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Neal Stephenson

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Famous Neal Stephenson Quotes

“But laws of physics and mathematics are like a coordinate system that runs only in one dimension. Perhaps there is another dimension perpendicular to it, invisible to those laws of physics, describing the same things with different rules, and those rules are written in our hearts, in a deep place where we cannot go and read them except in our dreams.”

HeartDreamsMathematicsPhysics
Book:The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Prime
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“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.”

PersonsPoliticalCoursesViewsMoralOpinionSawsCenturyYouthLateGuiltyHypocrisyParadoxDevotedDiscourseTwentieth CenturyHypocriteDespisedStancePolitical Discourse
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“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.”

KnowsGivingKindLittlesSaidI CanEndsSeemsMightRememberTalkingAdventureMassGive MeMassiveRemember WhenNot TalkingBurialGetting Fired
Book:Anathem
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“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.”

WorldDoneBigsStuffTermLossAcceptingHigherDemandGainsStrategyDistanceCelebrateHillsValleysTolerateShort TermCrossingsHaltStagnationBig Stuff
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“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.”

ThinkingMindLittlesDifferentUseWould BeAbleDecisionConsciousnessPossibilityDisciplineConnectionsMereOutcomesEmergence
Book:Anathem
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“In the case of Anathem, most of the research had to do with philosophy and metaphysics. Reading this sort of thing has never been my strong suit, so I actually had to be somewhat more "organized and results-driven" than is my habit. I just made up my mind that I was going to have to read some of these philosophy tomes, and I forced myself to read something like 10 pages a day until I had bashed my way through them.”

WayMindMadePhilosophyReadingStrongResultsCasesHabitPagesResearchDrivenSuitsMy WayOrganizedMetaphysics
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“At the beginning of the project, I wasn't certain that I could come up with an engaging storyline and cast of characters in this world, so I had a strong bias toward actually writing, and worrying about research later. In other words, I was afraid that I'd devote a year or two of my life to grinding through Kant and Husserl, then discover that there simply was no novel to be written here.”

WorldWritingYearsTwoCharacterCertainStrongWorryNovelWrittenThis WorldProjectsResearchCastsCome UpBiasEngagingStoryline
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“But I'm not a small-literary-novel kind of guy, and once I'd developed the world in the first couple of hundred pages, I felt that there was potential here to go on and write an engaging story set in that world. So that's what I did. This probably ruins things both for the people who want small literary novels and for those who want action-packed epics, but anyway, it's what I wrote.”

PeopleWorldWantWritingFirstsKindStoriesActionGuyFeltNovelGoes OnCouplePagesHundredRuinsEpicEngaging
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“Early on, I settled on the first-person strategy as a way to deal with exposition and world-description issues. As long as the book is, it could have been far longer had I gone with an omniscient third-person narrator, or multiple point-of-view characters, since either of those would have enabled me to impart much more detailed information about the history and geography of the world.”

WorldWayFirstsPersonsLongHas BeensBookCharacterViewsDealsGoneIssuesInformationThirdsStrategyPoint Of ViewDescriptionMultipleCould Have BeenGeographyFirst PersonImpartNarratorsOmniscientThird Person
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“Whenever I get distracted or bored, my eyes wander over to that chalkboard and I read the words. Some of them grow on me, and others annoy me. I attack the latter with eraser and chalk, and keep nudging at them until I like the way they look and sound. Others never make the cut at all and simply get erased. Perhaps one day I will sell these on eBay to RPG players who need names for characters or alien races.”

WayNeedsLooksCharacterEyeNamesGrowsSoundRaceCuttingPlayerOne DaySellsWanderAliensBoredLatterAnnoyingDistractedChalkEbayErasersChalkboardsRpgs
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“Coming up with lectures is a huge amount of work. I was willing to do one lecture for Gresham because I was honored to have been invited, but to create lectures for a class would probably require that I shut down everything else and concentrate on lectures for a couple of years. Then there would be many, many other skills that I'd have to learn, such as how to sit through a faculty meeting, how to deal with students, etc. It is really not in the cards for me. It's not who I am or what I do. I'm a novelist.”

YearsHas BeensWould BeDealsClassStudentsWillingHugeAmountCoupleSkillsMeetingsWho I AmCardsNovelistsEtcFacultyHonoredInvitedLectures
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“I try to find a style that matches the book. In the Baroque Cycle, I got infected with the prose style of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, which is my favorite era. It's recent enough that it is easy to read - easier than Elizabethan English - but it's pre-Victorian and so doesn't have the pomposity that is often a problem with 19th-century English prose. It is earthy and direct and frequently hilarious.”

TryingBookEnoughProblemEasyCenturyStyleEasierLateDirectMy FavoriteErasProseCycles19th CenturyVictorian18th CenturyBaroqueElizabethanPomposity
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“I really am just trying to tell stories. But stories are often grounded in larger events and themes. They don't have to be - there's a big literature of trailer-park, kitchen-table fiction that's just about goings-on in the lives of ordinary people - but my own tastes run toward stories that in addition to being good stories are set against a backdrop that is interesting to read and learn about.”

PeopleTryingStoriesBigsRunningLiteratureMy OwnInterestingFictionEventsTasteOrdinaryTablesBe GoodKitchenParksThemeGroundedOrdinary PeopleGood StoryTrailersBackdropKitchen TableTrailer Park
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“Just as an informal, nonscientific observation, most people's personalities don't seem to change very much during their lives. There are exceptions in the case of people who go through hugely traumatic events or suffer from brain injury or disease. Some would argue that religious conversions can have deep personality-altering effects. But these are all exceptions to the rule.”

PeopleSeemsSufferingReligiousBrainCasesEffectsEventsPersonalityDiseaseArguingConversionObservationInjuryExceptionException To The RuleTraumatic EventsBrain Injury
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“A species has to become pretty intellectually advanced in order to grasp the concept of death in the abstract, and to dream up the idea of immortality. Long before that (in evolutionary terms) all species with brains have the survival instinct in some form. So, I am just saying that there are many existent proofs of species that have one, but not the other.”

LongIdeasDreamFormOrderTermBrainSurvivalConceptsInstinctSpeciesProofImmortalityAbstractSurvival InstinctJust Saying
Author:Neal Stephenson
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