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Unix is not so much an operating system as an oral history.
Neal Stephenson
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Neal Stephenson
Age: 64
Born: 1959
Born: October 31
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Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
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Camp Annapolis Junction
Neal Town Stephenson
Stephen Bury
System
History
Much
Unix
Oral
Operating
More quotes by Neal Stephenson
It is what you don't expect... that most needs looking for.
Neal Stephenson
That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.
Neal Stephenson
Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs, I said. We have a protractor.
Neal Stephenson
Any strategy that involves crossing a valley accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.
Neal Stephenson
This made him a grad student, and grad students existed not to learn things but to relieve the tenured faculty members of tiresome burdens such as educating people and doing research.
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
... when I saw any of those kinds of beauty I knew I was alive, and not just in the sense that when I hit my thumb with a hammer I knew I was alive, but rather in the sense that I was partaking of something--something was passing through me that it was in my nature to be a part of.
Neal Stephenson
...your Web browser is Ronald Reagan.
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
The suspect had experienced a ballistic interlude earlier in the evening, Miss Pao said, regrettably not filmed, and relieved himself of excess velocity by means of an ablative technique.
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
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
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 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
They went inside. The young ones shuffled to a stop as their ironic sensibilities, which served them in lieu of souls, were jammed by a signal of overwhelming power.
Neal Stephenson
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
I actually don't think that there is a connection between the survival instinct and a hunger for immortality.
Neal Stephenson
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
Neal Stephenson
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.
Neal Stephenson
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.
Neal Stephenson