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Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling Quotes

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Bruce Sterling, born on April 14, 1954, is an influential American science fiction author known for his unique perspective on the future and profound insights into technological development. His works cover a wide range of themes from social commentary to technological prophecy, and his novels and short stories have won numerous science fiction awards.

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Famous Bruce Sterling Quotes

“Open-source is a means of production.”

Mean Source Productions Open Source

Author:Bruce Sterling

“One of the points about distractions is that everything that they do is destabilizing.”

Madness Distraction

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Well, they didn't lack for topics after Hiroshima. Why should 9/11 slow them down? I know it got a lot of press, but it's just a few large buildings and aircraft, it's not like D-Day and the Seige of Berlin.”

Knows Should Wells Literature Building Presses Topics Berlin Aircraft Hiroshima D Day

Author:Bruce Sterling

“(He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute”

Men Purpose Mankind Limits Absolutes Finals Shelter Blindness Futility

Book:Schismatrix Plus

Source: Schismatrix Plus

“You know what's truly weird about any financial crisis? We made it up. Currency, money, finance, they're all social inventions. When the sun comes up in the morning it's shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in place.”

Knows Made Social Morning Sun Crisis Shining Financial Come Up Invention Finance Made It Landscape Atoms Currency Financial Crisis

Author:Bruce Sterling

“The future is unwritten. there are best case scenarios. There are worst-case scenarios. both of them are great fun to write about if you' re a science fiction novelist, but neither of them ever happens in the real world. What happens in the real world is always a sideways-case scenario. World-changing marvels to us, are only wallpaper to our children.”

Ifs World Writing Children Real Happens Fun Fiction Cases Worst Criticism Our Children Science Fiction Novelists Real World Scenarios Sideways Unwritten Worst Case Scenario

Author:Bruce Sterling

“In a world so redolent with wonder, how can we allow ourselves to conduct our daily lives with so little insight, such absence of dignity?”

World Littles Wonder Dignity Insight Absence Daily Life

Author:Bruce Sterling

“A dagger is the noble weapon of Brutus. Everyone understands that tyrants fall to daggers. A bomb is a sordid modern device with many complex working parts. Only engineers understand bombs”

Fall Modern Weapons Complexes Noble Bombs Devices Tyrants Engineers Daggers Brutus

Author:Bruce Sterling

“If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless.”

Ifs World Ideas Play Bigs Seems Fiction Wise Poet Fool Court Science Fiction Leap Prophecy Scratches Legislators Fiction Writers Big Ideas Pulp Jester Court Jester Capers

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Your attitude determines your altitude. Your ambitions are bigger than life Of course. They must be. They encompass it.”

Courses Attitude Ambition Bigger Determine Bigger Than Life

Author:Bruce Sterling

“I used to think that cyberspace was fifty years away. What I thought was fifty years away, was only ten years away. And what I thought was ten years away... it was already here. I just wasn't aware of it yet.”

Thinking Years Used Technology Ten Fifty Cyberspace

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Science fiction is not about the freedom of imagination. It's about a free imagination pinched and howling in a vise that other people call real life.”

People Real Imagination Fiction Science Fiction Real Life

Author:Bruce Sterling

“The ruins of the unsustainable are the 21st century’s frontier.”

Century Ruins 21st Century Frontiers

Author:Bruce Sterling

“I was once a student in a punk T-Shirt hooked on screwed-up scenarios. Thats how I became the esteemed cultural figure that I am today.”

Today Literature Figures Students Shirts Punk T Shirt Scenarios Hooked Screwed Up

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Obsolescence and death, the reign of the archaic, the abandoned, and the corny: Really, if you saw Windows 3.0 on the sidewalk outside the building, would you bend over and pick it up?!?”

Ifs Saws Building Picks Window Abandoned Reign Corny Sidewalk Obsolescence

Author:Bruce Sterling

“David Brin is a technological determinist. He thinks that we understand the trend and we need to hop on it. I don't have any such illusions.”

Thinking Needs Illusion Hops Trends Technological

Author:Bruce Sterling

“A set of Bollywood actresses are coming through Dallas soon in a live tour; I'd pay a lot to see them, but alas, I'm fully booked elsewhere.”

Pay Actresses Elsewhere Alas Dallas Bollywood

Author:Bruce Sterling

“You may be a geek. You may have geek written all over you. You should aim to be the geek they will never forget. Don’t aim to be civilized. Don’t hope that straight people will keep you on as some sort of pet. To hell with them, they put you here. You should realize what society has made of you and take full revenge. Get weird. Get way weird. Get dangerously weird. Get sophisticatedly thoroughly weird and don’t do it half way, put every ounce of your horse power into it. Have the artistic courage to realize your significance in culture.”

People Way Should May Made Culture Realizing Forget Half Hell Written Horse Aim Revenge Artistic Pet Significance Over You Civilized Never Forget Geek Half Way

Author:Bruce Sterling

“We might be on the brink of an apocalypse if, instead of poor people with suicide bombs killing middle class guys, middle-class people with suicide bombs started killing rich guys.”

People Ifs Might Guy Literature Poor Class Rich Middle Suicide Killing Bombs Middle Class Apocalypse Poor People

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Humans are very aggressive and scrappy, and go to war at the drop of a hat. However, a standard land war is no longer going to work as it is no longer technically possible.”

Humans War Land Standards Hats Aggressive Going To Work

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it's the truth. It won't go away because we cover our eyes. THAT is cyberpunk.”

