222 quotes
I head off to the conference room for the Ways and Means Committee meeting—to investigate new ways of being mean, as Bridget (may Nyarlathotep rest her soul) once it explained it to me.
The Jennifer Morgue (2006)
He stabs at the mouse mat with one finger and I wince. But instead of fat purple sparks and a hideous soul-sucking manifestation, it simply wakes up his Windows box. (Not that there’s much difference.)
The Jennifer Morgue (2006)
There used to be an old joke in role-playing circles—it isn’t funny these days—that there were only a thousand real people in the UK—everybody else was a non-player character. Now it’s pretty much the reverse.
Halting State (2007)
The first rule of space travel...is that mistakes are fatal. Space isn’t friendly; it kills you. And there are no second chances.”
Singularity Sky (2003)
It’s the sort of Maxwell Smart hack that used to cost the CIA black budget half a billion to develop in the ’60s but is off-the-shelf from a Chinese toy factory these days.
The Delirium Brief (2017)
The seeds of evil usually germinated in the footprints of people who knew how everybody else ought to behave and felt the need to tell them so.
Iron Sunrise (2004)
The sheer waste of human potential that was the New Republic’s raison d’être offended her sensibilities as badly as a public book-burning, or a massacre of innocents.
Singularity Sky (2003)
Lawyers do not mix with diplomacy.
Accelerando (2005)
Truly the jaws of irony are agape!
Rule 34 (2011)
“I’m disappointed in you, Mo: How could you imagine that the militarization of the police might be seen as a huge potential growth market by defense contractors?”
“How indeed.”
The Annihilation Score (2015)
“Here, take this. How about a toast? Confusion to the enemy!”
I raise my glass. “What enemy?”
He shrugs: “IT, Human Resources, the grim march of time—whoever you want, really.”
The Fuller Memorandum (2010)
There’s always some idiot who thinks that after the revolution they’ll be the one sitting on top of the hill of corpses, dining on caviar served out of a bowl made from a chromed baby’s skull.
The Nightmare Stacks (2016)
History is written by the survivors, a narrative they compose to explain events to themselves. So the historicity of journals like this one—their accuracy and authenticity—is a function of the reliability of the narrator.
The Labyrinth Index (2018)
Well then. Will the naysayers please leave the universe?
Accelerando (2005)
You know there’s no advantage to be gained by murdering idiots—it doesn’t teach the idiot anything and it might give onlookers the idea that you take them seriously.
Halting State (2007)
The American mainstream news media have so far steered well clear of the subject because the phenomenon has been enthusiastically embraced by the talk radio fringe, leading to a death spiral of diminishing credibility.
The Annihilation Score (2015)
“Didn’t I have you executed last week?”
“I very much doubt. It.”
Singularity Sky (2003)
When they went looking for someone to represent the agency in public and picked me, they weren’t just scraping the bottom of the barrel, they were fracking for oil in the basement.
The Delirium Brief (2017)
Apparently you’re only allowed to demolish Wolverhampton if you’re a property developer like Donald Trump. Crawling eldritch horrors don’t get planning permission unless they’re Trump’s hairpiece.
The Delirium Brief (2017)
Ninety-eight percent of management work in this organization is routine. The other two percent is a tightrope walk over an erupting volcano without a safety net. Congratulations: here’s your balance pole.
The Apocalypse Codex (2012)