I don't like sewing machines. I don't understand how a needle with a thread going through the tip of it can interlock the thread by jamming itself into a little goddamn spool. It's contrary to nature and it irritates me. Neal Stephenson More Quotes by Neal Stephenson More Quotes From Neal Stephenson He had some measure of the infuriating trait that causes a young man to be a nonconformist for its own sake and found that the surest way to shock most people, in those days, was to believe that some kinds of behavior were bad and others good, and that it was reasonable to live one's life accordingly. Neal Stephenson men believe people What's hard, in hacking as in fiction, is not writing, it's deciding what to write. Neal Stephenson hacking writing fiction Once a person has all the things they need to live, everything else is entertainment. Neal Stephenson entertainment persons needs The hour of noon has passed,' said Judge Fang. 'Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken. Neal Stephenson noon kentucky judging They wanted to carry her, but she jumped to the stones of the plaza and strode away from the building, toward her ranks, which parted to make way for her. The streets of Pudong were filled with hungry and terrified refugees, and through them, in simple peasant clothes streaked with the blood of herself and of others, broken shackles dangling from her wrists, followed by her generals and ministers, walked the barbarian Princess with her book and her sword. Neal Stephenson princess simple book Software development, like professional sports, has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit. Neal Stephenson sports men years 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 nerd scary people Of course, the underlying structure of everything in England is posh. There is no in-between with these people. You have to walk a mile to find a telephone booth, but when you find it, it is built as if the senseless dynamiting of pay phones had been a serious problem at some time in the past. And a British mailbox can presumably stop a German tank. Neal Stephenson phones people past Enoch...why are you here? Why has my spirit been incarnated into a physical bodi in this world generally? Or specifically, why am I here in a Swedish forest, standing on the wreck of a mysterious German rocket plane while a homosexual German sobs over the cremated remains of his Italian lover? Neal Stephenson wrecks italian world I don't even want you to nod, that's how much you annoy me. Just freeze and shut up. Neal Stephenson shut-up annoying want 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. Neal Stephenson hypocrisy hypocrite views That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code. Neal Stephenson code moral doe 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 irritation pain men Give me an adventure. I'm not talking about some massive adventure. Just something that would make getting fired seem small. Something that I might remember when I'm old." "I can't predict the future," I said, "but based on what little I know so far, I'm afraid it has to be a massive adventure or nothing." "Great!" "Probably the kind of adventure that ends in a mass burial. Neal Stephenson talking adventure giving 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 stars editing worry [Emacs] is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful. Neal Stephenson computer language beautiful Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes and he'll come up with something that looks like the boxes that the shoes came in; ask him to make something that will massacre Germans, and he turns into Thomas "Fscking" Edison. Neal Stephenson shoes design looks 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 design principles use Those who think through possible outcomes with discipline, forge connections, in so doing, to other cosmi in which those outcomes are more than mere possibilities. Such a consciousness is measurably, quantitatively different from one that has not undertaken the same work and so, yes, is able to make correct decisions in an Emergence where an untrained mind would be of little use. Neal Stephenson discipline decision thinking The imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a few nerds with slide rulers - It's the only way for the human race to escape from its current predicaments - Too bad we've forgotten how to do it Neal Stephenson technology race inspirational
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