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It is what you don't expect... that most needs looking for.

Neal Stephenson

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Neal Stephenson
Age: 64
Born: 1959
Born: October 31
Author
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Camp Annapolis Junction
Neal Town Stephenson
Stephen Bury
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More quotes by Neal Stephenson

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I think visual literacy and media literacy is not without value, but I think plain old-fashioned text literacy and mathematical literacy are much more powerful and flexible ways to organize your mind.
Neal Stephenson
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In trying to understand the Linux phenomenon, then, we have to look not at a single innovator but to a sort of bizarre Trinity : Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Bill Gates. Take away any of these three and Linux would not exist.
Neal Stephenson
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She's not afraid. She's wearing a dentata.
Neal Stephenson
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I feel that I am entitled to trample all other considerations into the dirt in my pursuit of a satisfying pun.
Neal Stephenson
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I am on an expense account that would blow your mind.
Neal Stephenson
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If you are a professional writer - i.e., if someone else is getting paid to worry about how your words are formatted and printed - Emacs outshines all other editing software in approximately the same way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and brighter it simply makes everything else vanish.
Neal Stephenson
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How could your cover be blown in Canada? Why even bother going dark there? How could you tell?
Neal Stephenson
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That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.
Neal Stephenson
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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.
Neal Stephenson
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Most countries are static, all they need to do is keep having babies. But America's like this big old clanking smoking machine that just lumbers across the landscape scooping up and eating everything in sight.
Neal Stephenson
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...your Web browser is Ronald Reagan.
Neal Stephenson
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This is one of the two great labyrinths into which human minds are drawn: the question of free will versus predestination.
Neal Stephenson
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Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.
Neal Stephenson
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When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins.
Neal Stephenson
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The hour of noon has passed,' said Judge Fang. 'Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Neal Stephenson
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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.
Neal Stephenson
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The mind knows...that there is an action principle that governs how the world evolves from one moment to the next - that restricts our world's path to points that tell an internally consistent story.
Neal Stephenson
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The less attractive the character, the more I enjoyed writing them. Officious bureaucrats and PowerPoint weasels are where it's at for me.
Neal Stephenson
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It would be quite unusual for me to get deep into a project and then shitcan it. One of the advantages of having done this for a while is that I have a better sense than I used to of when something is or isn't working. Until I developed that sense, this was a pretty dicey career for me, both in terms of paying the rent, and emotional wear and tear.
Neal Stephenson
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One of the problems, hanging out with me, is that I can turn any topic into a toxic horror story. I've lost two girlfriends and a job by reading an ingredients label out loud, with annotations, at the wrong time.
Neal Stephenson