Charles Stross Quotes

Quotes about:

• Back before the internet we had a name for people who bought a single copy of our books and lent them to all their friends without charging: we called them "librarians".

  Charles Stross

  Book, Names, People

  46 Copy quote

• We are Bay Aryans from Berkeley: prepare to be reengineered in an attractive range of color schemes for your safety and comfort!

  Charles Stross

  Color, Safety, Comfort

  Lucius Shepard, Charles Stross (2004). “Two Trains Running”

  4 Copy quote

• Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.

  Charles Stross

  Idiot, Malfunction, Machinery

  Charles Stross (2006). “The Atrocity Archives”, p.38, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

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

  Charles Stross

  Labels, Trouble, Doormat

  4 Copy quote

• 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.)

  Charles Stross

  Errors, Mad, Void

  Charles Stross (2010). “Overtime: A Tor.Com Original”, p.30, Macmillan

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• Unfortunately it's also true to say that good management is a bit like oxygen - it's invisible and you don't notice its presence until it's gone, and then you're sorry.

  Charles Stross

  Sorry, Oxygen, Gone

  Charles Stross (2010). “The Fuller Memorandum”, p.33, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos - in which my existence was a random roll of the dice and I was destined to die and rot and then be gone forever - was infinitely more comforting than the truth. Because the truth is that my God is coming back. When he arrives I’ll be waiting for him with a shotgun. And I’m keeping the last shell for myself.

  Charles Stross

  Atheist, Believe, Waiting

  "The Fuller Memorandum (The Laundry Files, Book 3)". Book by Charles Stross, July 1, 2010.

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• What I'm hoping for is something that goes much, much further than the conservative enablers of dog-eat-dog capitalism putting on a puppet show of cleaning house. But that's probably not going to happen just yet.

  Charles Stross

  Dog, House, Puppets

  Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. July 2, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• To boldly go where no uploaded metahuman colony has gone before' has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?

  Charles Stross

  Gone, Certain, Rings

  Charles Stross (2005). “Accelerando”, p.380, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Nothing stands for content-free corporate bullshit quite like PowerPoint. And that's just scratching the surface.

  Charles Stross

  Bullshit, Surface, Powerpoint

  Charles Stross (2009). “The Jennifer Morgue”, p.38, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

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

  Charles Stross

  People, Littles, Controversy

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Charles Stross

  Gaps, Rich, Poor

  4 Copy quote

• The programmers have another saying: 'The question of whether a machine can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.'

  Charles Stross

  Thinking, Interesting, Swim

  Charles Stross (2011). “Rule 34”, p.140, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

• Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.

  Charles Stross

  Religious, Children, Civilization

  Charles Stross (2004). “Toast”, p.37, Wildside Press LLC

  7 Copy quote

• The real world is devoid of narratives, after all. Narratives are just a thing that our brains do with facts in order to draw a line around the incomprehensible largeness of reality and wrestle it into something learnable and manipulable. Existence is devoid of plot, theme, and most of all moral.

  Charles Stross

  Real, Order, Brain

  4 Copy quote

• Personal pride is probably a bad guide to merit.

  Charles Stross

  Pride, Merit, Guides

  Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. July 02, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist.

  Charles Stross

  Thinking, Ethical Standards, Agony

  Charles Stross (2010). “The Fuller Memorandum”, p.113, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Gene police! You! Out of the pool, now!

  Charles Stross

  Police, Pool, Genes

  Charles Stross (2006). “The Atrocity Archives”, p.32, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• 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?"

  Charles Stross

  Business, Law, Brain

  4 Copy quote

• People want to buy mp3s but can't? Piracy ensues. Then Apple strong-arms the music studios into the iTunes store and music piracy drops somewhat. The same, I believe, is also happening with ebooks.

  Charles Stross

  Strong, Believe, Mp3

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• I have a fear of nuclear annihilation. I'm a child of the cold war: I didn't live more than 10 miles from a major WarPac nuclear target until the Berlin Wall came down and the CW ended. Knowing you can die horribly at any moment because of decisions made by alien intelligences thousands of miles away who don't even know you exist - there's something Lovecraftian about that, isn't there?

  Charles Stross

  Children, Wall, War

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• Can I remember "I remember lots," I say. How much of what I remember is true is another matter.

  Charles Stross

  Matter, Remember

  Charles Stross (2006). “Glasshouse”, p.193, Penguin

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• 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.

  Charles Stross

  Thinking, Needs, Boots

  8 Copy quote

• Humans: such a brilliant model of emotional self-awareness.

  Charles Stross

  Emotional, Self, Brilliant

  Charles Stross (2005). “Accelerando”, p.439, Penguin

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• Where would dictators be without our compliant amnesia? Make the collective lose its memory, you can conceal anything.

  Charles Stross

  Memories, Dictator, Amnesia

  Charles Stross (2006). “Glasshouse”, p.222, Penguin

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