Quotessence
Home / Topics / Cyberpunk Quotes

Cyberpunk Quotes

Browse 97 quotes about Cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk Quotes

“Gomi. Thirty-five percent of the landmass of Tokyo was built on gomi, on level tracts reclaimed from the Bay through a century's systematic dumping. Gomi, there, was a resource to be managed, to be collected, carefully plowed under. London's relationship to gomi was more subtle, more oblique. To Kumiko's eyes, the bulk of the city consisted of gomi, of structures the Japanese economy would long ago have devoured in its relentless hunger for space in which to build. Yet these structures revealed, even to Kumiko, the fabric of time, each wall patched by generation of hands in an ongoing task of restoration. The English valued their gomi in its own right, in a way she had only begun to understand; they inhabited it. Gomi in the Sprawl was something else: a rich humus, a decay that sprouted prodigies in steel and polymer. The apparent lack of planning alone was enough to dizzy her, running so entirely opposite the value her own culture placed on efficient land use. Her tax ride from the airport had already shown her decay, whole blocks in ruins, unglazed windows gaping above sidewalks heaped with trash. And faces staring as the armoed hover made its way through the streets.”

CyberpunkNeuromancerSprawl
Book:Mona Lisa Overdrive
Create image

“The bartender pursed his lips and nodded when she showed him one of her bills, so she told him to get her a shot of bourbon and a beer on the side, which was what Eddy always got if he was paying for it himself. If somebody else was paying, he'd order mixed drinks the bartender didn't know how to make, then spend a lot of time explaining exactly how you made the thing. Then he'd drink it and bitch about how it wasn't as good as the ones they made in L.A. or Singapore or some other place she knew he'd never been.”

CyberpunkNeuromancer
Book:Mona Lisa Overdrive
Create image

“Jimmy versuchte, die Sonnenstreifen wegzudenken, sich in die Haut eines Menschen der Bildschirmjahrhunderte zu versetzen. Seiner Vorversion, die durch Strassen wie diese gehetzt war, um KI-Routinen auszuführen. Geknechtet vom brennenden Auge des Tagesgestirns und ausserplanmässigen Unwettern. Allein die Hauswürfel hätten Zuflucht vor dem Chaos geboten. Ein jämmerliches Dasein.”

GermanCyberpunkZukunft
Book:Plünderer - Neobarbaren
Create image

“That's total mech waste. I'm glad I trusted my gut and didn't hand this thing over to the Order. I'm glad I sat with this commonplace for so many units. I'm not sure if I've ever believed in the transmogrification. I'm not too sure if I cared very much about this book at all. But I think if I had handed this book over to the Order, Mr. Smalls and his cronies would have burned this book. Even if I am not sure about the transmogrification of the data I can see now so many units later so much of Pop and Mabel’s cryptz in here. I think it's true what they say about youth thinking they’ve got it all figured out. I'm glad I attempted as hard as I could to stave off rigidity. So many of my fellow etceterists found their little box, climbed inside, had the box taped shut from the outside with the help of peer reinforcement, taped it from the inside too, parceled themselves off, and lost themselves in the realm of the archival sublime.”

ConspiracyMagickJoyceCyberpunkCatechismExperimentalImprov Comedy
Author:Chase Griffin
Create image

“The City, Netherton had heard Lowbeer say, explaining the "klept" to Flynne, had long been, and well prior to the jackpot, a unique species of semi-autonomous crypto-state, the single least democratic element of elected British government. It was this singular status, according to Lowbeer, that had allowed it to ride out the eventual collapse of democracy. That, and its core expertise in laundering money, had brought it into a mutually beneficial synergy with the émigré oligarch community, dominated by Russians, who had themselves first been attracted to London by the City’s meta-criminal financial arcana, plus the lavish culture of personal amenities for those requiring same.”

OligarchyPost ApocalypticCyberpunkCity Of LondonDemocracy FailsBanking Elite
Book:Agency
Create image

“La Cattedrale sembrava in grado di leggere nella sua anima, alcune dicerie sul fondo di Helheim sostenevano che quell'antica chiesa percepisse la disperazione e chiamasse a sé coloro che non avevano più nulla da perdere, facendoli entrare nella misteriosa corte della regina dal doppio volto, la suprema signora del crimine e delle tenebre, Hel.”

CyberpunkTenebreCattedrale
Book:ARDA 2300 - Kronos ed Aion Due nomi per il tempo
Create image

“თუ ცეკვა ჭეშმარიტია, ის აუცილებლად რევოლუციით მთავრდება, თუ არა და დილისკენ ადამიანები ტოვებენ კლუბებს მწარე ატხადნიაკით და მელანქოლიით იმის გამო, რომ რევოლუცია ისევ არ შედგა.”

RevolutionDanceCyberpunk
Book:საღეჭი განთიადები: Sugar Free
Create image

“A snappy label and a manifesto would have been two of the very last things on my own career want list. That label enabled mainstream science fiction to safely assimilate our dissident influence, such as it was. Cyberpunk could then be embraced and given prizes and patted on the head, and genre science fiction could continue unchanged.”

WantHas BeensTwoLastsGivenMy OwnFictionCareersInfluenceScience FictionListsLabelsGenrePrizeMainstreamDissidentsCyberpunkManifestos
Author:William Gibson
Create image

“Japan is a wonderful country, a strange mixture of ancient mystique and cyberpunk saturation. It's a monolith of society's achievements, yet maintains a foothold in the past, creating an amazing backdrop for tourings and natives alive. Japan captures the imagination like no other. You never feel quite so far from home as you do in Japan, yet there are no other people on the planet that make you feel as comfortable.”

PeopleFeelsCountryHomePastImaginationAliveWonderfulStrangePlanetsAchievementComfortableCreatingAncientMemorableJapanCaptureMixturesTouringMystiqueCyberpunkBackdropSaturation
Author:Corey Taylor
Create image

“For me as a kid, reading cyberpunk was like seeing the world for the first time. Gibson's Neuromancer wasn't just stylistically stunning; it felt like the template for a future that we were actively building. I remember reading Sterling's Islands in the Net and suddenly understanding the disruptive potential of technology once it got out into the street. Cyberpunk felt urgent. It wasn't the future 15 minutes out - it was the future sideswiping you and leaving you in a full-body cast as it passed by.”

WorldFirstsBodyKidsRememberReadingFeltUnderstandingTechnologySeeingStreetsMinutesBuildingFirst TimeLeavingCastsIslandsUrgentStunningSeeing The WorldDisruptiveCyberpunkSterlingReading For Kids
Author:Paolo Bacigalupi
Create image

“For me, the best thing about cyberpunk is that it taught me how to enjoy shopping malls, which used to terrify me. Now I just pretend that the whole thing is two miles below the moon’s surface, and that half the people’s right-brains have been eaten by roboticized steel rats. And suddenly it’s interesting again.”

PeopleHas BeensTwoWholeUsedEnjoyInterestingBrainHalfImagineTaughtMoonSurfaceMilesBest ThingsShoppingSteelRatsMallsCyberpunk
Author:Rudy Rucker
Create image