting, Expectations, Time, Computation, Legitimate

Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy. . . Because they were hypocrites, the Victorians were despised in the late twentieth century. Many of the persons who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefarious conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves-they took no moral stances and lived by none.

Ferreting, Hypocrisy, Hypocrite, Lived, Took, Views

Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You would have to be some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption that the current would add or subtract 5 miles per hour to or from the speed of the boat.

Add, Boat, Facile, Idiot, Miles, Saws

The hour of noon has passed,' said Judge Fang. 'Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Kentucky, Judging, Noon, Passed, Said

Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?

Buying, Wagons, Stations, Everyone, See

She's not afraid. She's wearing a dentata.

Afraid, Dentata, Not Afraid, Wearing

And it happened all the time that the compromise between two perfectly rational alternatives was something that made no sense at all.

Alternatives, Compromise, Sense, Two

Ares always reemerges from the chaos. It will never go away. Athenian civilization defends itself from the forces of Ares with metis, or technology. Technology is built on science. Science is like the alchemists' uroburos, continually eating its own tail. The process of science doesn't work unless young scientists have the freedom to attack and tear down old dogmas, to engage in an ongoing Titanomachia. Science flourishes where art and free speech flourish.

Ares, Art, Civilization, Flourishes, Technology

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.

Brain, Deliberately, Done, Ostensibly, Thinking, Work

One of the most frightening things about your true nerd, for may people, is not that he's socially inept - because everybody's been there - but rather his complete lack of embarrassment about it.

People, Scary, Nerd, Embarrassment, Socially, Things

Which path do you intend to take, Nell?' said the Constable, sounding very interested. 'Conformity or rebellion?' Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded - they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.

Conformity, Intend, Path, People, Simple, Way

The sight of the bare katana inspires everyone to a practically Nipponese level of politeness

Bare, Inspire, Inspires, Levels, Politeness, Sight

The GPS unit became almost equally obstreperous, though, over Richard’s unauthorized route change, until they finally passed over some invisible cybernetic watershed between two possible ways of getting to their destination, and it changed its fickle little mind and began calmly telling him which way to proceed as if this had been its idea all along.

Gps, Ideas, Richards, Two, Unauthorized, Watershed

Hostility towards Microsoft is not difficult to find on the Net, and it blends two strains: resentful people who feel Microsoft is too powerful, and disdainful people who think it's tacky. This is all strongly reminiscent of the heyday of Communism and Socialism, when the bourgeoisie were hated from both ends: by the proles, because they had all the money, and by the intelligentsia, because of their tendency to spend it on lawn ornaments. Microsoft is the very embodiment of modern high-tech prosperity - it is, in a word, bourgeois - and so it attracts all of the same gripes.

Attracts, Net, People, Powerful, Thinking, Two

I think that this vein is close to being mined out already, but I'll say that my knowledge of and talent for linguistics are quite limited and I'm not aware of being a hell of a lot more interested in that topic than I am in others.

Thinking, Veins, Topics, Linguistics, Vein, Interested

At the beginning of the project, I wasn't certain that I could come up with an engaging storyline and cast of characters in this world, so I had a strong bias toward actually writing, and worrying about research later. In other words, I was afraid that I'd devote a year or two of my life to grinding through Kant and Husserl, then discover that there simply was no novel to be written here.

Strong, Writing, Character, Characters

We see everything from the narrator's point of view, so exposition about the world is limited to what impinges directly on him and the story he's telling. Considering how old the world is, we learn very little about its history, which I think is a good thing.

Thinking, Views, Narrators, Learn, View, See

As convenient as it is for information to come to us, libraries do have a valuable side effect: they force all of the smart people to come together in one place where they can interact with one another.

Force, Interact, Library, People, Smart, Together

The story is everything, so it always begins with a story. And research is a kind of scaffolding built underneath the story as I go along. My enjoyment level varies, but in general, I'm writing about topics I find interesting, so I can't gripe too much.

Interesting, Kind, Level, Story, Writing

Wait a minute, Juanita. Make up your mind. This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" Juanita shrugs. "What's the difference?

Difference, Differences, Make, Snow, Wait, Waiting

1