Quote

The trouble is, if you go too far towards being polite, the label that applies is doormat.

Charles Stross

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Stross
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: October 18
Pharmacist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Charlie Stross
Doormat
Applies
Label
Polite
Labels
Towards
Trouble

More quotes by Charles Stross

Image
I'm a fuzzy-headed warm-hearted liberal, and I think fuzzy-headed warm-hearted liberalism is an ideological stance that needs defending-if necessary, with a hob-nailed boot-kick to the bollocks of budding totalitarianism.
Charles Stross
Image
I drink tea pretty much continuously at a rate of around 1 imperial pint/hour, which sort of enforces screen/keyboard breaks.
Charles Stross
Image
Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.
Charles Stross
Image
I write exclusively using computers. Pens and typewriters can fsck right off - I wrote my first half million words in my teens on a manual typewriter (had to trade it for a new one due to keys snapping from metal fatigue) so I am not a pen or typewriter fetishist.
Charles Stross
Image
I'm told that a couple of my Russian translations are just plain terrible, though, and there may be others.
Charles Stross
Image
I'm an atheist .I was raised in British reform Judaism, which is not like American reform Judaism, much less any other strain of organised religion. So: no cults here.
Charles Stross
Image
Humans are just barely intelligent tool users Darwinian evolutionary selection stopped when language and tool use converged, leaving the average hairy meme carrier sadly deficient in smarts.
Charles Stross
Image
All men are islands, surrounded by the bottomless oceans of unthinking night.
Charles Stross
Image
I have no policy, for or against: only a personal style. Which is to say, I use them when I think it's appropriate to for example, an internal monologue by a locquacious and verbose narrator is more likely to be larded with adverbs than an exchange of instant messages between cops at a crime scene.
Charles Stross
Image
I suspect losing paper maps but gaining GPS and online maps is a similar step function: maps still exist, but they're vastly more useful, not to say permanently up to date, in their new form. Again, I won't be shedding any tears, but I'll keep a paper road atlas in the back of my car for another few years, I think, Just In Case.
Charles Stross
Image
You know, if I tried to change the minds of everyone who I thought needed changing, I'd never have time to do anything else.
Charles Stross
Image
Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)
Charles Stross
Image
I don't want to permanently damage myself! On the other hand, a couple of days off the keyboard tends to make things somewhat better.
Charles Stross
Image
Can I remember I remember lots, I say. How much of what I remember is true is another matter.
Charles Stross
Image
Humans are not as unsophisticated as mulch wrigglers, they can see the writing on the wall. Is it any surprise, that among the ones who look outward, the real debate is not over whether to run, but over how far and how fast?
Charles Stross
Image
I was an early adopter: have been on the internet continuously since late 1989, barring a six-month loss of access in the early 90s.
Charles Stross
Image
What I read: while I'm writing, I tend to go off reading fiction for relaxation - especially the challenging stuff. It's too much like the day job.
Charles Stross
Image
You'll still get guys with an array of badges to demonstrate their importance, but that just excludes people. I think fandom is more inclusive now.
Charles Stross
Image
Where would dictators be without our compliant amnesia? Make the collective lose its memory, you can conceal anything.
Charles Stross
Image
Like the famous mad philosopher said, when you stare into the void, the void stares also but if you cast into the void, you get a type conversion error. (Which just goes to show Nietzsche wasn't a C++ programmer.)
Charles Stross