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W Quotes

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All W Quotes

“We could tell them [alien civilization] things that we have discovered in the realm of mathematical physics, but there is stuff that I would like to know. There are some famous problems like how to bring gravitation and quantum physics together, the long-sought-after theory of quantum gravity. But it may be hard to understand the answer that comes back.”

“We could try something else..." she suggested, not wanting to bruise his ego along with his backside. But Jack only shook his head, his dark eyes glistening. "Are you kidding?" he cried. "I'm not letting some silly ice skates defeat me!" Of course you won't, Sally thought fondly, watching him scramble to his feet again, wobbling a bit but somehow managing to stay upright this time. Jack didn't let anything defeat him. It was one of the things she'd always admired about him.”

“We could use up two Eternities in learning all that is to be learned about our own world and the thousands of nations that have arisen and flourished and vanished from it. Mathematics alone would occupy me eight million years.”

“We could visit whenever we wanted, Ashiya and Okayama were practically next door, and there were no diesel fumes on the Shinkansen. Though we had parted repeating those assurances over and over, in the thirty years since, Mina and I have seen each other only a handful of times. It's not that we’ve grown apart or lost track of each other, but simply that time has slipped away much more quickly than we could have imagined when we were young.”

“We could write a completely new manual incorporating all our new policies and spelling out the emerging philosophy behind them. Or we could do away with the old manual and not just replace it. That way we would force people to make decisions based on common sense…We tried to write new rules. We really did. But at every turn we found ourselves wading into a swamp of minutiae.”

“We could, you know, go out for hot dogs. Don’t worry—they’re not actually dogs. It’s just a name. They’re these meat things that you put on buns—that’s a kind of bread—and then you top them with other things and—” “I know what a hot dog is,” interrupted Mark. “You do?” I asked, legitimately surprised. “How?” “We’re not that remote. We have TV and movies. Besides, I’ve left Siberia, you know. I’ve been to the U.S.” “Really? Did you try a hot dog?” “No,” he said. “I was offered one … but it didn’t look that appetizing.” “What!” I exclaimed. “Blasphemy. They’re delicious.” “Aren’t they compressed animal parts?” he pushed. “Well, yeah… I think so. But so is sausage.” Mark shook his head. “I don’t know. Something’s just not right about a hot dog.” “Not right? I think you mean so right.”

“We couldn't bear to be apart. So if Kizuki had lived, I'm sure we would have been together, loving each other, and gradually growing unhappy." Unhappy? Why's that?" With her fingers, Naoko combed her hair back several times. She had taken her barrette off, which made the hair fall over her face when she dropped her head forward. Because we would have had to pay the world back what we owed it," she said, raising her eyes to mine. "The pain of growing up. We didn't pay when we should have, so now the bills are due. Which is why Kizuki did what he did, and why I'm here. We were like kids who grew up naked on a desert island. If we got hungry, we'd just pick a banana; if we got lonely, we'd go to sleep in each other's arms. But that kind of thing doesn't last forever. We grew up fast and had to enter society. Which is why you were so important to us. You were the link connecting us with the outside world. We were struggling through you to fit in with the outside world as best we could. In the end, it didn't work, of course." I nodded. I wouldn't want you to think that we were using you, though. Kizuki really loved you. It just so happened that our connection with you was our first connection with anyone else. And it still is. Kizuki may be dead, but you are still my only link with the outside world. And just as Kizuki loved you, I love you. We never meant to hurt you, but we probably did; we probably ended up making a deep wound in your heart. It never occurred to us that anything like that might happen.”

“We couldn't trust them. They couldn't trust us. Mutual attempts at destruction are the only logical result. He thought of human dreams - both Old Empire and new - of contacting some extra-terrestrial intelligence such as nobody had ever truly encountered. Why? Why would we ever want to? We'd never be able to communicate, and even if we could, we'd still be those same two prisoners forced to trust - and risk - or to damn the other in trying to save slightly more of our own hides.”

“We couldn't build quantum computers unless the universe were quantum and computing. We can build such machines because the universe is storing and processing information in the quantum realm. When we build quantum computers, we're hijacking that underlying computation in order to make it do things we want: little and/or/not calculations. We're hacking into the universe.”

“We couldn't keep ten million refugees on our soil; we couldn't tolerate such an unstable situation for who knows how long. That influx of refugees wouldn't have stopped - on the contrary. It would have gone on and on and on, until there would have been an explosion. We were no longer able to control the arrival of those people, in our own interest we had to stop it! That's what I said to Mr.[Richard] Nixon, to all the other leaders I visited in an attempt to avert the war.”

“We counsel you, young men, not to pollute your minds with such degrading matter, for the mind through which this filth passes is never the same afterwards. Don't see R-rated movies or vulgar videos or participate in any entertainment that is immoral, suggestive, or pornographic. Don't listen to music that is degrading”