Thinking Humans Hard Done Eye Can Do Human Beings Going Away Rats Hard Things Cyberpunk

Author:Bruce Sterling

“When you can’t imagine how things are going to change, that doesn’t mean that nothing will change. It means that things will change in ways that are unimaginable.”

Way Mean Imagine Unimaginable

Author:Bruce Sterling

“The level of ignorance is declining, and the ability to accumulate data and manipulate it for various ends is increasing.”

Ends Literature Ability Levels Ignorance Various Data Manipulation Manipulate

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Las Vegas is a major family destination. Nevada casinos have become American family values now. It's considered just fine to go into one of these windowless scary gambling-malls, drink yourself silly, lose your ass at roulette, and then go ogle showgirls with breast implants. Republicans do this now. Working-class folks do it in polyester stretch pants. It's normal.”

“Don't become a well rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and ull. Become a thoroughly spiky person.”

People Wells Persons Belief Smooth Well Rounded

Author:Bruce Sterling

“I haven't had that good a time in ages. Since September 11, really. I just felt so happy, it was like the sun came out of the clouds for me. I love Italy.”

Age Literature Felt Sun Havens Clouds Individualism September September 11

Author:Bruce Sterling

“My idea of an amusement park story is getting adventurers to go tour environmental disaster areas. After all, if the entire Great Barrier Reef gets killed, which seems like an extremely lively possibility, what are you going to do with all that rotting limestone?”

Ifs Ideas Stories Seems Literature Possibility Areas Environmental Disaster Parks Barriers Amusement Lively Adventurer Rotting Reefs Amusement Parks Limestone Great Barrier Reef

Author:Bruce Sterling

“We may yet work up to some serious shooting war, or maybe some acts of urban genocide committed with rogue nuclear weapons. But if that were the case, why would we call that "9/11"? If Washington disappeared in a mushroom cloud, we'd give that huge event a different name.”

Ifs Giving May Different War Names Cases Events Serious Huge Weapons Clouds Committed Nuclear Shooting Genocide Nuclear Weapons Urban Mushrooms Rogues Different Names

Author:Bruce Sterling

“I wouldn't describe that "position" as "parasitic." I'd describe that experience as "edifying." I don't merely write from a critical intellectual distance. I actually live around here.”

Writing Literature Position Intellectual Experience Distance Critical

Author:Bruce Sterling

“The Bollywood distribution system is so corrupt that they have trouble making money off movies. So they sell shoes that an actress stepped in. If they turned up the amps some, maybe they could sell the actresses.”

Ifs Literature Trouble Sells Shoes Actresses Making Money Movie Distribution Bollywood Trouble Making

Author:Bruce Sterling

“War as Napoleon knew it just not possible any more. However, we're very unlikely to accept or recognize "world peace" even when we get it.”

World War Literature Peace Accepting Unlikely

Author:Bruce Sterling

“If politics and business fail us, of course the military will be called in. In the developing world, the massive and repeated ecological disasters are quite commonly met by the military.”

Ifs World Courses Politics Failing Military Mets Disaster Developing Massive Ecological

Author:Bruce Sterling

“People in the Pentagon had colleagues killed and maimed by bin Laden. They're trying to find bin Laden and kill him and his cult. Naturally they consider that a legitimate thing to do, but they're having mixed success at the job.”

People Trying Jobs Success Things To Do Colleagues Cult Bin Laden Pentagon

Author:Bruce Sterling

“My dream appliance circa 2050 has one big dial on it, and when I twist it to the right, my IQ goes up to 450.”

Dream Bigs Technology Twists Appliances

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Saying you have a political solution is like saying you can write a pop song that's going to stay at the top of the list forever. I don't have many illusions about this, but I'm not cynical about it.”

Writing Political Song Forever Solutions Illusion Pops Lists Cynical Pop Song

Author:Bruce Sterling

“I don't think there's much distinction between surveillance and media in general. Better media means better surveillance. Cams are everywhere.”

Thinking Mean Media Distinction Surveillance

Author:Bruce Sterling

“I like to get paid for doing basic research, so it's pleasant to write some nonfiction about it.”

Writing Research Paid Pleasant Nonfiction Fiction And Nonfiction Basic Research Writing Nonfiction

Author:Bruce Sterling

“I'm an entertainer in the military-entertainment complex.”

Military Complexes Entertainment Entertainers

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Political people don't solve stuff - not really. Political people are like guys in pop music.”

People Political Guy Literature Stuff Pops Solve Pop Music

Author:Bruce Sterling

“A security cam is one small part of a much larger universe of cams. The much larger effect, socially, politically and economically, is going to come from a much larger trend.”

Universe Literature Effects Security Trends Small Parts

Author:Bruce Sterling

“I do have two data identities. I have my name, Bruce Sterling, which is my public name under which I write novels. I also have my other name, which is my legal name under which I own property and vote.”

Writing Two Names Novel Identity Vote Property Data Sterling

Author:Bruce Sterling

“If bin Laden is in fact publicly killed, then the US military will find itself standing around with its hands in its pockets, wondering what's supposed to come next.”

Ifs Facts Hands Next Literature Wonder Military Standing Pockets Bin Laden Us Military

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Privacy under what circumstance? Privacy at home under what circumstances? You have more privacy if everyone's illiterate, but you wouldn't really call that privacy. That's ignorance.”

Ifs Home Literature Ignorance Circumstances Privacy Illiterate

Author:Bruce Sterling

About the Author

Born: April 14, 1954
Known for: Author
Quotes: 93

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