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Quote by Neal Stephenson

“In the room where I work, I have a chalkboard, and as I'm going along, I write the made-up words on it. A few feet from that chalkboard is a copy of the full 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, to which I refer frequently as a source of ideas and word roots.”

Quote by Neal Stephenson

Author

Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson is a renowned science fiction author known for his complex narrative structures and profound thematic explorations. His works often blend historical, technological, and sociological elements, with 'Snow Crash' and 'The Diamond Age' being particularly notable. more

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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.”

Way Needs Looks Character Eye Names Grows Sound Race Cutting Player One Day Sells Wander Aliens Bored Latter Annoying Distracted Chalk Ebay Erasers Chalkboards Rpgs

Author:Neal Stephenson

“I think that this vein is close to being mined out already, but I'll say that my knowledge of and talent for linguistics are quite limited and I'm not aware of being a hell of a lot more interested in that topic than I am in others.”

Thinking Hell Talent Topics Veins Linguistics

Author:Neal Stephenson

“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.”

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Author:Neal Stephenson

“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.”

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Author:Neal Stephenson

“So a lot of what you see in the Baroque Cycle is me wanting to be one of those guys. In the case of Anathem, I needed something that was more formal, less flashy, as if it had been translated from the classical language of another planet, but enlivened with slang terms that a teenage narrator would enjoy throwing around.”

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Author:Neal Stephenson

“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.”

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“The word reality scared me. I just looked at reality as everybody follows me around with a camera, and I'm not that kind of person. I fought for my privacy in England. And I didn't see another way it could be done.”

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Author:Naomi Campbell

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Author:Naomi Campbell