Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
And it happened all the time that the compromise between two perfectly rational alternatives was something that made no sense at all.
Neal Stephenson
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Neal Stephenson
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: October 31
Author
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Camp Annapolis Junction
Neal Town Stephenson
Stephen Bury
Two
Made
Something
Alternatives
Time
Perfectly
Compromise
Rational
Happened
Sense
More quotes by Neal Stephenson
Southern California doesn't know whether to bustle or just strangle itself on the spot.
Neal Stephenson
It is exciting to discover electrons and figure out the equations that govern their movement it is boring to use those principles to design electric can openers. From here on out, it's all can openers.
Neal Stephenson
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?
Neal Stephenson
They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right.
Neal Stephenson
You should not believe a thing only because you like to believe it. We call that 'Diax's Rake.
Neal Stephenson
I feel that I am entitled to trample all other considerations into the dirt in my pursuit of a satisfying pun.
Neal Stephenson
Constable Moore had reached the age when men can subject their bodies to the worst irritations - whisky, cigars, woolen clothes, bagpipes - without feeling a thing or, at least, without letting on.
Neal Stephenson
I just assume I'm not invisible. I assume I'm wearing fluorescent clothes, and there's a million-dollar bounty going to the first driver who manages to hit me. And I ride on that assumption.
Neal Stephenson
How could your cover be blown in Canada? Why even bother going dark there? How could you tell?
Neal Stephenson
Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs, I said. We have a protractor.
Neal Stephenson
What are letters?” “Kinda like mediaglyphics except they’re all black, and they’re tiny, they don’t move, they’re old and boring and really hard to read. But you can use ’em to make short words for long words.
Neal Stephenson
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.
Neal Stephenson
So, you're worried that a pink dragon will fly over the concent and fart nerve gas on us?
Neal Stephenson
A lot of secular, modern people claim to be disillusioned whenever they learn that any smart person is religious. That's applicable to Newton as it is to any other religious smart person
Neal Stephenson
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
I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word processor.
Neal Stephenson
...your Web browser is Ronald Reagan.
Neal Stephenson
The science fiction approach doesn't mean it's always about the future it's an awareness that this is different.
Neal Stephenson
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.
Neal Stephenson
If the item of stolen property had been anything other than a book, it would have been confiscated. But a book is different - it is not just a material possession but the pathway to an enlightened mind, and thence to a well-ordered society.
Neal Stephenson