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Charles Stross

Charles Stross Quotes

Writer

Charles Stross is a British science fiction writer born on October 18, 1964. His works are known for their profound philosophical thinking and unique science fiction settings, covering a range of topics from artificial intelligence to political intrigue and time travel.

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All Writing Ifs Thinking Book Years Novel Humans Stills Firsts Ideas Internet Knows Needs People Piracy Fiction Gone Trying Age Believe

Famous Charles Stross Quotes

“If I forget, then it might as well never have happened. Memory is liberty.”

Ifs Wells Might Memories Forget Liberty Happened

Book:Glasshouse

Source: Glasshouse

“You know, if I tried to change the minds of everyone who I thought needed changing, I'd never have time to do anything else.”

Ifs Knows Mind Needed

Book:Glasshouse

Source: Glasshouse

“I'm a fuzzy-headed warm-hearted liberal, and I think fuzzy-headed warm-hearted liberalism is an ideological stance that needs defending-if necessary, with a hob-nailed boot-kick to the bollocks of budding totalitarianism.”

Ifs Thinking Needs Warm Kicks Liberalism Boots Hearted Totalitarianism Ideological Stance Fuzzy Warm Hearted

Author:Charles Stross

“I began my first novel when I was 15. It went through three drafts, of around 40,000 words each. If I find it, I'll burn it.”

Ifs Firsts Three Novel

Author:Charles Stross

“There's a long-standing (50 year old) flame war within the field over whether it's "sci-fi" or "SF".SF has traditionally been looked down on by the literary establishment because, to be honest, much early SF was execrably badly written - but these days the significance of the pigeon hole is fading; we have serious mainstream authors writing stuff that is I-can't-believe-it's-not-SF, and SF authors breaking into the mainstream. If you view them as tags that point to shelves in bricks-and-mortar bookshops, how long are these genre categories going to survive in the age of the internet?”

“If an idea is compelling enough it'll stick in my head until I am forced to write it. If it's forgettable, who cares?”

Ifs Writing Ideas Enough Care Sticks Compelling Who Cares Forgettable

Author:Charles Stross

“What I've learned during my life is that the near future is 90% identical to the present - if you buy a new car today, it'll probably still be on the road in 2022.”

Ifs Stills Today Life Is Car I've Learned Identical New Car

Author:Charles Stross

“If I write too much of anything for too long, I burn out on it. So it helps to vary my output from year to year.”

Ifs Writing Years Long Helping Too Much Vary Output Burn Out

Author:Charles Stross

“Speech recognition is utterly crap for writing fiction. If you try reading a novel aloud you'll soon figure out why - written prose style is utterly unlike the spoken word.”

Ifs Writing Trying Reading Fiction Novel Written Style Figures Speech Recognition Prose Crap Writing Fiction Spoken Word

Author:Charles Stross

“If I was a Marxist I'd call it the crisis of capitalism. Even though I'm not a Marxist, that seems like a not unreasonable term for the widening gap between the rich and poor that we're seeing.”

Ifs Seems Term Poor Rich Seeing Capitalism Crisis Gaps Rich And Poor Unreasonable Marxist

Author:Charles Stross

“Publishing is the final step in making a book; if I was afraid to publish one, I wouldn't write it in the first place.”

Ifs Writing Firsts Book Steps Finals Publishing Publish

Author:Charles Stross

“In general, a little controversy isn't harmful: if anything, it gets people interested.”

People Ifs Littles Controversy

Author:Charles Stross

“If I wanted to be in movies, I'd have gone into scriptwriting: the fact that I write novels should be a big hint about what I prefer to do!”

Ifs Should Writing Facts Bigs Wanted Novel Gone Hints

Author:Charles Stross

“The trouble is, if you go too far towards being polite, the label that applies is "doormat".”

Ifs Trouble Labels Polite Doormat Being Polite

Author:Charles Stross

“The dirty little secret of publishing is that, all along, each book sold has had an average of 5 readers. That's an 80% "piracy" rate if you insist on looking at it in those terms.”

Ifs Littles Book Term Secret Reader Rate Average Dirty Publishing Piracy

Author:Charles Stross

“I like lassic British spy thrillers. Seriously. If the cold war was still on, that's something I'd be writing.”

Ifs Writing Stills War Cold British Cold War Spy Thrillers

Author:Charles Stross

“I believe modern SF needs to at least be aware of the singularity, if only so that it can dismiss it intelligently (or work around it). But I suspect the singularity is like faster-than-light travel for the IT generation. We may hope for it, and the rules don't forbid it, but we don't know how to do it yet (and it may not be possible).”

Ifs Knows Needs Believe May Light I Believe Know How Generations Modern Faster Suspects Singularity

Author:Charles Stross

“The late 90s were crazy science-fictional if you were inside the superheated steam bubble of the dot-com 1.0 industry.”

Ifs Crazy Industry Late Bubbles Steam Dots

Author:Charles Stross

“Personally, I avoid deus ex machina like the plague - if you have to use one, it means you failed to set up the universe and the plot properly. It's like a whodunnit where there's no actual way for the reader to identify the perpetrator before the climactic reveal: there's no sense of closure for the reader.”

Ifs Way Mean Use Universe Reader Plot Exes Plague Closure Perpetrators

Author:Charles Stross

“Like the famous mad philosopher said, when you stare into the void, the void stares also; but if you cast into the void, you get a type conversion error. (Which just goes to show Nietzsche wasn't a C++ programmer.)”

Ifs Said Shows Type Mad Errors Casts Philosopher Conversion Staring Void Programmers

Book:Overtime: A Tor.Com Original

Source: Overtime: A Tor.Com Original

“Contract law is essentially a defensive scorched-earth battleground where the constant question is, "if my business partner was possessed by a brain-eating monster from beyond spacetime tomorrow, what is the worst thing they could do to me?"”

Ifs Earth Law Business Brain Worst Tomorrow Eating Constant Partners Monsters Contracts Possessed Worst Things Battleground Business Partners Spacetime Scorched Earth

Author:Charles Stross

“A religious college in Cairo is considering issues of nanotechnology: If replicators are used to prepare a copy of a strip of bacon, right down to the molecular level, but without it ever being part of a pig, how is it to be treated?”

Ifs Used Religious Levels Issues College Treated Copies Pigs Considering Cairo Nanotechnology

Book:Accelerando

Source: Accelerando

About the Author

Born: October 18, 1964
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 152

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Books & Sources

AccelerandoRelated source material

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